[PSA/opsec] digital images can be uniquely attributed to a specific device

i haven't found a post about this, but i haven't looked very hard, so sorry if this was discussed before.

this concerns people posting reviews with photos, especially of bulk amounts, and of course vendors with market listings that feature product photos (although i figure most of the latter know about this).

even if you strip the exif data, all of your photos can be proven to be shot with the same camera. this is done by looking at hot (=defective) pixels, noise, and dust on the sensor. there is no way to effectively guard against this because even when you crop and rotate a picture the size ratios, distances and angles between defects from hot pixels, noise, and dust stay the same.

if you feel you need to post potentially incriminating photos, do so with a camera that you use exclusively for this purpose, and be aware that this camera in LE's hands will put you in the same room with the illicit goods photographed with it. vendors changing their virtual identities to avoid heat from LE should switch to a new camera together with their new nickname as to avoid leaving a forensic connection between the separate monikers.

On a sidenote this can also be used by the community to identify new accounts of known scammers if they keep using the same camera.

stay safe everyone.


Comments


[5 Points] FruityV:

This was discussed here few weeks ago. But thank you for reminding.


[5 Points] trappy_AB:

I always advise to destroy the camera after use in such a manner that no data will be recovered and ownership of the camera cannot be linked to you.


[3 Points] dnmuser1234:

Here's a python script I just made that may help remove unique camera identifiers from digital images. It just resizes the image each pass through which causes quality loss and distortion and then removes the EXIF data if there is any. I was messing around with it and 25 passes seemed to be enough to remove hot pixels from from some images while still maintaining the images quality for the most part.

import argparse
from colorama import init
from colorama import Fore
from PIL import Image

# Attempts to increase the difficulty of finding valuable data through digital image forensics 

init()
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='remove any traces of your camera from an image')
parser.add_argument("img", metavar='I', help="Type the location of the image to remove trace", type=str)
parser.add_argument("-p", metavar='P', help="Number of passes for image resizing. Leave blank for default (50).",
                type=int, default=50)
args = parser.parse_args()
location = args.img
passes = args.p
im = Image.open(location)
wid = im.width
heigh = im.height
for i in range (0, passes):
    im = im.resize((int((.90 - i / 1000) * wid), int((.90 - i / 1000) * heigh)), Image.ANTIALIAS)
    print ("[PASS " + str(i) + "]: " + Fore.GREEN + str(round(i / passes * 100, 1)) + "%" + Fore.WHITE)
    im.save(location)
im = im.resize((wid, heigh), Image.ANTIALIAS)
print(Fore.GREEN + '[SUCCESS]: Removing EXIF Data . . .')
imdt = list(im.getdata())
im = Image.new(im.mode, im.size)
im.putdata(imdt)
im.save(location)
print(Fore.GREEN + '[FINISHED]')


[2 Points] stickykitty1:

Thanks for this, had not considered. Do you have any documentation that this is a technique being used be LE? I absolutely understand it would work theoretically, but are they going to these lengths?


[2 Points] magicthrowaway12312:

I don't understand why people beg for pictures on here.

Especially on the coke posts. It takes forever to click through the stupid DDOS challenges on the anonymizer hosts just so you can see a pic of some white powder that tells you nothing about the quality of it...

Just silly.


[1 Points] Vinnie_Barbarino:

You could've left that last part out. Now it probably can't be used to identify scammers. Not sure who you're trying to protct but thanks for the info. This is news to me.


[1 Points] imagegami:

If someone at within the upper class of goverment agencies wants you found you will be found. It is just the amount of time they are willing to put in before you are.

They literately found sudam in a 7x3 foot space under a house.

The use of image filters using a post processing program would get rid of all that. You have to use something that changes each pixel not just a single one and creates a seperate output file.

Also try texting Polaroid pics. Maybe if you send them directly to reddit.com they will post them for you?


[1 Points] Moozxtal:

Actual source to what your saying ?