Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
[Matrix/Element]Dead
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
I always remove this data from my screenshots before sharing, but is there any way to prevent this from happening in the first place? I've searched and searched, but all I can find is information about how to remove the data after the fact, which I already know how to do, but it would sure be nice if it never got added in the first place. Thanks.
Is this all the metadata it adds?
Because the information you've shown here is not at all sensitive. It's just the timestamp, Android version and time zone.
No, but when combined with other data it makes identifying someone more accurate. And what is the need for it anyway? OP is reasonable to not want it IMO.
I knew I'd get a comment like this eventually. There's no rational reason it should be adding this data at all, and there should be a way to disable this behavior. The camera I use doesn't add this data when I take a photo, and there's no reason taking a screenshot should do so.
The software version doesn't just say "Android 14" either. It looks very specific.
No matter how you look at it, this is not an acceptable way for a device to behave, with no way to change it in settings.
https://xkcd.com/1172/
I don't share screenshot frequently, and I store them for a long time, in 10 years in the future this data can be useful, I won't remember what phone and rom I had, so it can be useful for some people. I also store gps data in my photos' exifs, but again I never share them on the public internet.
But a button to switch it onoff would be useful, that's true.
Yeah. In my opinion, it's more of Samsung's bullshit. There's really no conceivable reason not to give users the option to avoid having metadata saved with their screenshots. It's super annoying because I have to open it with a third-party app, strip the metadata, save the stripped image, then delete the original (which I rarely do, because it's so time consuming already, so it's taking up twice the amount of storage for me).
I did find a third-party screenshot app that doesn't save metadata, but it's problematic in its own way, so I won't use it.
I'll just keep stripping it manually. It's a pita though, and I feel like there should be an easy solution. A lot of users in this thread say their phones don't save metadata in their screenshots, but I'm unfortunate enough to have a Samsung.
I'm running official Lineage, and it saves this data and I found no button for it, so I guess it's not just Samsung only..
You can automate stuff like this on android, Easer and Automation are well known FOSS apps for these kind of tasks. IIRC in Easer you can call terminal commands
Nice. This will take a bit of learning, but if I can figure it out, it can save me a bunch of time! Thanks!
Yeah, it's likely a rather precise Android version.
So what? What does the Android version you use reveal about you? What part of your threat model does it violate?
Here, you can have the exact version of my phone: lineage_FP4-userdebug 13 TQ3A.230901.001 2023111915 test-keys. Can you identify me now?
(In my case, you theoretically actually could because my version is unique because I homebrew my Android but if you didn't know that, it'd look like any other FP4 with [email protected] on it which is why I'm not at all worried.)
Adding useful metadata that reveals no actual data about the user is a great feature and not worth adding a setting for; especially not in the UI.
I didn't know about this before but I'll look out for that whenever sends a bug report of a mobile app with screenshot as it might include the device and Android version used which is super useful info to have when troubleshooting.
A precise android version could for example be used to target you with an exploit for that version.
I agree with OP, it shouldn't behave like this because the expectation with screenshot software is that it doesn't add any metadata and if it would it should be explicit and probably opt-in.
I'm not sure where you got that idea but I assume the opposite. Many devices add metadata by default
If you have the Mossad targetting you, that's an extreme edge-case which has no place in an argument about online privacy.
Except who's trying to argue? I'm merely asking if anyone knows a way to prevent metadata from being saved to my screenshots. I'm not looking for an argument.
If this type of inquiry doesn't belong in this community, I'd gladly take advice on where to ask instead.
If you're not looking to question your views, then ignore people like me who do. Though as a general rule of thumb, not questioning your own views may not be the best strategy in life but you do you.
Except you aren't questioning anyone's views, you're making an argument that barely touches the subject it responds to. And doing so in a very argumentative and condescending way.
So yeah, it doesn't really belong in a civil discussion.
It's fine to as that sort of question; I wouldn't say it doesn't "belong in this community". That doesn't mean it makes sense to care about this which is what I wanted to point out.
Combined with your user agent string, timezone, IP address etc it allows you to be tracked more accurately through probabilistic matching on the internet. All this stuff gets recorded as a matter of course when you visit websites and send emails.
That argument ignores that you need an account to upload pictures in most places (including here); you're already identified.
Ignoring that, while it is technically true that the Android version adds a data point and therefore identifying bits of information, you'd still be one of 10^5 - 10^6 people in the same time zone with the same device/version combo unless you're using some extremely uncommon device or are in an extremely unpopulated time zone. Compared to user agent and IP address, this is extremely little information and I'd argue quite useless without. If you need such strongly identifying data to even make any use of this, I don't think it's worth worrying about.
Besides, if you control a forum or other site that allows picture uploads and wanted to identify a user, there are so much better methods than any of this.
So ... do you have a way to stop screenshots from saving metadata to my screenshots or not? I've indicated my wishes. If you don't want to help, then please ignore the post.