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  • abadidea0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange
    Nov 11, 2026, 1:55 PM

    It has been 0️⃣ days since I saw someone post an image where they had covered up their address on a package but not covered up the barcode underneath

    So here's your safety reminder: always, always, ALWAYS censor any barcodes on mail and packages when photographing them! It is often your address or something very close to your address (such as your street). Barcodes may be printed very faintly or in fluorescent ink; double-check before assuming one isn't there, and cover it no matter how faint it seems! If it's a bunch of lines of any kind, it's a barcode!

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  • Bruno Girinbrunogirin@mastodon.me.uk
    Nov 11, 2026, 1:59 PM

    @0xabad1dea e.g. the little faint pink lines at the bottom of an envelope in the UK are a barcode that identifies the recipient's delivery office and is used by the Royal Mail automated sorting machines.

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  • Fi, Mistress of Lore 🏳️‍⚧️munin@infosec.exchange
    Nov 11, 2026, 5:01 PM

    @0xabad1dea

    I think part of this is that people don't necessarily understand what 'data' is, and how it's exposed

    remember the old days before exif-stripping became the no......

    ......oh handbaskets I wonder how many sites aren't exif stripping cuz they're vibecoded

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  • WandreCanadawandrecanada@mastodon.social
    Nov 11, 2026, 7:38 PM

    @0xabad1dea This new era of cameras everywhere can be stressful 😫

    Never thought I'd be thankful of a childhood where I was consistently unwatched and alone.

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  • Avraclayote@peoplemaking.games
    Nov 11, 2026, 2:16 PM

    @0xabad1dea Is there some known best practice for concealing the location a picture was taken from GeoSpy type services? Maybe a whole-screen filter?

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  • abadidea0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange
    Nov 11, 2026, 2:22 PM

    @clayote I'm afraid you should either aggressively crop the picture to reduce background context or just not post it at all, if this is a concern. It's possible to mess with AI vision but it's on a very case-by-case basis of knowing exactly which model you're trying to fool, there's no general long-term solution that yet leaves a human-legible photo.

    I accept that anyone who scrapes together several photos of my dog outside can definitely identify my neighborhood; I also say plenty of things online that imply where I live within a block or so. But I'd rather not my exact mailing address be trivially searched up by weirdos, and that's easier to control

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  • Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UKvfrmedia@social.tchncs.de
    Nov 11, 2026, 3:34 PM

    @0xabad1dea @clayote

    A UV torch is useful to investigate packages for fluorescent ink..

    In areas where its safe for a cat to be outdoor or semi-outdoor, a roaming cat creates entropy of about 0,5-1 km (there are people like me who befriend random cats in the neighbourhood and photograph them but don't have cats of their own).

    A dog usually has an owner, but as its walked regularly that also creates entropy..

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  • 🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄)alice@lgbtqia.space
    Nov 11, 2026, 6:57 PM

    @0xabad1dea @clayote misinformation works wonders, as training data rarely contains intentionally adversarial examples for stuff like that.

    So slap a barcode from something else (like a return postage envelope from some junkmail) on your package before taking the photo.

    Set metadata that is incorrect (if the service supports uploading photos with metadata).

    Lie plausibly about details that don't actually affect the casual viewer, but would be of interest to a stalker (such as the date or time the photo was taken).

    And it's not like you have to go through that trouble on *all* your photos, just combine good privacy practices with the occasional "slip up", and you'll generate enough misinfo to make piecing together your real info a pain in the ass and not worth the resources.

    For instance, I contact data brokers and offer to "update" my information for them, then I add addresses and such from people with the same first or last name as me. Now they all share data, sell data, and leak data to each other that has like 20 wrong addresses for me, and the ones they do have all blend me with possible mismatches.

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  • Sin Vegasinvega@mas.to
    Nov 11, 2026, 11:37 PM

    @alice @0xabad1dea @clayote I've told more than one business to stop spamming my dead daughter's name at my new husband etc

    fuck em tbh. they want blood, they can have shit

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  • ModernMaslowModernMaslow@techhub.social
    Nov 11, 2026, 2:29 PM

    @0xabad1dea And while numerical data appearing on earlier versions of mass mailings were more innocuous; it's now wise to remove them from potential data mining and/or criminal abuse.

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  • George Bgbargoud@masto.nyc
    Nov 11, 2026, 3:03 PM

    @0xabad1dea

    Also it's mostly common knowledge by now but key teeth should always be concealed too

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  • GeneralX ⏳generalx@freeradical.zone
    Nov 11, 2026, 3:54 PM

    @0xabad1dea
    Great little-known anti-OSINT tip. This applies to US mail as well.

    We have the Intelligent Mail barcode which encodes sender information as well as a zip+4 (street level geocode) or zip+6 (delivery point/exact mail recipient) info.

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  • Juliettejrf_nl@phpc.social
    Nov 11, 2026, 3:56 PM

    @0xabad1dea Along the same lines: don't ever just throw away boarding passes or the labels printed for your luggage. Take them home and put them through the shredder. Those contain way too much personal info too hidden in bar/QR codes.

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  • abadidea0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange
    Nov 11, 2026, 4:28 PM

    @lily it's pretty hard to accidentally upload geotagged images to public websites these days, there's so many layers that should be scrubbing that for you

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  • lilylily@infosec.exchange
    Nov 11, 2026, 5:10 PM

    @0xabad1dea oh absolutely, but its still best to be sure. I'm also careful of if I even expose too much view point from a common place I am at. (I am also just a paranoid user lol)

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  • 🔥torstein🔥Torstein@mastodon.social
    Nov 11, 2026, 4:35 PM

    @0xabad1dea I work in logistics and the percentage of customers that send us pictures of labels with the name and/or address blurred out but the QR codes intact is probably in the 80-99%.
    Not that it matters that much for me, I have all that information and more anyways as long as I get the consignment number.
    But nobody seems to care that they are sending this via Google or Microsoft services, and that the data will be harvested.

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  • The Cheekqualizercheekqualizer@hear-me.social
    Nov 11, 2026, 5:15 PM

    @0xabad1dea

    Can I add something?

    Ive bought dozens of computers at thrift stores over the years, and at least 4 out of 5 were full of personal data. Pictures, finances, everything. People, wipe your devices before giving them away! A windows password doesn't protect shit on an unencrypted drive.

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  • Erik Bosmanbrainsmoke@mastodon.social
    Nov 12, 2026, 6:27 PM

    @0xabad1dea I had to send a picture of my passport for a background check. It stated I could mask my personal data except my name & photo. So I also masked the machine-readable code at the bottom. ...But no, that wasn't what they meant. 🤦

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