Tuesday 24 July 2007

Harry Potter and the hidden metadata

Wouldn’t that be a great book title?

Sadly not yet written, but there’s an interesting story doing the round about how metadata could catch the culprit who leaked ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ on the internet.

The leaked copy was actually painstakingly-taken images of each page of the book, and the hidden EXIF metadata in the images contains the camera’s serial number. It’s a Canon Rebel 350D, apparently, and the company is trying to find out if the camera was registered and therefore they can use the serial number to track down the errant photographer.

It certainly puts me off registering the products I buy.

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