How to identify shooting locations from photos uploaded to Twitter or Instagram

ByRafael Anderson Gonzales Mendoza

On the service such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc., many memories when I went on a trip and pictures of a rare place I visited on a business trip have been uploaded a lot. By using information reflected in these photos and various services on the Internet, you can unambiguously identify the place where the picture was takenAlejandro HdezThinks.

IOActive Labs Research: Glass Reflections in Pictures + OSINT = More Accurate Location
http://blog.ioactive.com/2014/05/glass-reflections-in-pictures-osint.html


When I go somewhere due to travel, business trip etc. I think that there are many people who have taken pictures with photos and uploaded them to Twitter, Facebook, and so on. However, according to Hdez who posted a blog, it is possible to obtain various position information from "Mono" reflected in such a picture, and based on various net service and information reflected in the photograph, photograph It is possible to clarify where the person who uploaded took the picture.

The following services are mainly used to specify the shooting location from the photograph.

·Google Earth
·Google Maps
·EMPORIS
·SkyscraperPage.com
·Foursquare
·trip advisor
·Hotel website
·Google

Specifically, we will follow the following procedure.

◆ 1: Identify hotel from those reflecting on glass
Let's identify the location where the picture posted on Twitter was taken.

For example, the following picture which was uploaded on Twitter, this isPentatonixIt is one of vocalsScott HoyingWas uploading on Twitter.


When I look at the tweets before and after the photo was uploaded, I mumbled the place name "Miami (Miami)" as follows.


It is difficult to accurately find out "Where the picture was taken in Miami" only with the picture of the night view reflected on the window. Looking at the city of Miami on Google Earth and Google Maps is too large to identify the location.



If the information is too small, it seems good to look at people who are close to the photographer, Hdez will start to investigate Pentatonix to which Hoying belongs.


Searching Twitter and Instagram of members belonging to the same band as Hoying, one of the members uploaded photos from the same hotel as Hoying.


Based on this picture it was very easy to find similar landscape with Google Earth.


If you find out the same scenery in Google Earth, you will immediately know where you stayed at the hotel on the map. In this case it turned out that I took a picture from around the red circle. However, there are three hotels in this area, it is still unknown which photo of this hotel was taken.


So this time I will return to the original photo and try to find more detailed information from everything that is reflected in the picture. From this picture you can see that "what kind of bed cover of the feet is like" and how it reflects on the window glass "The wall is painted like a mirror or mirror". Furthermore, since something is reflected near the ceiling and this is reflected in two glasses, you can also see that "the two glasses are not in parallel and are slightly angled".


Keeping these information in mind, we search three images of hotels considered to have stayed. The hotel's interior photos seem to be found many on the hotel's homepage and on sites such as Foursquare · Trip Advisor.

Anyway, when I saw many images, I found a room where the glasses are not lined up in parallel.


If you look at the photos from different angles, you can see the bed cover and the picture on the wall.


Furthermore, when I looked at the picture showing the whole room, I found something (alarm device?) Near the ceiling.


If you follow these steps, you will understand that the person who took the picture is "where you stayed".


In addition, Hoying of Pentatonix stayed atEpic HotelIt was a room called the Water View suite.


◆ 2: Guess what number of floors the hotel is staying
Next seems to try to identify the hotel that my friend stayed from the comment "Hello's friend posted" I am ready to speak at XXXX 2014 meeting to be held in Vancouver! "And the photos uploaded together . The easiest way is to examine the hotel that participants in the "XXXX 2014 meeting" will stay, but since it is possible to identify where the meeting is even on a very small scale, this time the location is changed It seems I caught you.

First of all, it is said that "the place where the photograph was taken is Vancouver" and the place where the photograph was taken is "there is a square lamp".


So, first of all, we search Google Maps and Google Earth for buildings in the right hand of the photo. It was relatively easy to see that it was a building called "Pan Pacific Hotel Vancouver".


Even if you enter "Vancouver" in EMPORIS and look for the building of the same shape it is possible to find out. This hotel is on the east side of "Convention Center".


Where I found the approximate location of the hotelSkyscraperPage.comUsing a tool called. The building where the whole view of the Convention Center can be seen is only two in the red frame part and we will look at the detailed information of this building.


According to SkyscraperPage.com, one of the two buildings considered to be shooting location is a commercial building.


The other is accommodation. Apparently Hdez's friends seem to have stayed at this hotel.


So this hotel'swebsiteJump to the room and watch the photos of the room at random.


I found a photograph of the Convention Center taken from the same angle as a photo uploaded by a friend of Hdez from the photos of the hotel.


Looking at other pictures, I also found a square lamp that was reflecting on the glass.


From the information shown in the photo, I could guess that Hdez 's friend stayed at Vancouver Hotel's "Deluxe Room". Hdez guessed that friends stayed in a white frame around the white frame (a room in the 17th to 20th floor) with additional room information from here.


When I checked it with e-mail to the principal investigation, it seems that I actually stayed in the room on the 19th floor.


Also in JapanNet user layer with phenomenal research powerHowever, as search also starts based on pictures and writing uploaded to SNS, research may be under way in a way that's unexpected.