How a Cell Phone Busted a Hacker
The recent arrest of Higinio O. Ochoa III, of Galveston, Texas -- allegedly a member of the Anonymous-linked CabinCr3w --generated considerable amusement (and some unbearably bad puns) when it was reported that the FBI tracked him down using photos he had posted of his girlfriend's breasts (covered somewhat by a bikini top).
But the more interesting -- and sobering -- message of the case is that someone known as an elite hacker was busted because he forgot, or didn't know, about the fact that EXIF data (location, camera type, and other image information) is included in every photo taken with a smartphone. He forgot, or didn't know, that others can extract that information.
That the photos were a bit racy is incidental. They could have been artsy shots of a landscape or snapshots of a sporting event. The problem for somebody who is trying to cover his tracks is that the images are embedded with data that will tell an investigator where and when they were taken.
