A couple of days ago I tweeted about a geolocation app that was deeply cree.py
Since then there have been a number of blog posts and Tweets about this app and what it does. The big message from this is that if you are concerned about your secuirity then go straight to your Twitter account and disable the geo tagging function! Settings/Tweet location.
If you Foursquare and don’t want tracing through this app then disable the Tweet function on your settings ( do this anyway – updates on Twitter are seriously sad – unless you are checking in @Whitehouse w/Obama or some such )
What Cree.py does
“creepy is an application that allows you to gather geolocation related information about users from social networking platforms and image hosting services. The information is presented in a map inside the application where all the retrieved data is shown accompanied with relevant information (i.e. what was posted from that specific location) to provide context to the presentation.”
mapview with results
settings
- Google Maps
- Virtual Maps
- Open Street Maps
Location information retieval from :
- Twitter’s tweet location
- Coordinates when tweet was posted from mobile device
- Place (geographical name) derived from users ip when posting on twitter’s web interface. Place gets translated into coordinates using geonames.com
- Bounding Box derived from users ip when posting on twitter’s web interface.The less accurate source , a corner of the bounding box is selected randomly.
- Geolocation information accessible through image hosting services API
- EXIF tags from the photos posted.
Social networking platforms currently supported :
- Foursquare (only checkins that are posted to twitter)
Image hosting services currently supported :
- flickr – information retrieved from API
- twitpic.com – information retrieved from API and photo exif tags
- yfrog.com – information retrieved from photo exif tags
- img.ly – information retrieved from photo exif tags
- plixi.com – information retrieved from photo exif tags
- twitrpix.com – information retrieved from photo exif tags
- foleext.com – information retrieved from photo exif tags
- shozu.com – information retrieved from photo exif tags
- pickhur.com – information retrieved from photo exif tags
- moby.to – information retrieved from API and photo exif tags
- twitsnaps.com – information retrieved from photo exif tags
- twitgoo.com – information retrieved from photo exif tags
Now check out the great FAQ
Its one thing being aware you are sharing your location on the likes of Foursquare but just watch out for all those other apps……
Callie
Still happy to share on Four Square