Go program finds photos with nearby GPS coordinates
In the Hood

© Lead Image © Tatiana Venkova, 123RF.com
Every photo you take with your mobile phone stores the GPS location in the Exif data. A Go program was let loose on Mike Schilli's photo collection to locate shots taken within an area around a reference image.
Just recently, my favorite restaurant in San Francisco, Chow, shut down unexpectedly. On top of the traumatic experience of having to find a new eatery, I was overcome by the desire to find old photos of the place from the good old days on my mobile phone. But how? I sure didn't tag them, but who does, anyway? Having said that, every cell phone photo contains GPS information, and the phone's photo app can group the photos as dots on a map.
Of course, over the years, I had outsourced the photos to other media. Not to worry, my new favorite programming language, Go, comes with image processing routines, prompting me to browse my photo collection for photos taken in or near the restaurant.
To-Do
The Unix exiftool
tool finds the metadata of a JPG file in a flash, leaving social media users wondering what juicy bites of data they are giving to Facebook and company when they post them. In addition to the date and time, the altitude, and the direction of the camera, there are also GPS coordinates that record the exact location on the earth's surface where the picture was taken (Figure 1). Online guru Kevin Mitnick even reports that the authorities once tracked down a Bolivian drug lord, because he had published a vacation photo that still contained the metadata of his secret whereabouts [1].
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

News
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 is Available
Linus Torvalds has announced that the latest kernel has been released with plenty of core improvements and even more hardware support.
-
Kali Linux 2025.3 Released with New Hacking Tools
If you're a Kali Linux fan, you'll be glad to know that the third release of this famous pen-testing distribution is now available with updates for key components.
-
Zorin OS 18 Beta Available for Testing
The latest release from the team behind Zorin OS is ready for public testing, and it includes plenty of improvements to make it more powerful, user-friendly, and productive.
-
Fedora Linux 43 Beta Now Available for Testing
Fedora Linux 43 Beta ships with Gnome 49 and KDE Plasma 6.4 (and other goodies).
-
USB4 Maintainer Leaves Intel
Michael Jamet, one of the primary maintainers of USB4 and Thunderbolt drivers, has left Intel, leaving a gaping hole for the Linux community to deal with.
-
Budgie 10.9.3 Now Available
The latest version of this elegant and configurable Linux desktop aligns with changes in Gnome 49.
-
KDE Linux Alpha Available for Daring Users
It's official, KDE Linux has arrived, but it's not quite ready for prime time.
-
AMD Initiates Graphics Driver Updates for Linux Kernel 6.18
This new AMD update focuses on power management, display handling, and hardware support for Radeon GPUs.
-
AerynOS Alpha Release Available
With a choice of several desktop environments, AerynOS 2025.08 is almost ready to be your next operating system.
-
AUR Repository Still Under DDoS Attack
Arch User Repository continues to be under a DDoS attack that has been going on for more than two weeks.