Problem with images

[PowerGlove]

I almost wrote “I’m sure PG has some sort of script / program whatever the f you call it that will notify him of his handle being mentioned before I even get to my PM to him.. and well lol.

I only bumped into your edit by chance. I don't use any kind of a notification tool. I guess, I've for a long time now thought that it's a feature that the forum should natively have, and I've stubbornly refused to start making regular use of something non-native. (I'm not a very pragmatic person, on the whole, and in fact, the philosophical tradition of pragmatism is something that almost always rubs me the wrong way; on the occasions that I've found myself with the freedom to approach a problem entirely on my own terms, I've tended to lean on rationalist-inspired thinking rather than trying to cut a simpler/shorter path through to a pragmatic solution.)

I am wondering if you’ve worked on or completed some homework I assigned to you, also wondering if you remember what that was

Haha. Yeah. I know what you're referring to. You have my word that I won't forget about it. I have a mind like a steel... I forget the saying.

I’ve also got a proposal I want to run by you and Theymos. I ran it by Mitchell first (we’ve been buds for a decade now and he’s a straight shooter. If he thinks it’s shit, he’ll let ya know. He did not think it was shit lol, thankfully 😆. It’s probably not doable or something either of you wanna mess with but I think it’s valuable and would be of tremendous help to humanity/ this forum.. worst you can both say do is F off or ignore me soo 🤷‍♂️😁

Cool. Hit me up. Just be aware that I'm in kind of a sour mood these days, so please cut me some tone-related slack when you're reading my reply. I think I'm going through some kind of an early-midlife health thing on top of everything else. I don't know, but, my mood is all over the place, I haven't slept well in months, and clear communication is something that I now seem to suck at even more than normal. For example, nutildah contacted me in early July to ask if I wanted to be involved in his sigbanning initiative, and I politely declined to participate (on the basis that I don't believe in the technical and philosophical soundness of the approach), but that eventually led to a back-and-forth that ultimately resulted in him and I more-or-less deciding that we should just stop talking altogether (which is unusual for me; I'm more the type to keep insisting that it's possible to arrive at a place of mutual appreciation and understanding). So, yeah. I'd hate for you and I to end up in the same boat that nutildah and I now find ourselves in (that is, on the other side of a friendly conversation that somehow devolved into a moratorium on further communication).

[LoyceV]

I have around 340,000 of the forum's images already scraped on the Talksearch server, with more being added daily. A quarter of my copy of the forum's posts has been searched so far

Do you want a .tar with 801,550 imgur images?

but there also a good amount of images that have been lost forever.

I used to use tinypic. Unfortunately, those images are gone, including the one in my first post on Bitcointalk.

[NotATether]

Do you want a .tar with 801,550 imgur images?

I need to be able to attach the user ID to the images as well, in addition to post/topic ID and date. So I will check this as a last resort since it's a subset. But my scraper is working for now.

[LoyceV]

I need to be able to attach the user ID to the images as well, in addition to post/topic ID and date.

I have all that Okay, maybe not the post date, but you have that already.

[Decimation]

The pictures that were used previously are currently in a death condition, is there any way to fix them again somehow?

[nobswebdev]

If you guys seeking additional privacy when posting your images, check out my recent project "Private Image". Images are stripped of metadata and encrypted locally in your browser so only encrypted blobs reach the server. It is working with no issues with this forum. https://www.privateimage.net https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5598463.0. Project is free and open source. You can also self-host your instance.

[dkbit98]

If you guys seeking additional privacy when posting your images, check out my recent project "Private Image". Images are stripped of metadata and encrypted locally in your browser so only encrypted blobs reach the server. It is working with no issues with this forum. https://www.privateimage.net https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5598463.0. Project is free and open source. You can also self-host your instance.

How is your service compared to other similar tools made by community we have in forum, like Talkimg and Bitlist Image uploader?
As for removing metadata from images, this can and should be done on device level for smartphones, and with software image viewers in desktop computers.

[nobswebdev]

How is your service compared to other similar tools made by community we have in forum, like Talkimg and Bitlist Image uploader?

Here is a comparison table of similar tools. All of these mainstream image hosts work in a similar way. They store images and their metadata in plaintext on their servers. Most are closed-source, so we can’t verify what they actually do with the images.

As for removing metadata from images, this can and should be done on device level for smartphones, and with software image viewers in desktop computers.

Private Image removes metadata locally using ExifTool compiled to run in the browser. After the metadata is removed, the image is encrypted and sent to the server. The server never sees the image’s metadata. Additionally, in ZK mode, the server cannot decrypt the image. In hotlink mode, the server decrypts the image upon request. Hotlink mode is designed for embedding images in forums, websites, and similar sites, while ZK mode is designed for direct sharing.

[dkbit98]

Private Image removes metadata locally using ExifTool compiled to run in the browser. After the metadata is removed, the image is encrypted and sent to the server. The server never sees the image’s metadata. Additionally, in ZK mode, the server cannot decrypt the image. In hotlink mode, the server decrypts the image upon request. Hotlink mode is designed for embedding images in forums, websites, and similar sites, while ZK mode is designed for direct sharing.

That sounds cool, and I can see clear advantage compared to standard image hosting tools, so I will try it out.
I saw that comparison chart, but I thought you could include Talkimg and Bitlist image uploader in the same chart.
What I am most concerned is how long your website is going to keep images online, because I don't want them to be gone in few months or years.

PS
You could certainly add an option to resize image before being uploaded.
 

[nobswebdev]

That sounds cool, and I can see clear advantage compared to standard image hosting tools, so I will try it out.

👍

I saw that comparison chart, but I thought you could include Talkimg and Bitlist image uploader in the same chart.

On my table I compared Private Image to most popular image hostings, but I think most of them have similar model.

What I am most concerned is how long your website is going to keep images online, because I don't want them to be gone in few months or years.

I aim to for unlimited retention and such option is currently supported. However I might change "never remove" policy to something like "we can remove image if it wasn't viewed for x months" to save on storage costs by removing dead images.

You could certainly add an option to resize image before being uploaded.

I agree. That is good idea and some image editing tools will definitely be added.

[joker_josue]

I saw that comparison chart, but I thought you could include Talkimg and Bitlist image uploader in the same chart.

On my table I compared Private Image to most popular image hostings, but I think most of them have similar model.

In TalkImg, all image metadata is removed. Well, like virtually all the features offered by Private Image.

There will eventually be differences in some areas, because these are services with different objectives. The goal of TalkImg is to provide an image hosting service for exclusive use on the Bitcointalk forum. Therefore, some aspects of Private Image that have available end up not being applied.

Different proposals, different objectives.

All the best to Private Image.

[dkbit98]

I agree. That is good idea and some image editing tools will definitely be added.

Another thing you could add is BBCode support, for making it easier to post images in bitcoitnalk forum.
I checked it out and did short testing, and I don't remember I saw BBCode in provided links, but I could be wrong about it.

[DYING_S0UL]

I have all that Okay, maybe not the post date, but you have that already.

Why do I feel like you have every bit of info on Crypto and Bitcointalk, every piece of data ever posted? You have literally archived/saved everything!

Now the question arises, what you don't have! 

Another thing you could add is BBCode support, for making it easier to post images in bitcoitnalk forum.
I checked it out and did short testing, and I don't remember I saw BBCode in provided links, but I could be wrong about it.

If by BBcode you mean the IMG tag, then yes it exiests.

1 hour · 100 views

[SamReomo]

OP use Bitlist image upload tool, you'll never face any kind of proxy related issue. You can also use Talkimg as it's also a good platform to upload the images that can be embedded here on this forum without any issue. In past I used to use Talkimg a lot but now I use Bitlist the most and sometimes I use Talkimg as both are awesome websites to host images that can later be embedded here.

[nobswebdev]

In TalkImg, all image metadata is removed. Well, like virtually all the features offered by Private Image.

In your business model, it’s just “trust me, bro,” because Talk Img seems to be closed-source. And I really doubt it’s done client-side using ExifTool, because making ExifTool work in a browser isn’t as straightforward as using it server-side. Most image-hosting services that promise to remove metadata either do it server-side (which defeats the purpose for me, because the server can read all that metadata) or do it client-side using metadata-removal methods other than ExifTool. ExifTool has a 23-year maintenance history and is the gold standard among metadata-removal software.

The goal of TalkImg is to provide an image hosting service for exclusive use on the Bitcointalk forum. Therefore, some aspects of Private Image that have available end up not being applied.

I used Talk Img before, but I had to remember to remove my metadata before every upload. This is where the idea for Private Image was born.

Another thing you could add is BBCode support,

If by BBcode you mean the IMG tag, then yes it exiests.

Yes, Private Image generates a set of links in the most common embed formats, including BBCode, with every upload.

[joker_josue]

In TalkImg, all image metadata is removed. Well, like virtually all the features offered by Private Image.

In your business model, it’s just “trust me, bro,” because Talk Img seems to be closed-source. And I really doubt it’s done client-side using ExifTool, because making ExifTool work in a browser isn’t as straightforward as using it server-side. Most image-hosting services that promise to remove metadata either do it server-side (which defeats the purpose for me, because the server can read all that metadata) or do it client-side using metadata-removal methods other than ExifTool. ExifTool has a 23-year maintenance history and is the gold standard among metadata-removal software.

The goal of TalkImg is to provide an image hosting service for exclusive use on the Bitcointalk forum. Therefore, some aspects of Private Image that have available end up not being applied.

I used Talk Img before, but I had to remember to remove my metadata before every upload. This is where the idea for Private Image was born.

Without wanting to turn this conversation into a debate about open or closed source, especially since I recognize the advantages it offers in terms of transparency, I've also developed products with open source code. However, the fact that the code is public does not, in itself, guarantee that a service is executing exactly that same code.

Ultimately, any third-party service involves some level of trust; it's up to the user to define that, given their needs and objectives..

It's true that removing metadata via the server means it can be accessed before being deleted. However, this doesn't automatically mean it will be accessed. I've always valued privacy and therefore, from the beginning, I ensured that TalkImg doesn't save this metadata, neither in separate files nor in the database. It's removed during the upload process.

This removal can be validated by sending an image with intentionally written metadata, and then downloading the image after uploading.

I recognize that removing metadata in the browser offers an advantage in terms of privacy. Sometimes we don't even remember all the possibilities. Probably, in the future, I will add this additional layer of metadata removal via the browser (beyond the current method).

In any case, as I said before, they are different services with different objectives, which in turn have different approaches.


EDIT: Correction of some phrases, made by mistake during the validation of the translation I did.

[LoyceV]

It's true that removing metadata via the server means it can be accessed before being deleted. However, this doesn't automatically mean it will be accessed. I've always valued privacy and therefore, from the beginning, I ensured that TalkImg doesn't save this metadata, neither in separate files nor in the database.

It's not that I don't trust you, the thing is I don't want to have to trust you (or anyone else). I'm not in Bitcoin to trust people, and any picture taken by a phone can contain GPS coordinates. That's about as bad as it gets for privacy. So just wiping it myself before uploading anything is the best way to make sure it can't ever be leaked.

[nobswebdev]

However, the fact that the code is public does not, in itself, guarantee that a service is executing exactly that same code.

I agree here. In general, websites do not guarantee that the exact same code will run every time. This is a problem with software integrity on the web, because websites fetch JavaScript from the server on every visit. An evil host can replace clean code with malicious code, and whether the website is open-source or closed-source doesn’t change that. Self-hosting solves this problem because you can review the code once and start the service on hardware you control, giving you confidence that the software is doing what it was intended to do. Open-source software enables self-hosting, and self-hosting enables software integrity on the web.

In any case, as I said before, they are different services with different objectives, which in turn have different approaches.

Yes, there is no reason to blame you, because you do not advertise your website as privacy image hosting. Your service was created for exclusive access for BTT people and doing its job great.

So just wiping it myself before uploading anything is the best way to make sure it can't ever be leaked.

Or you can use my instance of Private Image at https://www.privateimage.net Or if you don't wanna trust anyone then you can self-host your instance of Private Image

[Mitchell]

The original problem has been discussed for a while and clearly answered/resolved:

I started using talkimg and since then I have 0 issues with images on this forum

Think it is time to lock it, you already made a topic for your new service.