Removing File Metadata Before Serving Over Tor
Files served from your .onion site can leak metadata that deanonymises you - JPEG EXIF GPS, PDF author fields, Word document save paths. This guide covers automated metadata stripping with exiftool, mat2 and ghostscript, integrated into your upload pipeline.
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Tools
exiftool - EXIF and other image metadata. mat2 - polyglot stripper for images, PDFs, audio, video. ghostscript - clean PDF rewrite. ffmpeg - audio/video metadata.
Upload Pipeline
On upload, fork a cleaning job: detect file type, run appropriate stripper, replace original. nginx serves only the cleaned version.
Image Specifics
JPEG EXIF often includes GPS, camera make/model and timestamp. PNG includes tEXt chunks. WebP has both. Strip all of them.
Why It Matters
A single tourist photo can reveal your home GPS. Strip before publish. See Tor hosting, Tor nginx.
Related Services
Privacy & anti-censorship guides
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