Whether you can read metadata from a received photo depends on the channel, not the tool. Email and AirDrop pass the file unchanged. Messaging apps re-encode — EXIF is gone, but a compression signature takes its place.
JPEG, WebP, PNG, HEIC, AVIF, and camera RAW files embed a firmware-generated thumbnail before any editing software has touched them. When software re-saves the image without updating the thumbnail, the mismatch is forensic evidence — one of 60+ forensic checks snapWONDERS runs automatically on every photo and video.
MakerNote is the manufacturer-written EXIF block that standard stripping tools typically leave intact — carrying lens serial numbers, shutter counts, burst UUIDs, and capture context that survives a standard privacy scrub. Its absence from a known device is equally revealing.
How to tell if a photo has been edited: forensic analysis reads compression signatures, manufacturer metadata baselines, and thumbnail mismatches across JPEG, WebP, PNG, and video.
Stripping EXIF metadata doesn’t make a photo anonymous. DQT quantisation tables and Huffman coding tables are baked into the JPEG compression — a permanent camera fingerprint that survives every standard metadata strip. Two of the 60+ forensic checks snapWONDERS reads from every image.
The story behind Vaultify — a father building a steganography platform in memory of his son Huey, who lost his sight at four and dreamed of photos that carry hidden stories.
After some time away, the work is moving in a new direction. Hueyify has been paused. The story behind that is personal, and it’s told in full at kennethbspringer.au/our-story. The …
