[hackpert]

That is actually pretty freaking cool. Not hard to do by any means, just cool.

[londons_explore]

The machine learning element isn't really needed if the instagram posts are tagged by date/time...

[FrenchTouch42]

You could have taken the picture a day before or am I missing something? The post date/time itself does not mean much.

[rootusrootus]

Many (most?) photos have EXIF tags with timestamps showing when the picture was actually taken, regardless of when it was posted. But given the amount of post-processing that likely happens to Instagram photos, I would not be surprised if that info was stripped out entirely, or at least altered.

[Nadya]

Due to a massive rise in doxxing and stalking that occurred after 4chan made checking EXIF data an extremely common tactic when doxxing people - complete with "how to" guides for less tech savvy individuals - most image hosts and social media sites nowadays strip EXIF data from uploaded images. Some sites will detect/extract certain data only (eg: to include the camera/lens used for photography-focused image sharing sites) and scrub the rest. Been that way for roughly a decade if not longer now.

[anigbrowl]

EXIF tags are scrubbed by most social media sites.

[Silverback_VII]

but they certainly keep the original with the tags somewhere.

[tomcatfish]

Do you think the author is somehow gaining access to the originals? I do not see how this is relevant.

[fortran77]

I think it's harder than it looks to do it reliably and automatically.

[matt-attack]

We have no idea as to the reliability of the system. We don't know how many false positives were found. We don't know if these were just hand selected from date/time/location.