With the intense expectation, it was fairly inevitable that someone somewhere would leak the latest Harry Potter book. One such person carefully took a photo of each double page spread and then uploaded all the pictures to a Bit Torrent site (as if they didn't have a bad enough reputation already). All in perfect anonymity....

Well, maybe not it turns out, according to Ars Technica. All that helpful Exif data that digital cameras store alongside the photo such as aperture and shutter speed (that one day I will pay attention to to become a better photographer) also includes a unique serial number for the camera.

It's doubtful that the US publishers of Harry Potter are going to force everyone with a digital camera to submit their serial number in a gigantic ID parade but if the camera was registered, there might be a paper trail they can follow.

It's not the first time this sort of thing has happen, the undo and track changes features in Word and the rest of Office are a gold mine of first drafts and comments that were never meant to be seen by the client.

So, if you are going to leak or steal information, make sure you know everything that you are giving away.