Find out if photos from a camera were ever uploaded to the internet via my computer

Posted by: @wanderandwonder

Hi,

    I'm looking to find out if photos via a certain camera were ever uploaded to the internet via my computer ( a Mac). Is there any way to find this out? I don't have any photos. Is there any way to check the computer logs going all the way back to the time I first got my computer? Would the EXIF data have been logged by my computer, which perhaps might contain the camera serial number? Please help! If you can think of any alternate ways to do this, please tell me.

No and no, and no :-(.

The only (theoretical) way to find out something (very loosely) similar would be to carve your volume for (deleted) images, let's say with PhotoRec:

https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

then:
1) IF such an image is found
2) AND IF it is - at least partially - readable
3) AND IF the EXIF data exist AND include the camera serial

THEN

you might know that in the past a copy of that picture, coming from that specific camera has been stored on your computer (if - say - you got the picture from a USB stick and uploaded it directly you won't find it on internal disk).

Then maybe - just maybe - in the browser's history you may be able to find when/if your computer ever connected to the internet site where the picture was uploaded.

I doubt that you can find trace of the actual uploading and even if you can find it (which again I doubt) there are a number of issues in proving it was that particular image because the (hypothetically) recovered/carved image has not (anymore) any file name and - unless it is perfectly integer - it won't likely have the same size and hash (if any) as it had originally AND - depending on the speciific internet host - the image there may have had EXIF data stripped and/or have been resized or even (inconspicuously) watermarked, so, even if all the above happen you will likely be comparing two non-original images.

jaclaz   

Thanks jaclaz!