The hunt to identify the person or group behind the QAnon conspiracy theory continues. Known only as “Q,” this individual or collective is responsible for the many posts, or “drops,” that appeared on internet imageboards between October 2017 and December 2020. It has not been an easy search. But a fresh approach has yielded more clues. Image metadata comprises many different kinds of information, some of which can speak to the origin of the image itself and, by extension, who created it. Since many of Q’s posts come with an image attached, examining image metadata can provide clues as to where Q has been — and when. We examined metadata found on images associated with 27 Q drops. We infer from the metadata that the images are screenshots taken in two time zones: UTC+8 and the Pacific time zone. UTC+8 is a time zone including the Philippines, China, Mongolia, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei, and parts of Indonesia, Russia and Australia. Pacific time includes the West coasts of Canada and the USA, Nevada, part of Idaho, and part of the northwest coast of Mexico. The vast majority of these images, ranging in date from November 7, 2017 to September 23, 2020, appear to originate from the Pacific time zone, while a handful of remaining images from February 2018 and 2019 appear to originate from UTC+8. Timezone map from Wikimedia Commons, with UTC+8 highlighted in yellow by Robert Amour If accurate, the UTC+8 cluster of images could suggest that Q is a single individual who lives in the Pacific time zone but has traveled extensively in Asia (with stops at least in Hong Kong, Chongqing, Shanghai, and Bangkok, based on the contents of Q’s photos).
via bellingcat: Where in the World is Q? Clues from Image Metadata