this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2025
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Today I Learned

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[–] nucleative@lemmy.world 47 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

For quite a long while search engines would return amazing results when you searched for

Dsc-0001.jpg

And so on, perhaps with some variations based on camera model. People uploaded their DCIM folders to their homedirs which were sometimes exposed to the web. You'd see so much private stuff this way.

Just tried and it appears such functionality has been removed from Google, because of course it has.

[–] Psythik@lemmy.world 3 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

Reminds me of how you used to be able to control various unsecured IP security cams by typing part of the URL that is common among them into Google.

I remember stumbling upon some random office building in China and was able to fully control every camera in the place. I never did anything beyond pan them around a bit—and nobody ever reacted to my antics—so I guess the camera movements either weren't very obvious or staff was just used to being watched by management/random people.

[–] peetabix@sh.itjust.works 4 points 19 hours ago

I bet Google themselves can still see them though, for training their AI.

[–] SippyCup@lemmy.ml 5 points 23 hours ago

It looks like you can still search for private directories with specific keywords.

[–] daggermoon@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Why were their homedirs exposed to the web?

[–] nucleative@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

In the 90s and early 00's it was really common for Universities (for their students and professors) to arrange Unix based shell accounts for email and storage.

The Apache http server was easily configured to allow per user websites and this was commonly done to give everyone a website. They looked something like a "www.example.com/~username" URL which mapped to a public_html folder inside the user's home directory. Apache would serve up any files or html that lived inside to the public.

https://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/howto/public_html.html

At the time, a lot of people didn't worry about anyone finding their obscure files, so put them there freely for family and friends.

Wild times!

[–] RichardDegenne@lemmy.zip 2 points 19 hours ago

Nostalgia in a bottle.

[–] mlg@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sad, you can still do this with youtube for the time being

[–] Obi@sopuli.xyz 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] nucleative@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Fantastic, that vid has 78 views as of now, I'm guessing 76 of them from today hahaha

[–] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 5 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

It's down to 70 views for me. Someone's been disrupting the space-time continuum.

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago

Up to 140 views now, plus 6 likes and a comment!

[–] JadenSmith@sh.itjust.works 104 points 1 day ago (5 children)
[–] Capricorn_Geriatric@lemmy.world 3 points 16 hours ago

If GIF is "Jiff", then DCIM has to be "Jizz".

[–] Sabata11792@ani.social 54 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I hardly knew 'im!

[–] JadenSmith@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 day ago

Only if you get his permission.

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[–] BootLoop@sh.itjust.works 85 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] dan1101@lemmy.world 26 points 1 day ago (5 children)

So it should have been DCI all this time. Or DICAIM.

[–] ooterness@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Digital Camera Images, Man.

[–] DrDystopia@lemy.lol 2 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Thank you, I browsed this thread to see if anybody said this so I could save time and effort. So now I spend twice the amount of time and effort to thank you.

Fuck it.

Digital Camera Images, maaaaan

[–] ooterness@lemmy.world 1 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

The extra a's make it so much better. 😹

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)
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It should have been not abbreviated this whole time.

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[–] timhayes1991@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 day ago

Thank you!! I move files around on android all the time and I see that folder constantly. I just never cared enough to look up what it stood for lmao.

[–] etherphon@piefed.world 11 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Been there for ages I guess, I have a 2.0 MEGAPIXEL FujiFilm FinePix with a DCIM directory.

[–] DrDystopia@lemy.lol 2 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

I think it's another Windows hangover, I first saw it as a USB Windows spec way back when MTP was a mode as well. Fucking Windows, fucking with the image storage on my android phones 20 years layer.

[–] turmacar@lemmy.world 3 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

It's a DCF thing, not a Windows thing. A bunch of Japanese companies collaborated on a spec in the 90s so most digital cameras would work vaguely the same as far as file storage went and it's still the standard because it's a naming convention and there's not really a reason to change it.

[–] DrDystopia@lemy.lol 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

It's a DCF thing, not a Windows thing.

Fair enough, interesting wiki read, thanks.

there's not really a reason to change it.

The fact that people revel in the newfound knowledge about why their photos aren't stored in the Photos folder in 2025 makes me think otherwise. 😁

[–] turmacar@lemmy.world 2 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

Eh. :P

I mean sure it's kind of a relic from the 90s, but so is the save icon. If you change it you're breaking backwards compatibility with everything tangentially related to digital cameras prior to . A 'photos' folder might be more intuitive but then you run into the issue of "what about my language's folder" instead of just everyone worldwide using DCIM.

Sometimes its better long term for people to learn about a standard instead of for the standard to be more intuitive to newcomers. Sure you could just make a new standard but that's its own problem.

[–] DrDystopia@lemy.lol 2 points 15 hours ago

If websites are able to know what language my computer is using, I would expect local apps to have an easier time figuring it out. There's also the possibility of setting a default folder to save photos in. Right now I can only select DCIM on internal or SD storage.

And regarding standards, I don't accept the argument that there's an eternal and objective gold standard. It used to be standard to have 640k RAM. It used to be standard to store images in a DCIM folder for compatibility reasons. Do we need those compatibilities any more? I'd say no.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

Came here to say pretty much the same - the two digital cameras I had before the "half-way decent cameras in your smartphone" age (including one which wasn't that specific model but a similar one from the same generation) both had a DCIM directory.

The only surprise I had around DCIM was at some point finding out that there was a directory with that name inside my Android phone since I expected everything would end up under Photos.

[–] Retro_unlimited@lemmy.world 2 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I had one of those cameras maybe 20 years ago, it took really good pictures. I used to carry it with me everywhere and always looked for artsy stuff to take pictures of.

[–] etherphon@piefed.world 2 points 22 hours ago

Hahah same here, they did take good pictures even with the relatively low res sensor, I suppose all the extra room for camera optics helps as opposed to packing it all into a thin phone.

[–] slothrop@lemmy.ca 29 points 1 day ago

So simple, yet so far away.

[–] x00z@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I pronounce it as Daysim and you can't stop me

[–] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 2 points 23 hours ago

All of a Sim's strengths, none of their weaknesses.

[–] BaroqueInMind@piefed.social 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I pronounce it as day cum and you definitely can stop me

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