Embedded metadata comes with its own challenges, especially for the inexperienced and the uninformed. From ars technica:
The book actually leaked out through the tubes last week as some enterprising soul took photographs of every single page of the book and made them available through BitTorrent […]
The EFF took a peek of its own at the leaked photos and did some cursory detective work. They found that the EXIF metadata attached to the photos contains the serial number of the camera used to take the pictures, along with all the other technical details about the settings used to make the image. That unique serial could be the leaker's undoing if Scholastic can find a way to link it up with an individual, and the EFF suggests that (perhaps) they can.
If the camera (a Canon Rebel) was registered with the company when first purchased, then Canon potentially has the information that Scholastic needs to make a bust. If this goes to court, expect Scholastic to go after such information.
It's little different than with search engines–unless we make conscious decisions otherwise, we leave little bits of ourselves behind whenever we do anything on the internet.
