Image Analysis and Verification To Track Pictures 31
kodiaktau writes "Computer scientist Landon Cox and students at Duke University are working in conjunction with researchers at Microsoft and Technicolor Research to design and develop image analysis tools to identify changes to pictures and videos. The technology, called YouProve, compares original images to create a trust certificate that can be compared against derivative images and produce a heat-map of changes (PDF) between the two. This can be of particular importance when reviewing large amounts of crowd-sourced content to see if image tampering has occurred."
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The alleged utility in verifying crowd-sourced images is a distraction, piggybacking on the occupy wall street thing, from this obvious commercial reality. Microsoft and Technicolor do not give a damn about keeping riot police honest by verifying cell phone pictures. They want to automate the otherwise expensive process of assessing fair use.
I want the firefox/chrome Add-On (Score:2)
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I bet it is tough to do in Javascript.
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Firefox addons can have binary libraries, which can be called by Javascript.
I have a OS-wide tiny tool for you that is better! (Score:1)
Have they really just re-invented the "diff" command??
Here is the same thing, but better, using Imagemagick:
composite 1.bmp 2.bmp -compose Difference temp1.bmp
convert temp1.bmp -fill red -tint 200 temp2.bmp
composite 1.bmp temp2.bmp -compose Screen out.bmp
There, done.
And this handy script, when you adapt the coordinates/sizes, and put it on a shortcut, allows you to cheat on any "find the differences" game and get the shortest times ever. (Requires bash, KSnapshot, qdbus, grep, ImageMagick, Gwenview and wmct
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Now do it when you only send the edited image to your photo proofing service, adding that the second picture is actually zoomed in slightly.
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they're saving a DIFF. big deal. (Score:1)
So they are saving a DIFF along with the original image inside its metadata. So what? You need the original and modified image to create the diff. By sending the diff along with the original you're doing nothing other than sending two pictures. I see no use for this at all.
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Welcome to a future where every photo you take can be uniquely attributed to the device used to produce it, registered to you.
Nikon and Canon SLRs have had 'image authentication' for a while now. A supposedly secret private key embedded in the camera's firmware may be used to sign each image file, which can then be validated with a public key (generally using an expensive software package sold mainly to forensics people). Camera serial numbers (probably recorded with your purchase) are also embedded in the files (at least in Nikon raw files), so the original images are intended to be verifiably traceable as well as tamper-evident.
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Probably a one-liner with exiftool!:
http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/exiftool_pod.html#writing_examples [queensu.ca]
Unfortunately, doing this to Nikon raw files damages them for downstream processing, as the serial number is one of the keys for Nikon's lame encryption scheme that 'protects' white balance data.
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A less tinfoil-y way of looking at it might be "Only trusted hardware can possibly produce images with legitimate fidelity certificates. The algorithm for making fidelity certificates is available. Nothing stops me from forging a fidelity certificate after the fact. This is no way to protect an image's fidelity."
Shop Contest (Score:2)
This will kill email hoaxes (Score:1)
Snopes, your days are numbered.
Congratulations, you re-invented fragile w.marks (Score:2)
Another case of CS guys now knowing about existing EE research.
Difference Layer (Score:2)
What am I missing!? (Score:1)
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sounds like another tool to attempt to keep those damn pirates at bay.
I was reading an article at forensic focus about a tool aimed at youtube downloader to identify media that had been format shifted from the original and "pirated" from youtube.
Seems that having a local copy of somethingyou could click and play on youtube is going to be a copyright violation, maybe it is but a pretty trivial one of course if you can get stupid amount of money for each infringing file found on some poor saps hard drive...
ht [forensicfocus.com]
Check out Tineye (Score:2)
http://www.tineye.com/ [tineye.com] is very cool, you give them a photo and they will search for it, or even photo's that have part of it.
I have some idea of what sorts of algorithms they must be using, but this seems to be a real advancement.
Planting facade (Score:1)