Computers, Court, and Fingerprints

Degrees writes "Should Law Enforcement be allowed to Photoshop fingerprints? That is the question posed in this article in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. The suspect is charged with murder, and the evidence was circumstantial before the fingerprint enhancment. At the end, the crime scene investigators say they want encrypted cameras. The implication is they want DRM-enabled digital cameras with software for full audit-trail capability. Would that make the Photoshoping more credible? Would DRM cameras be a good thing for Joe Citizen?"

Comments

This is NOT DRM

[ChaosDiscord]

DRM is about taking options away from users. This is about providing users with a new option: a strong audit trail. You can make a copy of the image using non-auditing software, but that copy of the image would lose it's "seal of approval." The original would remain valid. The end result: cops can make any copies and image manipulations they want that may help them solve a case. But in court they'll only be able to present images with the valid audit trail, ensuring that the image was never mishandled and clearly showing what manipulations were done to it. It sounds like a great idea and I strongly support this option for users. (I am suspicious that it may not be possible... but I'm happy to let people try.)

This is not how photographic evidence works

[Bruce Perens]

The potential to fake a photograph has existed since the earliest days of photography. The veracity of the photograph or other scientific evidence rests on the oath taken by the photographer and other technicians involved. They are not asking for DRM, but for a digital signature generated by the camera and attesting to the time and other circumstances of the photograph. Auditing the image-processing is possible, given certified software and a circumscribed list of permitted operations. Some form of "trusted computing" could be used to avoid trivial circumventions of the list of allowed operations.

Note that this is "trusted computing" in service of the owner of the computer (in this case the police department and department of justice rather than the individual operator). The fundamental difference is that the owner of the computer is the one asking for the trusted service, rather than some other entity that does not trust the owner of the computer.

Bruce