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

"Enhanced" evidence

[russotto]

They've tried this with audio before, notably in the Waco cases. The court rejected it then. Hopefully they will keep rejecting it. Such digital enhancement might be useful for getting leads, but the result isn't evidence; it's just a computer-assisted guess.

Re:"Enhanced" evidence

[Alsee]

but the result isn't evidence; it's just a computer-assisted guess.

It seems real simple to me. Give someone the evidence to enhance all they want in absolutely any manner they like. Just don't give the person doing it a copy of the suspect's fingerprint, image, voiceprint, whatever.

If the result matches the suspect and does not match anybody else then it sounds like solid evidence to me. There is no way you can photoshop someone's fingerprint into an image if you don't know what his fingerprint looks like.

Even better make it a seperate person who checks for a match. Even better give that seperate person a dozen random fingerprints and don't tell him which one is the suspect's. If he says there is a definite match AND he says it to the print that happens to be the suspect then you have a pretty damn bulletproof system. It would be pretty serious event if the expert ever reported a "definite match" to one of the extra random prints he's given.

At that point I don't care if the image was "enhanced" by a chimpanzee twiddling an etch-a-sketch.

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THis does absolutely nothing

[Anonymous Butthead]

Wait... so they can crack the encryption?
Nothing is flawless, any form of encryption can be cracked.... all you need is time.

It would give the community a false sense of security. Just becasue id has DRm doesn't mean anything. Evidence should not be tampered with.... PERIOD

Re:THis does absolutely nothing

[outlier]

I think what they're actually talking about is digitally signing the original or computing some type of checksum to maintain an auditable chain of custody and to track versions of the data.

So, ideally, an officer takes a photo and it is automatically digitally signed in some form of read only storage. The image and the signature are then transferred to an electronic "vault." Any 'enhancements' would also be signed and stored in the vault. When the case goes to court, the defense is given access to all versions of the picture, and all the images are matched with their signatures to ensure that they haven't been tampered with. This way, the defense can have their own experts evaluate the 'enhancements' that the police made.

In this scenario, you never deal with concerns that encrypted images may be decrypted. You have to have confidence in the vault -- I'm guessing that a physically secured, tamper evident device with easily auditable features could be implemented (e.g, in the same manner as the FBI carnivore machines are secured at ISP sites).

thoughts..

[Dr. Awktagon]

some thoughts..

* Anytime you use encryption or digital signatures, it's not "DRM". It's not like these folks want to restrict copying of the pictures, or track people who see the photos, they do that by keeping the pictures within their labs. The encryption is so they can show in court that the picture was not tampered with. When you check the signature in your linux package files, that's not DRM, that's something for your own benefit.

* I was recently looking at Canon's latest EOS-1Ds camera, which has a "Data Verification Kit" encryption module available. You put a smart card in a reader and every shot is digitally signed in the camera. So this stuff is available and hopefully the forensic photographers will begin using it. Of course a malicious photographer might change the software in the camera somehow but hopefully the module checks for that.

* Dodge & Burn tools should probably *not* be used.. they allow you to darken/lighten specific *areas* of the photo, which could be dangerous. When enhancing evidence they should only allow *global* changes like overall brightness or contrast, etc. Or at least they should send the evidence to three or more independent labs, who don't know anything about the case, and let each version be seen in court. That way there's less of a chance that someone will doctor the evidence for a specific outcome. And of course the whole workflow needs encryption and signatures.

* Evidence can always be tampered with. The digital signatures just make it harder, and hopefully at least as hard as it is now in the non-digital world.

Are you serious?

[kabir]

At first I thought this was a humor post ("AI that would prevent taking pictures of naked women"?!? I mean really.) but then it occoured to me that you might actually be serious. So, for just a moment, I'll step back from inflamatory language ("sick-men", "villany") and silly ideas (the aforementioned AI) and try to address your comment.

What you're proposing is that there should be a technological to what is, at it's heart, a moral problem. If you're looking at this from a moral/religous standpoint (and it sounds to me like you are) then you must recognize that you haven't solved anyting by taking away the option to engage in this sort of immoral behaviour (I'm assuming, for the sake of the discussion, that audit trails would, in fact, stop this sort of breach of trust from occouring - though in all honesty I think that's a deeply flawed assumption). Certainly the specific behaviour might have been prevented, but the underlying issues which allow someone to ignore or abuse their spouses trust, etc. still exist and have, in fact, been completely ignored. In the end all you'll end up doing is changing the specifics of the situation, but breaches of trust and sexual compulsion will continue. No amount of DRM can address the reasons that someone seeks out bad behaviour.

Of course, as I mentioned, DRM and/or audit trails won't do much to stop the unauthorized publication of such photos. It certaily won't stop one spouse from coercing/manipulating/etc. another to take the photos in the first place. In no way will it account for those who initially think the photos are a good idea but later change their minds. And finally, it's complete bunk to even begin to think that an audit trail will force anyone to "confront thheir odious addiction", and it certainly won't save any marriages.

The bottom line is that if a husband thinks so little of his wife and their relationship that he would violate her trust in sunch a way simply because he wouldn't get caught then the marriage is in serious trouble regardless. Technology is amazing stuff, but it's neither the cause of, nor the solution to each and every modern problem. I think people forget that too often.