Slashdot Mirror
New Photo Fraud Detection Software
An anonymous reader writes "CNet is reporting that Hany Farid, Professor of Computer Science and applied mathematics at Darthmouth College, has developed a new version of his Image Science Group's photo fraud software now in use by the FBI and large media organizations. The current software is written in Matlab, but the new version will be written in Java making it much more readily available to local police and smaller media organizations. From the article: 'I hope to have a beta out in the next six months,' Farid said. 'Right now, you need someone who is reasonably well-trained to use it.'"
smash.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Can we adapt it to detect Slashdot article fraud?
followed by -
"...the software will be made freely available under an open-source license.
--
"Taxpayers," he said, "are paying me to do this research and it needs to go back out." "
Which is it?
As pointed out earlier, apparently the source code won't be released but it is open-source. Interesting.
Anyways, also FTFA:
So do they get accepted or rejected?
Note that the submitter identifies the product as "photo fraud software" not "photo fraud detection software." This is quite apt, since the application will obviously cut both ways. Someone cooking a photo could simply run each version through this software, making minor tweaks until their "improvements" pass its inspection. If the software works the way it appears to, it would be the image manipulator's equivalent of a spell checker.
Can it detect all the FAKE kiddie porn pix the FBI keeps flooding the internet with with URLS pointing back to FBI created honeypot web sites, and strewn all over legitimate usenet groups?
They (the fbi) puts images of kids heads on nude 18 year old skinny bodies and then wait for the perverts to access the urls only found in the photos.
I bet half the kiddie porn out there is probably from the FBI! Really!
A decade ago Playboy magazine ran an expose that reported that the usa governemt actually MANUFACTURED and distributed kiddie porn via the USPO. The groundbreaking political article ended a longstanding ruse of the post offices Postmaster General from the ensuing outrage at the corrupt practice.
Basically the famous Playboy article said that the feds deliverred UNSOLICITED kiddie porn to peoples homes and if they did not IMMEDIATELY report it to the feds (as if they open their mail that hour or minute) the gestapo feds kicked down your door and arrested the duped person.
nowadays its the same sort of thing i guess, but its a honeypot and uses FAKED photos of composited heads put on bodies
Perhaps this cool new software can poke fun at the lame attempts to round up the perverts?
analyze this post
http://www.craigslist.org/pen/m4w/130536547.html
Now the CIA can outsource 1/2 their work... :P If we hack it into a video fraud detection package we can effectively get rid of the CIA all together...
You're nothing; like me.
Sounds like somewhere Sith lords are trained.
In Soviet Union you airbrush scientist out of photo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_disappearance# Soviet_Union
The fun a government can now have with this package will be great.
False positives to kill a story?
Could real digital "abusing prisoners" images now be spun as a hoax?
Just a few well placed reports as to the authenticity of any new digital images could kill a story?
Or lure a leaker out to 'prove' the reality of the images only to face character assassination?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
We've had enough intelligent discussion about another no-brainer.
How about posting something more interesting?
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
From the article:
"Right now, you need someone who is reasonably well-trained to use it."
I would like to hope that if this software is going to be used for anything of consequence, that someone reasonably well-trained will always be using it. A system is only as good as its operator, ultimately.
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
As other commenters have already pointed out, the confusion over its open-source nature(is it or is it not?) is critical. Without the source code/algorithm being open-source and freely accessible to the public how can one trust its "judgement"? In a legal situation, an accused will always question the accuracy of the algorithm and the software.
;-)
On a different angle, I wonder how soon before such detection capabilities will be available to consumers either as an installable plugin or web-based feature. Imagine being able to verify the authenticity of any picture on the web, ranging from that nude shot of your ex- to that impossibly perfect low-light picture taken by your photography class buddy
It determined that Pamela Anderson's boobs are FAKE!!
=D
Disclosure: I'm stupid
"Basically the famous Playboy article said that the feds deliverred UNSOLICITED kiddie porn to peoples homes and if they did not IMMEDIATELY report it to the feds (as if they open their mail that hour or minute) the gestapo feds kicked down your door and arrested the duped person"
p his/
http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/AABBS_Thomases_Mem
He ran a BBS that was legal in California. A prosectutor in Tennessee sent him child porn by post in order to use Federal law to have him arrested (for receiving child porn through the post). He was then arrested and taken to Tennessee, charged with selling porn to Tennessee residents and the child porn charge dropped.
Rewrite software written in powerful mathematical simulation software in java?
What could possibly go wrong?
And now, rather than processing an image in 30 minutes, it takes 30 hours, yay!
In related news NASA announced today that it would close its public picture archives ;)
"I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google"
So - when can I expect to see this as a Firefox Extension?
"Warning: This nude of Britinet Spears has been photoshopped"
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
... when it's come full circle: Photo manipulation SW gets so good that it can fool the photo manipulation detection SW every time, so you're going to need human specialists to detect the kinds of manipulation that SW can't. Just hope the jury hasn't been replaced by a 12-member P2P system by then.
yes, we have no bananas
Goatse! Won't somebody think about Goatse?!
Oh, here's two more things for your viewing pleasure:
http://poxe.ru/img1/we2356546.jpg
http://poxe.ru/img1/muscles_only.jpg
but how we do trust this software ? For that we should go for another third party tool ? huh Arun A.S http://www.arunspillai.blogspot.com/ http://www.bloglines.com/blog/arunsasikumar
Apparently they consulted with FARK.com's talented staff of professional photo retouchers while testing the software.
text is unnecessary.
So would this s/w be able to figure out morphed pics of celebrities ?
Great if it could do that.
Why does yahoo do this
I wonder what would happen if the software was used to process photos from the original Apollo moon landing. I am of the belief that there is a great possibility that at least the original Apollo landing was faked. Subsequent missions I am not too sure about, but I believe at least the first one was a fraud. I wrote this page up many years ago when I was in 10th grade at school. After reading it again just now, however, I really think I need to update it for new facts I've discovered and general maturity of presentation :)
I hate printers.
If it's a matlab program, a C version is available now.
Just a matter of time before this application gets it's brother: "the simulator".
:D
It uses the same algorithms in a slightly different way: instead of checking for the signs of forgery it finds the tell-tale signs of modification and then reverse-modifies them to "what-should-be-there" to make an "original" modified image.
The result will be an image that is ofcourse different only from mathematical standpoint - visual information will be the same. If that wouldn't be true I would love to have an application that "unblurs" or "unblackouts" the censored parts of some pictures.
Image will have after processing the properties of an "original" because the signs of "not-original" will be detected and "fixed". Way to go...
What you're saying is a rehash of the argument that "Information security isn't secure when the algorithm's security depends on its secrecy".
Thing is, does the same thing hold true when you're talking about detecting fakes (say), as opposed to building strong encryption? If I announce "Well, we can tell this photo isn't genuine because this part which shouldn't be in focus is", I've effectively announced to any potential fraudsters who might be listening "OK, folks, you need to learn to get your focusing correct".
Realistically, the only way such an algorithm remains secure is if it cannot be beaten even with a full understanding of how it works - and I would ask if such an algorithm even exists yet. If the algorithm is anything less than 100% effective, chances are it doesn't.
Photos have gradual changes in color (even when there are abrupt changes in the scene being photographed) and edits don't. But if people are trying to produce edited photos that need to be undetectable, it should be possible to write a filter that fixes edited photos. To do the equivalent of taking a photo of the edited photo. It's easy to seek for someone who isn't hiding. When they try to hide, it's a bit tougher.
So... maybe we can finally put this debate to rest.
JAI being the Java Advanced Imaging library.
-- ac at home
I wonder if the software could be modified to easily uncover the blacked out parts prevelant in many government documents. I suspect they would put up a big stink about this though.
on a Warez site?
Rick B.
"The lighting is off by 40 degrees," Farid said. "We are insensitive to it, but computers detect it."
Well even if that one is fake, at least we know that the one of John Kerry french-kissing Joseph Stalin is real.
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
Sigh.
That should be Dartmouth: http://www.dartmouth.edu/.
But if its government funded and tied to the GPL, i would think they would be bound to the requirement to give us a copy if we go thru the proper channels. ( like most other government funded software.. and all GPL code. )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I wonder if/when it will be used on the Oswald-with-gun photo that many (apparently starting with Oswald) claim was faked.
The photo appears at the start of this wikipedia article on Lee Harvey Oswald.
(Of course the article is the subject to disputes of its own. B-) )
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It it can analyze a 640x480 image and tell if it's a fake or not then it can be beaten.
There are only so many pixels and so many combinations thereof that it'd quite simply have to be possible to make a fake image that meets all the criteria for a real one.
"Taxpayers," he said, "are paying me to do this research and it needs to go back out."
Hany Farid has my upmost respect. It's good to see people contribute rather than exploit.
'Information security isn't secure when the algorithm's security depends on its secrecy"'
I think his point was that people will run images through this software and the software will say "fake" and users will believe it, even when it's wrong. The same problem is true whether closed or open source. They'll substitute the black box's definition of 'fake' for the real definition of fake because it's easier.
Once you have the comp in done in your image editor with as little pixel and grain distortions as possible. Try the following. Note this does require a $5000 set of plugins http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/ Furnace (no not the After deffects set) and the $5000 program them run in. http://www.eyeonline.com/ or http://www.apple.com/shake http://www.d2software.com/ (and yes a few others in the $100k+ range) In fact I might even do the whole comp in my film compositor with the use of some other tools. Anyway. Comp elements use historgram matching to match elements in the shot that should have the same color ranges. (You could do a color overlay in PS.) Ok now you have a good comp with good edges or edge blending and light wraps. You completely degrain the shot with furnace (each element seperatly degrained) You then regrain the shot as a whole. degraining and regraining work on all three color plates seperatly so when you regrain the shot it should be adding basically another blending of the of the colors making them uniform to what the original piece of film would have been. Now you take that file and do a film out of that. That is a very simlified break down of the technique. Many of the steps for each step are left out. My basic assumption is that the software looks for irregularities in the pixels deformations, areas of transition, and color offsets in the comp. I would love to go up against this software. (not that I would win but it would be fun to try as long as someone else is paying for the film outs and scans :-).) OH and if your source and destination or supposed to be film you probably want a drum scan not a CCD scan.
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
Big_Foot_Prints.
that impossibly perfect low-light picture taken by your photography class buddy
Still object or moving object? Low-light scenes can pretty much be compensated by large aperture and/or long exposure. Large aperture increases depth of field, and long exposure blurs moving objects. He could also use a high speed film that is more sensitive to light but results in more grain in the image. With experience, you can find a good balance between those three factors and take perfect pictures.
I'm sure you know all this stuff, since you've taken photography class. What I'm trying to say is he might know a trick or two that you could learn before you start accusing his pictures are fake.
Now, from what TFA discloses of the fraud detection algorithm---namely (1) anomalies in lighting direction, and (2) statistical correlation of "filled" pixels---it seems unlikely that adjusting color levels or contrast would be detected as fraud, so you could still post-process a badly exposed low-light picture and have it pass the detection. On the other hand, seemingly benign scratch or noise removal would trigger it.
I once had a signature.
but... How do we know the fraud detection software isn't fraudulent? :D
That's exactly the question that will come up in court if it's ever used.
(As another poster has already mentioned in the []blackbox software[] subthread.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Oops. Blew the link.
Try this.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I know you're trying to be funny but it is explicitly stated in the article that the software used in a "verification" is open source. Seems ok to me.
Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.
[Zappa]
Another example not mentioned is the OJ Simpson mugshot photos that were on the cover of Time and Newsweek at the same time, where they were the same photo but one adjusted the contrast/gamma so it was darker, more sinister. Not exactly a touchup/photoshopping but still a modification done on purpose to skew interpretations.
I seem to recall some US guvmint propaganda as well where the picture showed a large group at a speech, denoting good turnout and agreement, yet when you looked closely you saw the same block of people three times. That's why they call it propaganda, right?
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
Large aperture increases depth of field
Larger apertures (i.e. f/2.8) have a shorter DOF than small apertures (i.e. f/22).
DOF info
In cases like this, if the justice dept has any balls and integrity and honesty and any sense
of law and order, it would bar those type of lawyers from anything to do with law for life, ie 100years.
It may be possible to invent a type of apparel that would give a false-positive to the photo manipulation algorighm, so when you wore it, it would always detect a manipulation in the photo, even if they weren't actually doctored.
They wouldn't be able to say 100% that it was an original, unretouched photo. That may give enough wiggle room to say that the glove didn't fit...
I'm picturing a shirt/mask/helmet with a pattern on it that resembled jpeg blocking artifacts.