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.'"

Comments

but...

[smash]

How do we know the fraud detection software isn't fraudulent? :D

smash.

Very good idea, but...

[jibjibjib]

Can we adapt it to detect Slashdot article fraud?

open source?

[YrWrstNtmr]

"Will you be able to get a copy of the Java-based version of the Image Science Group's applications? Probably not. One of the dilemmas of this type of software is that the more widespread the distribution, the more chance forgers will exploit it to their advantage."

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?

Re:open source?

[aussie_a]

Those aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. He said access will be limited, most likely to police, FBI and other government agencies. But if those agencies want to enhance it, or make it better, they'll be able to do so under the open source license. The license may have a clause that limits who can get access to the software, but for those who are able to access it, typical OS rights are given to them.

Or he might not know what he's talking about, and/or wanted to use the term "open source" for good free publicity.

Re:open source?

[NathanBFH]

Negative. The GPL doesn't have such a clause, but it is easy enough to modify the GPL (or any other license) to allow distribution of the source with the binary, and then restrict distribution of both. Granted, you may be using a different definition of the word 'open' than the software owner is. This scheme is more open than a closed-source solution where I sell you a binary with rights only to use the software and absolutely no rights to the source. While it may offend your OSS senses, it is, I think, a valid use of the term open source.

If you really want to take the term 'open source' to the extreme, I could argue that even the GPL fails to meet some level of openness. The GPL restricts use of its source code on several accounts.

This article likes to contradict itself

[icydog]

As pointed out earlier, apparently the source code won't be released but it is open-source. Interesting.

Anyways, also FTFA:

Still, around 1 percent of accepted articles contain manipulated images that do significantly affect the results, said executive editor Mike Rossner. Those papers get rejected.

So do they get accepted or rejected?

Same shot from a different angle...

[Tsar]

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.

Fallibility

[Mikey-San]

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.

It's a fraud, because my blackbox software says so

[Jivha]

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 ;-)

what could go wrong?

[Loconut1389]

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...

[Elitist_Phoenix]

In related news NASA announced today that it would close its public picture archives ;)