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Graphics Advances Make Identifying Real Images Difficult
destinyland writes "The FBI's geeks admitted they were nervous over computer-generated images at a recent forensics conference. In court they're now arguing that a jury 'can tell' if an image is real or computer-generated — which marks the current boundary between legal and illegal. But reporter Debbie Nathan argues that that distinction is getting fuzzy, and that geeks will inevitably make it obsolete." Note: some of the linked (computer-generated) images may be disturbing.
It'd be nice to see a "NSFW" (Not Suitable For Work) tag on the article. I clicked the link and I'm at work, and am now worried that large men with guns will appear. Saying "The following images may be disturbing" is too ambiguous.
The latest Scientific American has an interesting article on the current state of the art of how to tell whether a photo has been doctored. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=digital-image-forensics
Photos don't testify at trials, people do. Generally if you have photographic evidence you need to have the cameraperson testify, and they will need to testify that they took the picture and establish (sometimes by establishing chain of custody/development procedures) that the picture reflects what they saw and how someone edited or added things.
-bugg
The problem is when it's impossible to tell the real from the fake. At that point you couldn't prosecute any of the real ones because they'll just say it's a really good fake.
Also, think about this. If you look at pr0n, doesn't it make you horny?
Now, let's talk about child pr0n. Doesn't matter whether it's virtual or not -- if you're a pedophile, it will still make you want to go out and act on that, just as 'normal' pr0n does for the non-sexual-deviant.
Do you really think that stimulating child predators with pr0n -- even virtual pr0n -- is a good idea?
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... convincing a jury to dismiss photographic evidence -- including video from surveillance cameraIANAL, but I think video from surveillance cameras will be alright because all you have to do is have the person in charge of the surveillance swear the films haven't been altered. This would force the defense to posit that someone is trying to frame the defendant and is lying about the films being genuine. That would usually be considered unreasonable doubt (unless of course you've got some actual evicence and not just the accusation that the video is fake).
M'lud, I present exhibit A - a 1024-node renderfarm accompanied by a small army of animators and artists that we believe was used to fabricate exhibit B ;)
At the moment (as far as I'm aware - I have a friend who works in forensic IT who has a colleague that specialises in detecting doctored images and video), even the top-end CGI is relatively easy to distinguish from the real thing, especially where humans are involved (even more so for video). Whilst I agree there's a possibility that tech and skills capable of making realistic human animations and the like may only be a few years away, I still think it'll be a long time before such fare becomes indistinguishable from the real thing, and even if it was there'd be an inevitable paper trail (or lack of it) concerning the origin of the pics/vids.
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
Tofo encourages the slaughter of chickens?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
That's clearly not the argument. The connection is that, in order to view child porn, you have to acquire child porn, which means you are on the demand side of a trade, raising the price for child porn and thereby increasing the incentive for producing child porn. The only remaining question is: Does demand for CG child porn cause more actual child porn to be produced because the consumers are indifferent about the source of the pictures or does it not because real child porn and CG child porn are consumed by different people?
There may be an argument for legalizing and strictly controlling CG child porn, so that people who are aware of their sexual disorder and do not want children to get hurt have the option to stay legal, but I think this is not like computer games: The barrier between games and the real world does not need to hold up against one of the most basic drives. Also, the often-touted assumption with computer games is that people might transfer their game behavior to the real world, whereas with child porn there would only be the hope that a suppressed real world behavior stays suppressed as long as a surrogate is available. That is a very slim hope.
Fittingly, their art is an homage to Diego Velázquez.
Hard for a layman to tell a photo of a Velázquez from a photo of its model. Like everything else, today's artists just have better tools. A good painter could have fooled the FBI in 1920, only easier than with a computer-generated image today.
The cameras weren't as good then, so it would have been harder to tell a photo of a model from a photo of a painting of the model. The cameras were not in color. Nobody expected a photo of a painting to be anything but a photo.
Lets see any of you lay persons who haven't been trained in art make a photoshop image as good as a Velázquez painting.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I was in a jury for a case where a guy has child porn that he "made" using legal porn he found online, but photoshopped on the faces of young girls he knew (including a stepdaughter). In Virginia, we found him guilty because he "manufactured child porn", so it was almost as bad as having actual underage girls photographed in those scenes. It was an interesting case because of the legal definitions.
--- witty signature
Um, sez who? You and your baptist minister?
I'm an atheist. But nice bigotry.
People with anything resembling a healthy mental state are not moved to violent acts by pictures.
I didn't say it moves people to violent acts. But is often damaging to forming healthy relationships.
Having had a certain amount of exposure from the time I was 12, I feel qualified to comment that...
You are qualified to comment about yourself. That's like saying, "Having consumed alcohol since I was in High School, I feel qualified to conclude that alcohol is never harmful."
If masturbation strikes you as illegal and dangerous, perhaps porn is harmful.
Search for "porn addiction" and be educated. A lot of our brain wiring is devoted to seeking orgasms. Taken to excess, certain people basically can't get what they need anymore in real life and start living in a porn-fueled fantasy world that real life can never live up to, and that makes it very difficult to form real attachments. Porn is a relationship with all frosting and no cake.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
It's usually even easier than having to plant it on his laptop. (Not that that's hard either, given most people's security skills.)
Just post a few of those photos online, and chances are the Interpol will start wondering who's the adult child molester there. See, for example: Interpol appeal unmasks US actor as child abuse suspect.
There's even a funny bit at the end about another guy where the police had photos with his face "swirled" to hide his identity, so the police just reversed the filter. So you could even make it more damning by doing just that with that CG photo: apply some easy to undo Photoshop or Gimp filter, so it looks more believable. (After all, someone trying to frame him, wouldn't have tried to hide his face, right?;) Heck, if done right, it could even hide the imperfections of that CG photo.
There we go. No access to his laptop is needed.
Now, admittedly, actually planting it on the computer would make it easier to prosecute all the wayx through. But then again, if you just want to make someone's life hell for a few weeks, even the purely online version will do just fine.
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