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Visual Search Engine Tracks Stolen Images

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the get-your-eyes-off-my-graphics dept.

Barence writes "A new visual search engine could help photographers keep track of their photographs whenever, and wherever, they appear on the internet. The TinEye search engine allows users to search by uploading a picture rather than typing in a keyword. It then conducts a pixel-by-pixel search across the internet, flagging all instances of that image even if it's been cropped, merged or digitally altered in some way. It's not just for copyright enforcement though; 'it's being used by researchers who need to find where an image came from to provide attribution, even people who are trying to find out who people are in old photos.' It's currently in beta, but you can try it out."

11 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. Embedded Codes by s31523 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Images can also have an embedded code, i.e. steganography, which could possibly be used to speed up searching. This would allow the web crawler to know exactly which part of the image to look at to determine if it matches the key the crawler is looking for, rather than a brute force pixel by pixel search.

  2. Search by Text, 2D, 3D, or even Doodles! by gblackwo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    http://www.vizseek.com/

  3. Re:What would be really cool by Opportunist · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What would be even cooler is if you could search for transparent 1x1 pixels.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  4. Re:Kind of Misleading on the Old Photo Identificat by clone53421 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Now what would be handy would be if it could somehow sort them chronologically (maybe using the metadata, or maybe if the server will give the date-modified on the picture...). That would reduce the amount of searching if you knew you were going for the oldest known copy, e.g. you wanted to know where it originally came from + whatever info there was about the picture that might not be quoted elsewhere.

    --
    Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
  5. What is pornography? by Valacosa · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Submission of pornographic or illegal files is strictly prohibited. Do not submit any file that can be construed as pornography or is in violation of any law.

    How the hell am I supposed to know what their company considers pornography? Can I search for The Joy of Life by Henri Matisse?

    The company is based in Toronto rather than some ultra-conservative U.S. state; that gives me an epsilon more confidence the company won't take the "nudity = pornography" stance. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if a search equivalent to a risqué ad campaign in Europe would get you banned.

    --
    "Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
    1. Re:What is pornography? by JCSoRocks · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That does raise the question though... how are they determining who is searching for it? Is it based on the results? Image Z returned mostly results from sites whose primary keywords were "porn" and "XXX" so this image is probably porn. Do they have a human just randomly check? or check the ones that the aforementioned programmatic filter found? It seems like there'd be a lot of room for error...

      --
      You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
  6. Bye-bye pseudonyms by giles+hogben · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Anyone who tries to hide behind a pseudonym but posts photos of themselves is now outed by this thing. The first such tools were used by forensic researchers to catch criminals.

  7. Are you sure? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Can you provide a permalink to your searches with the shifted pixel and without? (Just copy the url in the address bar)

    You'd need to move a *lot* of pixels to make it not work.

    - shazow

  8. Million dollar ideas by camperdave · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I've had many great ideas that somone else had already implemented stage 2 before I could:
    • Drive through window on doughnut/coffee shops. I saw my first one about three months after I had the idea.
    • Building a universal remote control into a Star Trek phaser or tricorder housing and selling them at conventions. That idea died as soon as I googled it.
    • Adding a button on your TV that makes your remote control beep, so you can find the thing when it decides to walk away. Again.

    Steps 1 and 2 of your plan are not the easiest things in the world. Chances are if you've managed Step 1, someone else has already done Step 2 and is merrily working on Step 3.

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  9. robots.txt by SysPig · · Score: 2, Interesting

    My robots.txt excludes access to my huge collection of images.

    So, either one can prevent discovery by this tool in a very simple way, or it ignores robots.txt. Which is it?

  10. This impressed me... by danamania · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I found quite a different result. I nabbed an old photoshopped pic I did a few years ago, and uploaded it. TinEye came back with two results, being the two source images from the photos. That's impressed the hell out of me.

    Gatesfeld search results

    For the full size photoshopped version, Gatesfeld if you want to try the search yourselves.