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Digital Photos Give Away a Camera's Make and Model

holy_calamity writes "Engineers at Polytechnic University Brooklyn have discovered that digital snaps shorn of any metadata still reveal the make and model of camera used to take them. It is possible to work backwards from the relationships of neighboring pixel values in a shot to identify the model-specific demosaicing algorithm that combines red, green, and blue pixels on the sensor into color image pixels. Forensics teams are already licking their chops."

8 of 260 comments (clear)

  1. Re:So What? by canajin56 · · Score: 5, Funny

    They don't have to. All they have to do is say they used forensics just like on CSI, and it shows it was taken by the same kind of camera you own. Sure, you can say there are a lot of them out there so it proves nothing. But you know who else says that? The bad guys on CSI, and their smug, latte drinking lawyers. Always demanding warrants and to be released if they aren't being charged with anything! EVIL

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    ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
  2. Re:stretch? by narcberry · · Score: 5, Funny

    Maybe so, but you still have the full size images on the camera. If someone were to get a hold of that they would be able to tell what camera took the images after a few weeks of intensive forensic study.

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    Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
  3. Re:stretch? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Joke------>
              You

  4. Re:So What? by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Funny
    "It's like knowing that a bank robber is a 6' tall blue-eyed blond male."

    A bank robber with THAT description really would stand out.

    Hardly any of them look like that from what I see on TV.

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    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  5. Re:stretch? by cunniff · · Score: 5, Funny

    Eric: Horatio, there does not look like there is any mosaicing information in this image.
    Horatio: Eric, that means the image was taken with a camera with a Foveon X3 sensor.
    Cally: Zeroing in on professional camera stores... I have an address
    Horatio (menacingly): Eric, get on it.

    Where's my CSI: Miami royalty check?

  6. Re:Raw images? by Facegarden · · Score: 4, Funny

    Put another way, it's easy to put soda in your mouth and have yellow stuff come out of your underbits, but very difficult to do the reverse.

    I'm never drinking Mountain Dew again.

    And you're probably better off. I think Mountain Dew is the byproduct of people who never quite realized that you can't make soda from pee... Well, unless you're NASA I suppose...
    -Taylor

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    Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
  7. Re:stretch? by XSpud · · Score: 4, Funny

    Seriously if you carried a suspect image around on a different camera you could now call an expert witness to show that it was not taken on this camera - and since the only other people who had access to the camera were the police it must be a frame.

    Commonly called a "picture frame" I believe.

  8. Re:stretch? by jeffmeden · · Score: 5, Funny

    You forgot the obligatory

    Horatio: It looks like this photographer captured... himself
    [Horatio puts sunglasses on over existing sunglasses]
    [music: Yeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh]