Image Analysis and Verification To Track Pictures

kodiaktau writes "Computer scientist Landon Cox and students at Duke University are working in conjunction with researchers at Microsoft and Technicolor Research to design and develop image analysis tools to identify changes to pictures and videos. The technology, called YouProve, compares original images to create a trust certificate that can be compared against derivative images and produce a heat-map of changes (PDF) between the two. This can be of particular importance when reviewing large amounts of crowd-sourced content to see if image tampering has occurred."

Comments

I want the firefox/chrome Add-On

[gurps_npc]

Android add-on does not interest me. Make it a Firefox add-on so I can check the pictures I see on facebook/eharmony/j-date/okcupid/match pictures, and you have something interesting.

Re:I want the firefox/chrome Add-On

[MobyDisk]

I bet it is tough to do in Javascript.

Re:I want the firefox/chrome Add-On

[icebraining]

Firefox addons can have binary libraries, which can be called by Javascript.

they're saving a DIFF. big deal.

[Anonymous Coward]

So they are saving a DIFF along with the original image inside its metadata. So what? You need the original and modified image to create the diff. By sending the diff along with the original you're doing nothing other than sending two pictures. I see no use for this at all.

Shop Contest

[Thelasko]

Sounds like they are developed a new method to analyze the results of a photoshop contest.

Re:"Trusted" hardware, no thanks

[RDW]

Welcome to a future where every photo you take can be uniquely attributed to the device used to produce it, registered to you.

Nikon and Canon SLRs have had 'image authentication' for a while now. A supposedly secret private key embedded in the camera's firmware may be used to sign each image file, which can then be validated with a public key (generally using an expensive software package sold mainly to forensics people). Camera serial numbers (probably recorded with your purchase) are also embedded in the files (at least in Nikon raw files), so the original images are intended to be verifiably traceable as well as tamper-evident. However, the authentication feature is optional (off by default) and both Nikon and Canon's systems have now been cracked wide open:

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/05/nikon_image_aut.html

You can't stop the serial number being embedded in the file, though (verifiable or not), so be careful who you give original images to...

This will kill email hoaxes

[Hsien-Ko]

FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Snopes, your days are numbered.

Re:"Trusted" hardware, no thanks

[Samantha Wright]

A less tinfoil-y way of looking at it might be "Only trusted hardware can possibly produce images with legitimate fidelity certificates. The algorithm for making fidelity certificates is available. Nothing stops me from forging a fidelity certificate after the fact. This is no way to protect an image's fidelity."

Congratulations, you re-invented fragile w.marks

[hardtofindanick]

Read

Another case of CS guys now knowing about existing EE research.

Re:How is this useful?

[nescientist]

The alleged utility in verifying crowd-sourced images is a distraction, piggybacking on the occupy wall street thing, from this obvious commercial reality. Microsoft and Technicolor do not give a damn about keeping riot police honest by verifying cell phone pictures. They want to automate the otherwise expensive process of assessing fair use.

Difference Layer

[Nom du Keyboard]

And how hard is this compared to keeping a known original and applying it as a difference layer to the suspected altered image? That could look like a heat map.

Re:"Trusted" hardware, no thanks

[folderol]

Coming next week, an app that will scan your hard drive and remove all identifying metadata from every image file it finds.

What am I missing!?

[cwire4]

I'd like to see how well it handles subtler modifications. Rather than blocking out someone's face, what about photoshopping the face like is done in magazines? Like someone else said this doesn't seem much more advanced than a difference layer if you're required to have the original image for comparison. Is the novelty here that it's running on android?

Re:What am I missing!?

[blackest_k]

sounds like another tool to attempt to keep those damn pirates at bay.

I was reading an article at forensic focus about a tool aimed at youtube downloader to identify media that had been format shifted from the original and "pirated" from youtube.

Seems that having a local copy of somethingyou could click and play on youtube is going to be a copyright violation, maybe it is but a pretty trivial one of course if you can get stupid amount of money for each infringing file found on some poor saps hard drive...

http://articles.forensicfocus.com/2011/10/07/youdetect-implementing-the-principles-of-statistical-classifiers-and-cluster-analysis-for-the-purposes-of-classifying-illegally-acquired-multimedia-files-i/

Check out Tineye

[John Sokol]

http://www.tineye.com/ is very cool, you give them a photo and they will search for it, or even photo's that have part of it.

I have some idea of what sorts of algorithms they must be using, but this seems to be a real advancement.

I have a OS-wide tiny tool for you that is better!

[Anonymous Coward]

Have they really just re-invented the "diff" command??

Here is the same thing, but better, using Imagemagick:
composite 1.bmp 2.bmp -compose Difference temp1.bmp
convert temp1.bmp -fill red -tint 200 temp2.bmp
composite 1.bmp temp2.bmp -compose Screen out.bmp

There, done.
And this handy script, when you adapt the coordinates/sizes, and put it on a shortcut, allows you to cheat on any "find the differences" game and get the shortest times ever. (Requires bash, KSnapshot, qdbus, grep, ImageMagick, Gwenview and wmctrl. But it's easily adaptable.)

#!/bin/bash
BASE="/tmp/"
cd $BASE
S="$(date +'%N').bmp"
ksnapshot &
P=$(qdbus | grep ksnapshot)
while [ ! "$P" ]; do
    sleep 1
    P=$(qdbus | grep ksnapshot)
done
qdbus $P /KSnapshot save "$BASE/$S" > /dev/null
qdbus $P /KSnapshot exit &
convert $S -crop 345x452+294+420 1.bmp
convert $S -crop 345x452+641+420 2.bmp
composite 1.bmp 2.bmp -compose Difference temp1.bmp
convert temp1.bmp -fill red -tint 200 temp2.bmp
composite 1.bmp temp2.bmp -compose Screen out.bmp
gwenview $BASE/out.bmp &
while [ ! "$(wmctrl -l | grep -i gwenview)" ]; do
    sleep 1
done
wmctrl -r gwenview -b remove,fullscreen
wmctrl -r gwenview -e 0,1000,400,400,500
wmctrl -r gwenview -b add,above
rm $S 1.bmp 2.bmp temp1.bmp temp2.bmp
while [ "$(wmctrl -l | grep -i gwenview)" ]; do
    sleep 1
done
rm out.bmp

There, a couple of minutes on Slashdot, and we already came up with something better than Duke University and Microsoft is probably weeks.
And this is why I think playing with colorful clickables does not make you a computer user but a appliance user. Automating your work away makes you a computer user. :)

Re:I have a OS-wide tiny tool for you that is bett

[Anonymous Coward]

Now do it when you only send the edited image to your photo proofing service, adding that the second picture is actually zoomed in slightly.

Re:I have a OS-wide tiny tool for you that is bett

[wzzzzrd]

Bump. Can someone mod this up? That's the stuff I came for to /. in the first place, ages ago. You know, actually interesting ideas instead of this fanboihateboigoldengirlsboi crap that's showing up more and more often.

Re:"Trusted" hardware, no thanks

[RDW]

Probably a one-liner with exiftool!:

http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/exiftool_pod.html#writing_examples

Unfortunately, doing this to Nikon raw files damages them for downstream processing, as the serial number is one of the keys for Nikon's lame encryption scheme that 'protects' white balance data.

Planting facade

[domstroi]

Performed planting facade neighbor. He was very pleased. I recommend.