Slashdot Mirror
Lawmakers Worry About Rise of Fake Video Technology (thehill.com)
Lawmakers are concerned that advances in video manipulation technology could set off a new era of fake news. Now legislators say they want to start working on fixes to the problem before it's too late. From a report: Technology experts have begun to sound the alarm on the new software, which lets users take existing videos and make high-quality altered video and audio that appears real. The emergence of the technology opens up a new world of hoaxes driven by doctored audio or video, and threatens to shake faith in the media even further. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), one of the most vocal members of Congress on tech issues, painted a grim picture about what the advances could mean for the future of discerning truth in media. "Since we can't rely on the responsibility of individual actors or the platforms they use, I fully expect there will be a proliferation of these sorts of fictions to a degree that nearly drowns out actual facts," Wyden told The Hill. "For those who value real information, there will still be some reliable publications and news outlets, and their credibility will need to be guarded all the more intently by professional journalists," he added.
The media desperately want to keep a lock on being the only ones who can manipulate video for propaganda use.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I trust the media but I do not trust the people working in it nor the people they interview.
"To summarize [...]: people are a problem." — Douglas Adams
#DeleteFacebook
...there is absolutely Fuck-All they can do about it.
So, what they're saying is the media has to hire real journalists now and actually do their job correctly instead of bumming off reddit and twitter posts?
That worked out well, didn't it?
Wow. A story that mentions digital image manipulation that doesn't contain the word "AI". Impressive!
The said that with the Amiga's Video Toaster. Yes kiddies, that was a thing. What we need is for the media to get out of our lives and people to turn of their devices and see what reality really is. I feel like we live in a Videodrome more and more each day.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
Trusted sources of video will have digital signatures to tell apart hoax from non hoax...
I don't trust the media. This trust was lost back in the late 1990s to 2000s when journalism went from breaking the news to selling sensantionalistic bullshit to get eyeballs. I have had reporters try to get into various social groups just so they could take quotes out of context, so they can show the local goths/rivetheads/etc. are evil incarnate.
Of course, it just made for foreign intrusion. It now is trivial for propaganda and outright lies to be spread around. On Facebook, people share the stuff left and right without questioning it. The Russians have benefited greatly, because their wedges against pro and anti-gun Americans have caused the US to divide further, especially around election time (where I live, early voting starts today.)
Now, because the media lost the trust, it will be almost impossible to regain it. The press cannot even get the proper weapon type named, much less be accurate about details on events. They are good at causing people to fight it out and hate each other.
It is no wonder, for the sake of national stability, why Europe, Australia, Japan, China, and even Iran are coming down on the press. In past eras, it would be censorship. Now, it is defending against enemy propaganda.
The loss of faith in MSM is entirely self inflicted. They've been caught time and again faking on location scenes, reporting entirely unfounded stories which when disproved they are slow to retract, and they bias their stories with a slant to their political ideology. It's gotten so bad even people of like mind are starting to get wise and tune out. Whenever I see a "breaking news" headline now I look for at least five sources before I even consider it might be real. They are so hyper focused on finding something to rag on the the current presidency they ignore news that Americans are actually interested in.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
If you can't trust anything digital you can only believe your own eyes.
Welcome to the future.
Bitch, please. People have been whining about the media forever and the only thing that's changed is the speed at which news, whether legit or propaganda, is spread.
1990s or 2000s? My guess is that was when you were born if you're that naive.
to those old Weird Al Yankovic interviews compared to what they have today.
A ton of work has been done on real time "photoshop". Like a lot of things the vanguard here was Adult movies and advertisements (I'm reminded of another old movie). Folks have been thinking about this and working on it for decades.
What we need is more education (and clean, lead free water and air). We probably also need to lessen deep seated religious devotion (since it tends to foster unquestioned obedience to authorities). Basically, we need an electorate that isn't just capable of critical thinking, but for whom critical thinking is the default state of being. This is all doable, but I'm not sure you can get Americans to pay for it. We get upset when we're told to pay for making other folks better.
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"there will still be some reliable publications and news outlets, and their credibility will need to be guarded all the more intently by professional journalists,"
He said professional journalists.... hahahahahaha
There are none. Everyone is a hack, working for someone with an agenda. Right, Left... it does not matter which.
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
I liked the video of a CNN cameraman acting as a protestor and the host back in the studio accidently called him out.
Or the other CNN video where the woman on the street was telling them how to act when they went live a few seconds before she realized it.
Or the other CNN video with the focus group where the interviewer of the group was coaching the person what to say when they ended up live a few seconds early again.
Now at least CNN can make the claim that they are fake videos and not them making up the news they report on.
Yeah, they are going to ban fake videos! It's gonna work just as well as banning underage drinking, poverty, pot smoking, illegal guns, prostitution, and all the other things Washington has banned! If you don't like something, pass a law against it, and it magically disappears! That's what Ron Wyden believes, and he doesn't let facts get in the way of what he holds dear and true!
Blockchain could possibly be used to record the checksum of an image or video at (or near) the time of its creation. If the media is changed at a later date, the checksum would not match what was recorded in the blockchain. This would would not totally fix the problem, but at least you could know whether or not that the media had not been altered.
the same can be said about politicians, how do we know these are their true ideals and motivations or as a puppet actor. i smell a Manchurian actor like usual.
all sorts of news and video feeds are the nature of a free press and free and protected speech.
what? politicians believe only professional journalists who have a business license and some sort of corporate BS charter are to be trusted? yeah right!
doesn't pay to be a news source anymore or a politicians unless you are corrupted by your lobbyist and advertiser dollars.
I'll stick with slashdot and keep it real. even when slashdot seems a bit twisted atleast we all know can smell what we are stepping in, right?
caiou!
Hollywood has been churning out a fake reality for over a hundred years. But now that "average Joe" can do the same thing, it is evil and must be stopped.
Whether it's the control of information (fake news) or the direct control of money (Bitcoin), the traditional holders of power are about to be dethroned.
The only thing they can still cling to is the military.
This is the biggest threat to the Donald Trump presidency... that people will uncover the facts and display them on the internet
Yeah that's what Trump Haters keep saying but every time truth comes out he just gets more popular.
I especially enjoyed the most recent escapade of the media where they thought revealing he had sex with porn stars and Playboy models would make him LESS popular. Hilarious, and at the same time destroyed the old meme they had been trying to spread that he was fat and ugly.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
From the days of alt.english.usage and (original) snopes, I have been fascinated by the Great Red Spots - dynamically metastable islands of sanity in the midst of a howling wilderness. The ability to curate such spaces, and their value, will soon have to include cryptographically signed original media. The trust capital earned for such a brand will be subject to unrelenting efforts to capture it. You know, the old skin suit game. Now taken to the next level
Back in the usenet days someone posted about TV news saying Dan Rather and Barbara Walters are celebrities not journalists. He went on about as a journalist he walks the walk and talks the talk. He interviewed more politicians and criminals than anyone else would care to do. And he simply would write what he saw and heard.
But simply reporting what happened can be problematic as pointed out in other comments many thought of FH launch as fake. Then you have the other topic about "fake videos" where the simulation is so good people have a difficult time distinguishing real and fake. Add to that media is a business, editorials are written like news stories, headline are designed to be clickbaits.
There was a time when FCC requirement for a TV station license is station had to broadcast news part of the time. Station or networks get money broadcasting entertainment and sports, the news bureau was an expense to meet FCC requirements so the newsmen were not concerned if news stories make money or not (they still want to scoop the story before others but did spend time to be sure it is correct otherwise would be laughing stock).
mfwright@batnet.com
Fake news and the people who look at it are a self-perpetuating echo chamber. The rise of new ways to create fake news doesn't change the impact or prevalence as those who believe in that garbage don't need some advanced fake video to cement their beliefs. As it is they aren't swayed by logic or reality so why should these videos make the situation any worse?
Just search for youtube conspiracies that that prove the planes hitting the WTC were digital fakes to see what I mean.
This won't change the status quo.
Was started over exactly that sort of MSM falsified information.
The fact that it has taken a century for the bias to become publicly prevalent enough for people to start either tuning out or distrusting MSM is pretty disappointing.
Also, does anyone else think 'Qualcomm' when they see MSM mentioned in articles/comments?
This was all inevitable. I knew this would happen ever since I saw Total Recall.
Umm, how about digital signatures?
The idea of fake news isn't new. It's been easy to print complete fabrications since Gutenberg. The real problem is uncritical consumption of "information."
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Lawmakers now need to decide if they want to continue to wage a war on encryption, OR embrace cryptography.
I'm sure there could be a standards based mechanism which would allow a PKI Signing of video with the content being either a QR code in a corner, or something embedded/hidden.
give the camera a Smartcard reader, and the video guy the PIN to the card. bam.
i smell a Manchurian actor like usual.
So do I. Don't look now - he's inside your post!
The loss of faith in MSM is entirely self inflicted. They've been caught time and again faking on location scenes, reporting entirely unfounded stories which when disproved they are slow to retract, and they bias their stories with a slant to their political ideology. It's gotten so bad even people of like mind are starting to get wise and tune out. Whenever I see a "breaking news" headline now I look for at least five sources before I even consider it might be real. They are so hyper focused on finding something to rag on the the current presidency they ignore news that Americans are actually interested in.
And it ain't just the Russians... Russians were indicted because they apparently didn't fill out the right paperwork. Go look at all the organizations funneling money around that 419 REGISTERED FOREIGN AGENTS actively trying to influence US policy, politics and elections.
Ban all the foreign agents and see if our press actually starts being pro-America again.
I wonder if congresscritters watch Marvel films. I also wonder if Slashdotters can see a relationship between the overabundance of CGI and fake video. Hmmm. We must stamp this out. Soon as we find a cure for the common cold and people using cell phones.
For the very same reason those with political power are obsessed with disarming citizens, and currently working to regulate speech online, you'll find that they'll soon be obsessed with regulating this technology too. Why? Because all of those technologies democratize things that used to be out of reach for ordinary people. Before firearms, things like the French, American, and Russian revolutions would have been impossible. The power to engage in unopposed mass political violence was taken from nation states by the advent of cheap firearms that could be used by anyone. Now that most of the globe is getting online the power to control the flow of information is now also being taken from state actors and the economic elite, much to their chagrin. Finally, deep fake video technology will take away from them the monopoly on professionally doctored video footage. It will also shake the public's faith in video sufficiently enough to remove the propaganda potential of doctored video. This will leave the current status quo scrambling.
Citizen journalism is a cherished tradition. Without it, you can become dependent on everything from a blundering Paul Harvey to a deranged sociopath like Joseph Goebbels.
Like CNN's Anderson Cooper's nose disappears (greenscreen FAKING NEWS) https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=%22anderson+cooper+nose+disappears%22&btnG=Google+Search&gbv=1/
* Need I say more?
(It's RIGHT UP THERE w/ Cooper also saying "George Soros was not a nazi collaborator" - apparently he didn't realize there is a 60 minutes reel of footage of SOROS ADMITTING HE SOLD HIS FELLOW JEWS & THEIR BELONGING TO HITLER!)
APK
P.S.=> "... For the FINEST in FAKE NEWS, look NO FARTHER than CNN folks..." apk
We already have laws for this. Perhaps they need expanded upon for doctored video and audio, but prior to the rise of video, libel laws seemed to work fine for keeping newspapers and the media honest.
Photoshop's a thing.
We all know that pictures can be seamlessly and basically indetectibly edited...so we're skeptical, even of images.
This just extends that to video.
Personally, I believe that the only people who should fear this are the people WHO HAVE ALREADY HAD THAT CAPABILITY, effectively losing (or at least devaluing) their secret monopoly.
So tell me again why I should be sadface that the government and media don't like people generally having this capability?
-Styopa
and they would be the biggest user and producer of fake videos for political purposes. Of course they don't want anyone else to be able to do it. America doesn't want peace and cooperation, their actions in the past decades have proven that much.
To my mind out and out presenting faked footage is like doping in sport, it's cheating.
The news is fake in part because we like it that way. Sure we know that the person on screen is lying and misleading but it's part of the entertainment. When it's done well we can admire how people onscreen are able to misrepresent reality better than we could. For example I respect Kelly Conway's skills (especially compared to Sarah Sanders' amateurish attempts) and that would be a lost art if the alternative were to simply cut to one of David Daleiden's videos
Nullius in verba
It's been shaken for over 50 years
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wofs8ZpcXlM
Law makers just want to make sure their own faces don't show up, they don't care about anyone else.
Claude Elsinore: And I’d like to point out that these tapes have not been faked, or altered in any way. In fact they have time coding, which is very hard to fake.
The Judge: Would you please explain for the court “time coding.”
Claude Elsinore: Well, uh, just because I don’t know what it is, it doesn’t mean I’m lying.
Russian Trollski comment. Everything sucks... in Russia. We are doing just fine here in the USA where we have the best media. USA USA USA!
Not that this is overly practical or ultimately secure. But the problem is that the *original* can now easily be altered by too many evil monkeys (not that this is a surprise).
One counter measure that offers some–if not even nearly perfect–protection would be to go back to analog/analogue. Sure, photographic film has always been retouched and altered for ill reasons (seems all totalitarian regimes are experts in that – hey, Russia ...). But altering movie film is fairly painful, especially on smaller formats (lots of really small pictures like Super 8). And at least right now it would have to be done by hand.
I have no doubt that technologies can be created to alter photographic movie film automatically, and maybe even do so convincingly (i.e., scrutiny of the original film does not reveal the changes). And you could certainly copy a film (or digitize and "re-film") and inject changes in the copying process. But doing all this takes more and different (!!) hardware, skill, and general resources than are required to perform video editing of digital film files on a computer. It certainly takes much longer. At some point you can fake almost anything, some kind of trust and/or "system" would be needed to create a reasonably well "non-faked" film. Still, not entirely impossible.
Not that all this is a long term solution. But I have been wondering for a while whether some photo journalists would go back to shooting analog film just so that they can more believably claim that what they show has not been doctored with.
I shoot film (again) because it makes me do photography. Digital cameras let me take pictures. I do not say this to flaunt a snobbish attitude, it's just how it works for me. Film is cumbersome, in many ways limiting, but also strangely liberating and most certainly easier to archive long term. And it takes more effort to fake.
Do your own thing. And overdo it!
I don't recall the last time I saw CNN doing this. Nor the Washington Post or NY Times. Heck, Jon Oliver & the Daily Show are both meticulously researched (as Oliver put it, they have to be or they'd be sued into oblivion by the mega corps they periodically go after).
I suppose you could say that about Fox News. You might even say the same about Politico and Mother Jones. Though those two aren't exactly MSM and Fox News themselves claims to be an entertainment network (that's how they get out of equal time rules and the like). But for most of Main Stream Media there's enough cross checking going on that you don't get too many stories that count as fake.
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that doesn't mean I want it legalized (drugs, OTOH, I _do_ want legalized, but that's another conversation).
Some things _should_ be illegal. And for law to be fair there needs to be specifics about what is and isn't illegal. Right now this tech is so new there isn't much of anything on the books to address it. That makes it possible, even likely, that somebody could do something to ruin your life (stopping just short of framing your for a crime) and get away with it.
Let's say you're applying to Google and I videoshop you into a white supremacist rally. Is that illegal? Heck, it might not even be libel.
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What could possibly go wrong??
Once upon a time, a picture was worth a thousand words (and few of them required any careful thought). Those days are over.
Who are you going to believe? Me, or your own lying eyes?
Once upon a time, that was a punch line. Those days are over, too.
Somewhere in Africa is the next Wolfgang Beltracchi, and soon he'll be earning his PhD in human–computer collaboration by moonlighting on Amazon Turk.
I skimmed a book on money laundering recently by a world authority in undercover tactics. He was too much the bigoted cop for me to make it all the way through the book (no court has ever done anything right, with a hint of anal rape as just deserts).
He did explain the fascination with overvalued art, though, before I bailed. It's already so hard to tell good art from bad, the mule can slip a pricey painting beside a couple of pieces of crap for the cottage, and customs will rarely notice the difference. Then some drug dealer from Bolivia will buy it at a substantial Sotheby's discount, and stick it in the upstairs guest bedroom of his third home, where it functions much like Bitcoin: valued more for its cross-border portability in a dirty laundry crunch than its ability to ever escape the black market.
Once Interpol deploys their own ANN image ferret, the era of antique coloured canvas as a poor man's Bitcoin will also draw to a close.
Putting aside all the criticism or futility of trying to deal with the widespread fake information, it is a real problem to democracies. Media is the so called forth pillar of democracy intended to check and balance the other 3 (legislative, executive and judicial). This is the pillar, which makes society check upon their representatives and without it or with a dysfunctional one democracy cease to function, especially when people either do not give a damn or do not have time to give a damn.
At the moment in the US there are already enclaves of alternative realities, and more and more bridges are being shuttered, history teaches us what usually comes next.
BTW, being cynical will not help.
that someone will create fake videos of them acting in the public's interest.
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
We are heading there, aren't we?
Start requiring video recording devices to to add EXIF style data to a video file. It should at least give enough of a fingerprint to let people know if video has been transposed, or modified in an unusually way from the devices profile.
can't wait to see the faked rejection of the repeal of the 2nd amendment. that'll keep the gun nuts and nra happy!
Believe none of what you hear, half of what you see. Verify everything. Most of the third world already knows this (where they don't expect gruberment to "protect them").
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I was not aware that Canada had been annexed by Russia. We do share similar seasons (cold, less cold and colder) but other than that...
#DeleteFacebook
Yet outrage was limited about script kiddie tools... ...
They don't even know
there is no reason to trust them, they are there to make money and are under the control of business and the elite.
Never allow audio or video recordings of press conferences to happen.
I think if there is no technological fix for this then we will enter an era where politicians will not speak on camera in a public setting, and maybe not even in a controlled one (depending on the technological solutions that may come to pass)
Its real :)
[($)]
> Is there some kind of dedicated site that archives incidents like these?
Youtube for starters. Go to Google and enter
newsman in canoe
in the search field. You get stuff like
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
The phrase "Main Stream Media" is a bug-a-boo of the right. Like Dog Whistling your intentions were clear. It didn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out what you were on about.
/. you're not one of them, you're one of us.
Also you're moving the goal post. You attacked the media for falsified stories and now your saying the stories don't need to be false.
And now you're just making up stories. I guess the good news is that to anyone on the fence your silly hyperbole will put them off. The bad news is there's lots of folks like yourself who've bought into the clap trap being pushed by right wing, pro-corporate media.
I suppose it's possible your one of those Russian trolls I keep hearing about, or just a regular troll. If it's the former, well, I can't argue with who signs your paychecks. If it's the latter, you're not helping yourself. You're actively hurting yourself. Don't kid yourself, the right are not your friends. They're going to eat you alive (and your family if you've got one). Their goals are clear: lower wages and fewer protections for the working class. If you've got time to post to
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people make mistakes. Also, it doesn't help that the gunman (no longer alleged, he's confessed) _is_ a White supremacist. I'm aware retractions don't get as many page views, but in this case I'm not so sure it's such a big deal. The bigger news to me is that there's somebody out there who's such a nut case that the white supremacists looked at him and say "uh... no" and he still had an AR-15.
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