this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2024
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We've had fake photos for over 100 years at this point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottingley_Fairies
Maybe it's time to do something about confirming authenticity, rather than just accepting any old nonsense as evidence of anything.
At this point anything can be presented as evidence, and now can be equally refuted as an AI fabrication.
We need a new generation of secure cameras with internal signing of images and video (to prevent manipulation), built in LIDAR (to make sure they're not filming a screen), periodic external timestamps of data (so nothing can be changed after the supposed date), etc.
I am very opposed to this. It means surrendering all trust in pictures to Big Tech. If at some time only photos signed by Sony, Samsung, etc. are considered genuine, then photos taken with other equipment, e.g., independently manufactured cameras or image sensors, will be dismissed out of hand. If, however, you were to accept photos signed by the operating system on those devices regardless of who is the vendor, that would invalidate the entire purpose because everyone could just self-sign their pictures. This means that the only way to effectively enforce your approach is to surrender user freedom, and that runs contrary to the Free Software Movement and the many people around the world aligned with it. It would be a very dystopian world.
It would also involve trusting those corporations not to fudge evidence themselves.
I mean, not everything photo related would have to be like this.
But if you wanted you photo to be able to document things, to provide evidence that could send people to prison or be executed...
The other choice is that we no longer accept photographic, audio or video evidence in court at all. If it can no longer be trusted and even a complete novice can convincingly fake things, I don't see how it can be used.
There's no need to make these things Big Tech, so if that's why you are opposed to it, reconsider what you are actually opposed to. This could be implemented in a FOSS way or an open standard.
So you not trust HTTPS because you'd have to trust big tech? Microsoft and Google and others sign the certificates you use to trust that your are sending your password to your bank and not a phisher. Like how any browser can see and validate certificates, any camera could have a validation or certificate system in place to prove that the data is straight from an unmodified validated camera sensor.
What in the world is going on with Elsie's hand in the "second of the five photographs?"
I was thinking about those pictures! The garden is magic enough without there needing to be fairies at the bottom of it. I'm not sure if the saying is linked to these forgeries, but I always kind of thought it was.