Detecting Faked Photographs Gets Easier

nusratt writes "Some years ago, an issue of 'Whole Earth' had a convincing cover-photo of a flying saucer cruising low over downtown San Francisco in broad daylight. The accompanying feature article proclaimed that photographs can no longer be trusted as evidence of anything, because of the ease of doctoring images digitally and undetectably. Now, Dartmouth Professor Hany Farid and graduate student Alin Popescu 'have developed a mathematical technique to tell the difference between a "real" image and one that's been fiddled with.' Farid says, 'as more authentication tools are developed it will become increasingly more difficult to create convincing digital forgeries'." There's also an NYT story.

So much for my faked photo of Rumsfeld & Sadda

[The I Shing]

Now they'll be able to prove that my photo of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam in 1983 is a fake.

Rumsfeld was really shaking hands with an alien, and Saddam was shaking hands with Elvis, but the resulting merger of the two photos was much more provocative.

I had developed a foolproof algorithm...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but it was only accurate when the photo contained an image of Admiral Ackbar.

practical use

[Slothy]

Run it on the goatse guy! If the results are positive I can finally start sleeping again.

Re:So much for my faked photo of Rumsfeld & Sa

[IamScared]

Worse.

Now my picutes with girls wont cause so much envy in my geek friends...

Bye Angelia Jolie...
Bye Liv Tyler...
Bye, bye..
I like you them all.

Shame on you, heart-breaking algorithms!

Re:Self Defeating

[John Biggabooty]

I don't know what the big deal is. Old style film photos can be fiddled with, but digital photographs cannot be faked, [uncoveror.com] and digital photography is taking over.

don't believe the parent post since...

[John Harrison]

it's a trap!

Re:What kind of digitized photos does this work on

[multiplexo]

Good point. I should have RTFAMA (Read the Fucking Article More Attentively). Of course someone is probably already working on a Photoshop plugin for "correct faked image distortions", which would be handy to have along with some other plugins such as "remove ex-significant other from picture", "reduce glassy-eyed drunken stare", and my all time number one request, "remove drunk friends standing around with dicks hanging out by your mouth when you're unconscious".

The whole thing's a fraud...

[MoeDrippins]

...or the guy faked his own photo for the article.

C'mon now. math geek... handsome... math geek... handsome...

Sorry, I'm not buyin' it.