New Photo Fraud Detection Software

An anonymous reader writes "CNet is reporting that Hany Farid, Professor of Computer Science and applied mathematics at Darthmouth College, has developed a new version of his Image Science Group's photo fraud software now in use by the FBI and large media organizations. The current software is written in Matlab, but the new version will be written in Java making it much more readily available to local police and smaller media organizations. From the article: 'I hope to have a beta out in the next six months,' Farid said. 'Right now, you need someone who is reasonably well-trained to use it.'"

open source?

[YrWrstNtmr]

"Will you be able to get a copy of the Java-based version of the Image Science Group's applications? Probably not. One of the dilemmas of this type of software is that the more widespread the distribution, the more chance forgers will exploit it to their advantage."

followed by -

"...the software will be made freely available under an open-source license.
--
"Taxpayers," he said, "are paying me to do this research and it needs to go back out." "

Which is it?

This article likes to contradict itself

[icydog]

As pointed out earlier, apparently the source code won't be released but it is open-source. Interesting.

Anyways, also FTFA:

Still, around 1 percent of accepted articles contain manipulated images that do significantly affect the results, said executive editor Mike Rossner. Those papers get rejected.

So do they get accepted or rejected?

Re:open source?

[aussie_a]

Those aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. He said access will be limited, most likely to police, FBI and other government agencies. But if those agencies want to enhance it, or make it better, they'll be able to do so under the open source license. The license may have a clause that limits who can get access to the software, but for those who are able to access it, typical OS rights are given to them.

Or he might not know what he's talking about, and/or wanted to use the term "open source" for good free publicity.

Re:what could go wrong?

[titzandkunt]

"...What could possibly go wrong?..."

Well, memory leaks and array bounds probably won't go wrong ;-)

Looking at some benchmarks [idiom.com] for numerical processing using Java, it appears to stack up quite well agains C++ at least.

Yeah I know, what exactly is being measured, are the benchmarks relevant, are any benchmarks relevant, blah blah blah. Just pointing out that the parent's postulated x60 slowdown is a trifle pessimistic.

T&K

A matter of time

[BiDi]

Just a matter of time before this application gets it's brother: "the simulator".

It uses the same algorithms in a slightly different way: instead of checking for the signs of forgery it finds the tell-tale signs of modification and then reverse-modifies them to "what-should-be-there" to make an "original" modified image.

The result will be an image that is ofcourse different only from mathematical standpoint - visual information will be the same. If that wouldn't be true I would love to have an application that "unblurs" or "unblackouts" the censored parts of some pictures.

Image will have after processing the properties of an "original" because the signs of "not-original" will be detected and "fixed". Way to go... :D

MMMM. My first test to beat this would be.

[AgNO3]

Once you have the comp in done in your image editor with as little pixel and grain distortions as possible. Try the following. Note this does require a $5000 set of plugins http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/ [thefoundry.co.uk] Furnace (no not the After deffects set) and the $5000 program them run in. http://www.eyeonline.com/ [eyeonline.com] or http://www.apple.com/shake [apple.com] http://www.d2software.com/ [d2software.com] (and yes a few others in the $100k+ range) In fact I might even do the whole comp in my film compositor with the use of some other tools. Anyway. Comp elements use historgram matching to match elements in the shot that should have the same color ranges. (You could do a color overlay in PS.) Ok now you have a good comp with good edges or edge blending and light wraps. You completely degrain the shot with furnace (each element seperatly degrained) You then regrain the shot as a whole. degraining and regraining work on all three color plates seperatly so when you regrain the shot it should be adding basically another blending of the of the colors making them uniform to what the original piece of film would have been. Now you take that file and do a film out of that. That is a very simlified break down of the technique. Many of the steps for each step are left out. My basic assumption is that the software looks for irregularities in the pixels deformations, areas of transition, and color offsets in the comp. I would love to go up against this software. (not that I would win but it would be fun to try as long as someone else is paying for the film outs and scans :-).) OH and if your source and destination or supposed to be film you probably want a drum scan not a CCD scan.

Re:open source?

[trollable]

Could you argue please? AFAIK, FS and OSS are similar for this question.
OSD: 5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups. The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.

Re:open source?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Or he might not know what he's talking about, and/or wanted to use the term "open source" for good free publicity.

Odds are something got lost in translation. I met the guy a few years back and he's quite sharp and very nice and unpretentious. He gave me a copy of the paper this work is based on. I thought at the time he should commercialize it. Open source would be even better.

Anyway, the paper was published and an algorithm should be able to be implemented by anybody with the appropriate skills. So, somebody could do a GPL version even if he doesn't.

The company I was with at the time wasn't smart enough to accept his offer to collaborate on some research. Just as well for him, I say.