4 ms·

I have to agree that this will be inevitable. Fake videos _will_ be created to spread misinformation. I bring you no solutions. Our best programmatic tool for

• bytematic 8y ago
  Can we develop something to put in videos that are real? Maybe something built into the software or maybe even some icon you have to hold up behind someone like the president to at least make deepfakes difficult/impossible? Just spit-balling as I also see no point in video analysis
  • zzzcpan 8y ago
    We already have developed something. Only thing missing now is cultural shift in the media to apply a little bit of effort into signing videos.
    • sp332 8y ago
      That might be solving the wrong problem. You could believe that a video is from a particular journalist, but you might not trust that the journalist didn't tamper with the video before publishing it.
  • prepend 8y ago
    You need to develop a unique, unpredictable set of expressions that deepfake will be unable to fake. Or perhaps active tattoos that display private key signed messages that describe what they’re saying and doing.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• creaghpatr 8y ago
  The only thing that can be done is use contextual evidence to disprove the possibility of a video being real but that puts a disproportionate on the victim of a fake video. Will the government be in the business of commenting on the veracity of whatever video(s) they anticipate coming? And if they say it's fake (or real), will the public believe them?
  • sp332 8y ago
    It will go back to being like a newspaper, where you can fake-quote anybody saying anything. Only established sources with some reputation on the line will be trustable. A random citizen won't be able to whip out a cell phone and get evidence that will be taken seriously. Credibility will be more centralized again.
• zzzcpan 8y ago
  To make it feasible you don't need much, just journalists signing videos and uploading them somewhere besides publishing anywhere unsigned. This will make every unsigned video easily verifiable, just not with crypto.
  • binarymax 8y ago
    That's fine for journalists, but does nothing to prevent fakes captured by the populace. A good deal of our journalism now is by on scene witnesses. What can we do about fakes posted on social media purported to be the real capture of some scandal or event?
    • fooey 8y ago
      I think what we'll see is something less like the Jordan Peele version of Obama based on a public clip, and something more like a faked version of the Romney 47% video Start with something naturally unfocused and exists only as a one off original, and it would be extremely hard to disprove without comparing it to other video of the same event.
    • JetSpiegel 8y ago
      We are already vulnerable to this attack, they are just called "viral marketing campaigns".
  • 21 8y ago
    In the last years there have been quite a few cases of journalists resigning from very prestigious publications (NYT, ...) because they were caught fabricating news.
    • zzzcpan 8y ago
      Yeah, well, it doesn't matter much whether they use false information or not, as their purpose is to paint a picture they want people to see either way.
  • msla 8y ago
    > To make it feasible you don't need much, just journalists signing videos and uploading them somewhere besides publishing anywhere unsigned. And in order to implement that, you'll be talking to people who'd sign a video by getting a pen, some paper, and a flatbed scanner. I'm not entirely joking. My point is that this proves that there comes a point in every field where technical illiteracy goes from being annoying for you (you can't use the best tools anymore, and your workflow is now sub-par) to annoying for others (you can't collaborate effectively) to completely unworkable, as when your work product is now worthless because you can't demonstrate it isn't a cheap forgery. And some people are just not technical, through stubbornness or otherwise. This transition will hurt. Maybe tools will follow the demand. I'm not entirely sanguine.
• isostatic 8y ago
  The last 20 years certain elements have been pushing distrust and hatred for both politicians and journalists. However I'd hope that we move to some agreed standard of signing of videos, so their source can be confirmed by the player. It doesn't matter if that source is the bbc, washington post, alex jones, national enquirer, the onion, or "Bob Joe Billy-Bob the Third", it means you know where the video came from, and can trust (or not) it based on that information. A video with a bbc banner showing the president saying something could easily be faked. One that is signed by the BBC will only be fake if the BBC itself is publishing it as a fake, and that comes with a reputational impact. Sites that reversion that video (recompress it etc) can simply sign it by themselves. They could claim that they took an original BBC item to do it, and then it's how much you trust that site. People see someone, be it Donald Trump, or John Simpson, or Walter Mondale, and instinctively know that person said what they can see. That's changing, and it's going to be a long time before our brains change. Even now, you read some rubbish that you consciously know is rubbish, but part of it lodges in your subconcious and affects your thinking down the line. At least if you know who created the video, it gives you a fighting chance. With this system anyone can still publish, even anonymously, but reputations are hard to gain and easy to lose. I don't like the daily mail, but I know if they publish a video of Obama saying "Killmonger was right, and President Trump is a total and complete dipshit", I'll probably believe he did. If he didn't, that will come out, and the daily mail is off the list of sources I trust to not make crap up (rather than just bend things), and it makes it far easier for reasonable people to dismiss it. This moves the onus on news sources to be more discerning in their facts, but if they get it wrong then they lose their readers. By signing the news, they are backing it with their reputation. If Alex Jones has signed it, then he's putting his reputation on the line (if he has any reputation for saying something).
  • vkou 8y ago
    > A video with a bbc banner showing the president saying something could easily be faked. One that is signed by the BBC will only be fake if the BBC itself is publishing it as a fake, and that comes with a reputational impact. Nobody cares much about the reputational impact. Fringe tabloid fake-news, and mainstream 'fake'-news gets plenty of viewers. BBC itself has manufactured video 'evidence' during the Libyan war. [1] Yet, most people think it's an accurate source of news. [1] Their 'live broadcasts' showed video of people in India waving the Indian tri-color, which the BBC has claimed was rebels in Libya's Green Square waving the old Libyan tri-color. But, eh, who cares about honesty - when you've got a politically sensitive story to tell.
• JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > the amount of cooperation we'd need between camera makers and video distribution platforms Apple could single-handedly launch a "verified video" system.
  • ttul 8y ago
    Dear Tim, Please build this. — everyone
• avivo 8y ago
  Unfortunately, even if we can pull it off "cryptographically signing a video" doesn't "solve" the problem. How would that verification be presented to a user? How/why would it influence their beliefs/actions? (As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, I go into a bit more detail here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/theworldpost/wp/2018/02/22/digital-reality/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/theworldpost/wp/2018/02/... ) Will try to write a HN friendly tldr/update soon.
• oneshot908 8y ago
  The best solution (IMO of course) is to stop unquestionably believing anything you see, read, or hear. Why most people choose otherwise has saddened me since childhood. The worst solution is to panic and attempt to ban technology like this insuring that only the bad actors will use it. I want everyone down to kids to be able to make fake videos to their little heart's content so we can all internalize this inevitable Black Mirrorization of reality. And your proposed solution is fantastic BTW. Unfortunately, there are more than enough bad actors among us to social engineer those signatures out of otherwise trustworthy agencies and a general lack of intellectual curiosity on the part of most people to even bother to check for such things. Imagine the day we have a video where HRC confesses to the pedophile colony on Mars and coming up next, Trump tells everyone where he buried the bodies, and if people look, there will be bodies there (never mind that they're stolen cadavers). How will people cope with a world like this? It is almost like we need pop art and pop culture to drive this point home before political mass media does it in the worst possible way.
  • SmooL 8y ago
    | The best solution (IMO of course) is to stop unquestionably believing anything you see, read, or hear. Why most people choose otherwise has saddened me since childhood. Agreed, but I think it's been long proven most people do. People hear what they want to hear. Maybe that will change, but I'd say it seems unlikely at this point. | he worst solution is to panic and attempt to ban technology like this insuring that only the bad actors will use it. Very true. | I want everyone down to kids to be able to make fake videos to their little heart's content so we can all internalize this inevitable Black Mirrorization of reality. Increasingly getting there. It only takes one person to make a nice GUI, post it to github. | How will people cope with a world like this? Probably poorly if history has taught us anything. | It is almost like we need pop art and pop culture to drive this point home before political mass media does it in the worst possible way. Very intriguing. Traditionally, art and culture change as a reaction to current affairs, as opposed to a pre-emption. I'm not sure how to pragmatically flip that paradigm.
• emodendroket 8y ago
  Doctored audio and video isn't really a new problem though. More prosaically, you could just redact a recording to give a misleading impression and not rely on any fancy technology.