5 ms·

Video evidence is going to be inadmissible very soon. It's ironic that we're essentially being pushed back to a pre-technology, pre-media time. "If you didn't

Video evidence is going to be inadmissible very soon. It's ironic that we're essentially being pushed back to a pre-technology, pre-media time. "If you didn't see it with your own two eyes, you can't believe it"

mikojan 7y ago
People have been convincingly altering pictures since forever. I could do it no problem when I was 14. Nothing changes.
- ISL 7y ago
  Were you fourteen in the era of digital image processing, or in the darkroom? It was always possible, but it used to be far more difficult.
  - therealx 7y ago
    I forged many documents in the early digital era because paper still had the trust of the darkroom era. Theres always a transition time like that thats very exploitable.
CabSauce 7y ago
It'll be the same as anything else. An approach to fake something will be created. Then an approach to identify the fakes... and repeat.
roywiggins 7y ago
Video evidence has always required testimony to its provenance, hasn't it? Otherwise it can be removed as hearsay. Courts have always been worried about authenticating evidence including video. https://jamespublishing.com/2013/objecting-video-audio-evidence-without-hesitation/ https://jamespublishing.com/2013/objecting-video-audio-evide... https://www.esquiresolutions.com/federal-rules-catch-digital-evidence-avalanche/ https://www.esquiresolutions.com/federal-rules-catch-digital...
vectorEQ 7y ago
videos can be altered in this way for a long long time now. just not by neural networks. so in reality, it changes nothing.
- briffle 7y ago
  But does the average juror understand that? In the future, when each of them has had their face transplanted on top of Chevy Chase or Beverly D'Angelo for some e-greeting for Christmas Vacation on Facebook, maybe they will stop trusting it.
- simias 7y ago
  It does change a whole lot. Up until a few years ago you'd only have to be suspicious of very important videos coming from people who have access to convincing video editing. Some video coming from the USA, Chinese or Russian government trying to disprove war crimes? Yeah, better be careful. Some guy using damcash footage to prove the other driver was in the wrong? Not so much. As the technology improves and becomes accessible soon anybody will be able to edit videos convincingly without having to invest a massive amount of time or money. That's going to have a large impact I think.
  - koonsolo 7y ago
    Look at the old video's of Bigfoots and UFO's. A lot of them have been questioned for years if they were fake or not. So in that sense it could have still be done pretty cheap.
    - simias 7y ago
      Nobody knows exactly what a UFO and Bigfoot really look like so that helps. The debate is not so much about whether the footage has been doctored but rather about what it depicts. A better example would probably be the moon landing footage or 9/11. And then it's really only questioned by conspiracy theorists and specifically because a state actor might have wanted to hide the evidence of a conspiracy. Tomorrow with this new technology I might not convince you that Bigfoot exists but I might be able to show you extremely convincing footage of Margaret Thatcher and Mao Zedong frolicking in the Swiss Alps while Tupac is watching.
randyrand 7y ago
thankfully, video evidence is still rare in most cases even today, and was practically nonexistent 20 years ago.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
> "If you didn't see it with your own two eyes, you can't believe it" Given what we know of human memory and visual processing, you'd be a damned fool to trust your own eyes any better.
- puranjay 7y ago
  I was just thinking about that. Knowing what we know about memory manipulation now, there is no real objective truth anymore
joering2 7y ago
A little story of admission of evidence I heard from a friend of my wife when I gave her ride home recently. We listened to Sirius 117 thru our ride and they always tell crime stories. It was a death row story and when the narrator said that the only evidence they had against a suspect was a DNA but it was enough to put him on electric chair, she chuckled a little. It was odd so I asked her why. As a court reporter she witnessed many horrors written by life, but this one was particularly scary for another reason. She was reporting on a case where the only evidence of a murder was a DNA, even though a suspect was in New York on a day where victim was murdered in Los Angeles. The DA rested case explaining that DNA evidence is enough and holds up in courts for many years and that they do not need to explain anything else, how he go from NY to LA at the night of murder or really nothing else mattered "because of DNA." So defended lawyers ran a suspect DNA via one of popular DNA-kit websites and to their surprise they found a good enough match. She was lucky to be called in when the case was heard again (most of the time different court reporter would be called in depending of availability) and they showed that result to DA/prosecutors asking if they would consider prosecuting based on that person DNA. They look at it and said it was the same person DNA. So defended lawyers revealed that it was different person. To judge shock, then DA came to say that DNA match doesn't have to be 100% and over the span of human existence some 100 billion people lived so its quite possible for extremely similar DNA to be found in wild. She recalls looking at judge face at that moment and he turned pale blue - you couldn't help to see this man wondering if over the span of last 2 decades, he may have sentenced hundreds of people based on inadequate evidence. The case did not ended there but shortly after when she was checking on it, the whole case all of sudden got sealed and even year later was still locked down. All she knows is that most likely he wasn't found guilty, as checking on his name recently did not yield any record on Cali's death row list. So so much of DNA being of 100% proof.

mikojan 7y ago

People have been convincingly altering pictures since forever. I could do it no problem when I was 14. Nothing changes.

ISL 7y ago
Were you fourteen in the era of digital image processing, or in the darkroom? It was always possible, but it used to be far more difficult.
- therealx 7y ago
  I forged many documents in the early digital era because paper still had the trust of the darkroom era. Theres always a transition time like that thats very exploitable.

CabSauce 7y ago

It'll be the same as anything else. An approach to fake something will be created. Then an approach to identify the fakes... and repeat.

roywiggins 7y ago

Video evidence has always required testimony to its provenance, hasn't it? Otherwise it can be removed as hearsay. Courts have always been worried about authenticating evidence including video. https://jamespublishing.com/2013/objecting-video-audio-evidence-without-hesitation/ https://jamespublishing.com/2013/objecting-video-audio-evide... https://www.esquiresolutions.com/federal-rules-catch-digital-evidence-avalanche/ https://www.esquiresolutions.com/federal-rules-catch-digital...

vectorEQ 7y ago

videos can be altered in this way for a long long time now. just not by neural networks. so in reality, it changes nothing.

briffle 7y ago
But does the average juror understand that? In the future, when each of them has had their face transplanted on top of Chevy Chase or Beverly D'Angelo for some e-greeting for Christmas Vacation on Facebook, maybe they will stop trusting it.
simias 7y ago
It does change a whole lot. Up until a few years ago you'd only have to be suspicious of very important videos coming from people who have access to convincing video editing. Some video coming from the USA, Chinese or Russian government trying to disprove war crimes? Yeah, better be careful. Some guy using damcash footage to prove the other driver was in the wrong? Not so much. As the technology improves and becomes accessible soon anybody will be able to edit videos convincingly without having to invest a massive amount of time or money. That's going to have a large impact I think.
- koonsolo 7y ago
  Look at the old video's of Bigfoots and UFO's. A lot of them have been questioned for years if they were fake or not. So in that sense it could have still be done pretty cheap.
  - simias 7y ago
    Nobody knows exactly what a UFO and Bigfoot really look like so that helps. The debate is not so much about whether the footage has been doctored but rather about what it depicts. A better example would probably be the moon landing footage or 9/11. And then it's really only questioned by conspiracy theorists and specifically because a state actor might have wanted to hide the evidence of a conspiracy. Tomorrow with this new technology I might not convince you that Bigfoot exists but I might be able to show you extremely convincing footage of Margaret Thatcher and Mao Zedong frolicking in the Swiss Alps while Tupac is watching.

randyrand 7y ago

thankfully, video evidence is still rare in most cases even today, and was practically nonexistent 20 years ago.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago

> "If you didn't see it with your own two eyes, you can't believe it" Given what we know of human memory and visual processing, you'd be a damned fool to trust your own eyes any better.

puranjay 7y ago
I was just thinking about that. Knowing what we know about memory manipulation now, there is no real objective truth anymore

joering2 7y ago

A little story of admission of evidence I heard from a friend of my wife when I gave her ride home recently. We listened to Sirius 117 thru our ride and they always tell crime stories. It was a death row story and when the narrator said that the only evidence they had against a suspect was a DNA but it was enough to put him on electric chair, she chuckled a little. It was odd so I asked her why. As a court reporter she witnessed many horrors written by life, but this one was particularly scary for another reason. She was reporting on a case where the only evidence of a murder was a DNA, even though a suspect was in New York on a day where victim was murdered in Los Angeles. The DA rested case explaining that DNA evidence is enough and holds up in courts for many years and that they do not need to explain anything else, how he go from NY to LA at the night of murder or really nothing else mattered "because of DNA." So defended lawyers ran a suspect DNA via one of popular DNA-kit websites and to their surprise they found a good enough match. She was lucky to be called in when the case was heard again (most of the time different court reporter would be called in depending of availability) and they showed that result to DA/prosecutors asking if they would consider prosecuting based on that person DNA. They look at it and said it was the same person DNA. So defended lawyers revealed that it was different person. To judge shock, then DA came to say that DNA match doesn't have to be 100% and over the span of human existence some 100 billion people lived so its quite possible for extremely similar DNA to be found in wild. She recalls looking at judge face at that moment and he turned pale blue - you couldn't help to see this man wondering if over the span of last 2 decades, he may have sentenced hundreds of people based on inadequate evidence. The case did not ended there but shortly after when she was checking on it, the whole case all of sudden got sealed and even year later was still locked down. All she knows is that most likely he wasn't found guilty, as checking on his name recently did not yield any record on Cali's death row list. So so much of DNA being of 100% proof.