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Unfortunately that doesn't prove too much. It all hinges on the cameras, which are just computers, operating in a verifiable fashion. Which they don't, as no co

Unfortunately that doesn't prove too much. It all hinges on the cameras, which are just computers, operating in a verifiable fashion. Which they don't, as no consumer available computer currently does, and I don't see this changing in the near future, both for technological and political reasons. I put a lot of effort into thinking about what could be proper trustable on photos and videos [0], but short of performing continuous modulation on the light sources the light of which is eventually captured by the cameras' sensors, there's no other way, and even that I'm not sure how would work with light actually doing the things its supposed to (reflection, refraction, scatter, polarization, etc.). And that's not even mentioning how the primary light source everyone understandably relies on, the Sun, will never emit such a modulated signal. So what will happen instead I'm sure, is people deciding that they should not let perfection be the enemy of good, and moving on with this stuff anyways. Except this decision will not result in the necessary corresponding disclaimers reaching consumers, and so will begin the age of sham proofs and sham disprovals, and further radicalization. Here's to hope I'm wrong, and that these efforts will receive appropriate disclaimers when implemented and rolled out. [0] related in a perhaps unexpected way: https://youtube.com/shorts/u-h5fHOcS88 https://youtube.com/shorts/u-h5fHOcS88

dinfinity 1y ago
Things should simply be signed by people and institutions. People who were there or did extensive research vouching for authenticity and accuracy of representation. Signing in hardware is nice, but you then still need to trust the company making the hardware to make it tamper proof and not tampered with by them. Additionally, such devices would have to be locked down to disallow things like manual setting of the time and date. It's a rabbit hole with more and more inconveniences and fewer benefits as you go down it. Better to just go for reputation, and webs and chains of trust in people based approaches.
- deleted 1y ago
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neepi 1y ago
Yeah I'm not even talking about that side of things. I'm talking about after it leaves the camera. When someone shows you something, you should be able to say "I want to see the closest to original image". Humans make a lot of changes to images evidently to change perception. Even a simple crop can change the story being told. A good example: https://imgur.com/iqtFHHg https://imgur.com/iqtFHHg
- perching_aix 1y ago
  Yeah, that's a good point. Kind of ties in with the video I linked. Also reminds me a bit to how in modern video containers the film grain is usually a separate thing, and is rendered onto the image during playback. One can imagine turning on a view where the modified parts of the image would become highlighted, assisting with speculations on what might have been altered and how. I didn't mention this in my previous comment, but after having thought about it even further, I've eventually arrived at the idea that there can be basically an arbitrary amount of meaning embedded onto a photo or a video, and it being "verified" to me as a human really just means "it is what I think I'm looking at" - that's when I realized this task is likely unsolvable in absolute terms, and just how much more difficulty lies beyond the already hopelessly difficult crackpot idea of light source signal modulation that I came up with prior. But yeah, as I suggested, these are just what I could think of, and perfection should indeed not be the enemy of good.
ramblerman 1y ago
“I thought about it and couldn’t come up with anything so this is a dead end.” What a load of nonsense. A little bit of humility and a basic understanding of history should quickly make you realize that. OPs point is far more interesting and deserves more discussion
- perching_aix 1y ago
  I don't understand your hostility. There's nothing in what I wrote or in the way I wrote that would suggest to a good faith reader that my opinion is absolute, that I consider my opinion fact, or that my knowledge is all-encompassing. In your own words I merely "thought about it" - a phrase that means exactly just that, and nothing more. In a way, it's literally a request for further thoughts by others to make up for what I might have not thought of; the exact admission you're looking for, just stated implicitly. It's immensely frustrating to dress up a natural language sentence with enough precision to try and account for all and every bit of nuance, so you should anticipate and actively consider that I have missed or implied some. Despite this, you clearly did not, and instead went into attack mode on the assumption(!) that I did miss them intentionally. I'd recommend you take your own advice on intellectual humility before offering it to others.
- palmotea 1y ago
  > OPs point is far more interesting and deserves more discussion The idea of "cryptographically signed photos coming out of cameras"? It's been discussed to death and is essentially a hope for magic technology to solve our social problems. Also it won't work, technically: it's like asking for perfect a DRM implementation to be universally implemented everywhere.
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dinfinity 1y ago

Things should simply be signed by people and institutions. People who were there or did extensive research vouching for authenticity and accuracy of representation. Signing in hardware is nice, but you then still need to trust the company making the hardware to make it tamper proof and not tampered with by them. Additionally, such devices would have to be locked down to disallow things like manual setting of the time and date. It's a rabbit hole with more and more inconveniences and fewer benefits as you go down it. Better to just go for reputation, and webs and chains of trust in people based approaches.

deleted 1y ago
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neepi 1y ago

Yeah I'm not even talking about that side of things. I'm talking about after it leaves the camera. When someone shows you something, you should be able to say "I want to see the closest to original image". Humans make a lot of changes to images evidently to change perception. Even a simple crop can change the story being told. A good example: https://imgur.com/iqtFHHg https://imgur.com/iqtFHHg

perching_aix 1y ago
Yeah, that's a good point. Kind of ties in with the video I linked. Also reminds me a bit to how in modern video containers the film grain is usually a separate thing, and is rendered onto the image during playback. One can imagine turning on a view where the modified parts of the image would become highlighted, assisting with speculations on what might have been altered and how. I didn't mention this in my previous comment, but after having thought about it even further, I've eventually arrived at the idea that there can be basically an arbitrary amount of meaning embedded onto a photo or a video, and it being "verified" to me as a human really just means "it is what I think I'm looking at" - that's when I realized this task is likely unsolvable in absolute terms, and just how much more difficulty lies beyond the already hopelessly difficult crackpot idea of light source signal modulation that I came up with prior. But yeah, as I suggested, these are just what I could think of, and perfection should indeed not be the enemy of good.

ramblerman 1y ago

“I thought about it and couldn’t come up with anything so this is a dead end.” What a load of nonsense. A little bit of humility and a basic understanding of history should quickly make you realize that. OPs point is far more interesting and deserves more discussion

perching_aix 1y ago
I don't understand your hostility. There's nothing in what I wrote or in the way I wrote that would suggest to a good faith reader that my opinion is absolute, that I consider my opinion fact, or that my knowledge is all-encompassing. In your own words I merely "thought about it" - a phrase that means exactly just that, and nothing more. In a way, it's literally a request for further thoughts by others to make up for what I might have not thought of; the exact admission you're looking for, just stated implicitly. It's immensely frustrating to dress up a natural language sentence with enough precision to try and account for all and every bit of nuance, so you should anticipate and actively consider that I have missed or implied some. Despite this, you clearly did not, and instead went into attack mode on the assumption(!) that I did miss them intentionally. I'd recommend you take your own advice on intellectual humility before offering it to others.
palmotea 1y ago
> OPs point is far more interesting and deserves more discussion The idea of "cryptographically signed photos coming out of cameras"? It's been discussed to death and is essentially a hope for magic technology to solve our social problems. Also it won't work, technically: it's like asking for perfect a DRM implementation to be universally implemented everywhere.

deleted 1y ago

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