Photoshop Could Soon Meet its Match
The Pentagon is officially wage a war on fake photography. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), an agency of the US Department of Defense responsible for the developemtn of emerging technologies for use by the military is pursuing new technology to help the Pentagon identify images that have been modified or edited as a way to combat propaganda or misinformation campaigns, reports Popular Science.
This $4.4 million, four-year project is called MediFor (Media Forensics). This project’s goal is to develop machine-learning technology that can scan millions of images every day and detect photos that have been manipulated, according to Vocativ. The initiative, which was announced last September, solicited proposals for techniques and methods that will “level the playing field, which currently favors the image manipulator, by developing technologies for the automated assessment of the integrity of an image of video.” North Korea and ISIS have both been accused by forensic experts of doctoring images and Vocativ reports that “the public is especially gullible to fake photos in the wake of disasters and tragedies.”
Several universities are involved in this collaborative effort, including Purdue University, New York University, University of Notre Dame, University of Southern California, and universities in Brazil and Italy.
While much of the necessary detection technology is already available, but can only work on a smaller scale, and while MediFor is being spearheaded by the US government, the developers believe this technology will eventualy be availabe to anyone involved in media forensics, which would allow news outlets to verify images before using or sharing them.
