Our partners at the Guardian Project posted today about how our joint project InformaCam provides mobile media (photos/video) verification. Here’s an excerpt from the post written by Nathan Freitas:

One of the primary goals of the InformaCam project (now in public beta!) is to create an environment where, when it comes to photos and video captured on smartphones, people and organizations can trust what they see. Faked photos and videos, whether intended to be humorous or malicious, are all too common online, especially in times of crisis. Thus, the software that been developed works to ensure the full, complete original photo or video captured of an event, can safely reach the people who need to see it, without it first being filtered, modified, cropped, trimmed or otherwise manipulated.

There are four ways this is achieved:

  1. At point of capture, secure storage and analysis of the media file itself to begin a chain of custody, create a means of verifying media pixel values directly, and defend against tampering by malicious apps.
  2. Gather corroborating metadata points using the device’s built-in sensors to establish an environmental context.
  3. Use a secure method of transmission to a secure repository to continue chain of custody, and to defend against network surveillance, intrusion and filtering.
  4. Provide a means, using open tools, to verify media was not tampered with and to view and analyze corroborating metadata.

Read the full post for more details on the four methods described above.

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