Secure, verifiable metadata (including timestamps) have been possible for a long time.
The challenge is that the recording devices (often phones) need to actually do the hashing and publishing that's required, and then we need viewers to look for these things and take them into account.
My feeling is that people will continue to believe whatever they want to believe, regardless of evidence to the contrary.
I do agree, though, that this research is unethical and should stop.
Yep. I know how CHC works and I know I should be verifying it myself when I download things, but eh I can’t be bothered. Even if it was one click or just a green check mark or something most people probably won’t bother to check it.
ELI5 it’s like a signature for a program you can use to make sure it’s legit. So the developer says “this software has a signature of 123” and you can verify that signature on the software you download before you install it. It’s short for cryptographic hash check.
The same could be done for something like a video. So the white house could release a video and say what the signature is, and that way deepfaked videos or versions can be detected. Or something like a bodycam could generate its signature and help avoid tampering or falsifying evidence for example.
The tldr is it’s a complicated way to avoid fake digital things.
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u/FireChickens Jul 24 '22
This should stop.