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Comment by ks2048 | Hacker News Reader

ks2048

Are Apple and other phone/camera makers working on ways to "sign" a video to say it's an unedited video from a camera? Does this exist now? Is it possible?

I'm thinking of simple cryptographic signing of a file, rather than embedding watermarks into the content, but that's another option.

I don't think it will solve the fake video onslaught, but it could help.

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Leica M11 signs each photo. "Content Authority Initiative" https://leica-camera.com/en-US/news/partnership-greater-trus...

Cute hack showing that its kinda useless unless the user-facing UX does a better job of actually knowing whether the certificate represents the manufacturer of the sensor (dude just uses a self signed cert with "Leica Camera AG" as the name. Clearly cryptography literacy is lagging behind... https://hackaday.com/2023/11/30/falsified-photos-fooling-ado...

Even if the certs were properly cryptographically vetted, you could just point the camera at a high-enough resolution screen displaying false content.

I think this will be a thing one day, where photos are digitally watermarked by the camera sensor in a non-repudiable manner.

This is a losing battle. You can always just record an AI video with your camera. Done, now you have a real video.

This is what I think every time I hear about AI watermarking. If anything, convincing people that AI watermarking is a real, reliable thing is just gonna cause more harm because bad actors that want to convince people something fake is real would obviously do the simple subversion tactics. Then you have a bunch of people seeing it passes the watermark check, and therefore is real.

Potential solutions:

1. AI video watermarks that carry over even if a video of the AI video is taken

2. Cameras that can see AI video watermarks and put an AI video watermark on the videos of any AI videos they take

I agree is probably a losing battle, but maybe worth fighting. If the metadata is also encrypted, you can also verify the time and place it was recorded. Of course, this requires closed/locked hardware and still possible to spoof. Not ideal, but some assurances are better than a future of can't trust anything.

Nikon has had digital signature ability in some of their flagship cameras since at least 2007, and maybe before then. The feature is used by law enforcement when documenting evidence. I assume other brands also have this available for the same reasons.

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