Zero-knowledge seems completely unnecessary. Surely the original image does not have any material content in it that is not made public by publishing a JPEG-compressed version.
Could this be simpler and more efficient without ZK?
jamienk 17 hours ago [-]
Hasn't this crossed over into being a philosophical question? You want to attest to reality or provenance. But then you start making lists of "acceptable" changes: file format; compression; color-correction; size; taking "medium" into account... It then slowly slides into "average human perceptibility"; "irrelevant details"; keeping the "spirit" of the image intact; judging the intention or motive of the user or of the viewer; aligning the image with "values"; appropriate/legal use... etc. Not sure what the end-game is?
We are trying to make images in the AI era be as reliable as they were pre-AI? But they were not reliable pre-AI, it was just more difficult to intentionally doctor them.
afavour 12 hours ago [-]
I feel like we were already in a weird gray area. Cellphone cameras use all kinds of programmatic tricks to make their output better than the exact information the lens captures. I think people just didn’t realize how much their phones were doing. Is that “fake”?
another-dave 16 hours ago [-]
I think for photojournalism it should be original raw image, as captured in camera — zero edits for colour correction/cropping/filesize etc — platforms can link a digital sig from a postprocessed version but you keep the provenance proof tied to a published original.
112233 3 hours ago [-]
ok, point camera at a screen. let's counter that by also taking 360° image with secondary camera. Ok build some props, let's add gps into it. fake gps. let's add inertial tracking and self-destruct on tamper.
Ok, but we really need a fake image, here is our badge, give us signing keys for special use case...
You cannot replace honesty with tech.
Gigachad 12 hours ago [-]
That's pretty much how the Apple one works. The raw sensor data is signed. But you have to process it because raw sensor data is unviewable.
Provide the raw original, and the exact processing steps used to get the presentable one.
iririririr 14 hours ago [-]
no no no you need to buy a new phone!
/s
pixelsort 9 hours ago [-]
If this ever became widespread, people would game the "verified real" checkmark using the analog gap.
1. Print AI photo
2. Point fancy expensive camera at printed photo
3. Take a "real" photo
Then you'd see more sensors and even more expensive cameras. Then you'd see miniatured virtual-production volumes.
So, this is not a solution. It's just an arms race disguised as one.
augunrik 9 hours ago [-]
Can you photograph a photo so it’s not really noticeable?
dexen 3 hours ago [-]
Yes to arbitrarily good degree with hobby grade tooling. The previous gen photo tech (b&w negative film, colour negative film) used device called enlarger† which is pretty much taking a photo of a photo.
This would make deepfakes more expensive because you would have to tightly control the chroma and illuminance of the display.
tacomagick 2 hours ago [-]
Something a calibration tool surely can do I assume.
AmazingEveryDay 15 hours ago [-]
I'm trying to think of recent real-world examples where the reality of the photo was of major importance. Photographs just don't seem to have the same significance, even as potential verification of their realness becomes more achievable.
Gigachad 12 hours ago [-]
An everyday scenario is Real estate photography and Facebook marketplace where people are having a field day AI faking photos.
Having a tick showing the photo is verified real would add a lot of trust to online platforms.
tosapple 11 hours ago [-]
[dead]
rerdavies 5 hours ago [-]
Entering photos as evidence in a legal proceeding is currently bizarrely complex. You actually have to admit an expert witness to testify that the software used to process a photograph will not introduce artifacts. Even if you are simply zooming in or cropping an image.
fwip 2 hours ago [-]
Makes sense - there's lots of ways to do it wrong. If you crop a jpeg and re-save it as a jpeg, you'll introduce artifacts.
avianlyric 8 hours ago [-]
There’s been a few, but it’s becoming so common people have stopped noticing, but here’s a few recent ones:
There’s now even a wiki article on the usage of AI generated images in American politics, mostly dealing with the obvious slop that Trump has produced, rather than insidious edits of real images
Tie this into the Apple/Android/Sony/Leica signed photos, and you get provenance from capture to publish
Retr0id 18 hours ago [-]
Interesting work.
> our tool can verify a large family of image transformations
Is this family large enough to transform real image A into arbitrary fake image B?
> ZK-JPEG can merge transparent or translucent layers into an image, useful for placing visual watermarks,
creating double exposures, or merging visual layers, potentially AI generated over portions of the image. In
our tool, the transparent layer is revealed, but anything beneath an opaque portion of the layer becomes
secret. Note that in the case of an AI generated layer, the layer itself is revealed, minimizing the dishonesty
in using generative AI (but not minimizing the dishonesty of stealing artwork to train the AI)
Seems like the answer to my question is "yes", so you have to carefully inspect the transformations to see if they look legit. (The parenthetical was a surprising inclusion in an academic context)
bawolff 16 hours ago [-]
Presumably in a real application there would be a list of acceptable operations.
Like first you have to show you can do everything necessary in the system which is what this paper does. Step 2 is coming up with a policy of what restrictions to place on allowed transformations
gblargg 17 hours ago [-]
Viewers could provide a way to see the original before transforms, and perhaps apply each one at a time to see how the end result is arrived at.
Retr0id 17 hours ago [-]
If you're preserving the original, then you don't need the ZKP. Part of the appeal of this approach is that you could apply redactions or make the file smaller, without invalidating the signature.
11 hours ago [-]
WorseIsBetter 5 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
huflungdung 17 hours ago [-]
[dead]
Rendered at 14:38:07 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
Could this be simpler and more efficient without ZK?
We are trying to make images in the AI era be as reliable as they were pre-AI? But they were not reliable pre-AI, it was just more difficult to intentionally doctor them.
You cannot replace honesty with tech.
Provide the raw original, and the exact processing steps used to get the presentable one.
/s
1. Print AI photo 2. Point fancy expensive camera at printed photo 3. Take a "real" photo
Then you'd see more sensors and even more expensive cameras. Then you'd see miniatured virtual-production volumes.
So, this is not a solution. It's just an arms race disguised as one.
† https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlarger
Having a tick showing the photo is verified real would add a lot of trust to online platforms.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/ce9yydgmzdvt?post=asset%3Aae...
https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20260417-press-assoc...
There’s now even a wiki article on the usage of AI generated images in American politics, mostly dealing with the obvious slop that Trump has produced, rather than insidious edits of real images
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI-generated_content_in_Americ...
> our tool can verify a large family of image transformations
Is this family large enough to transform real image A into arbitrary fake image B?
> ZK-JPEG can merge transparent or translucent layers into an image, useful for placing visual watermarks, creating double exposures, or merging visual layers, potentially AI generated over portions of the image. In our tool, the transparent layer is revealed, but anything beneath an opaque portion of the layer becomes secret. Note that in the case of an AI generated layer, the layer itself is revealed, minimizing the dishonesty in using generative AI (but not minimizing the dishonesty of stealing artwork to train the AI)
Seems like the answer to my question is "yes", so you have to carefully inspect the transformations to see if they look legit. (The parenthetical was a surprising inclusion in an academic context)
Like first you have to show you can do everything necessary in the system which is what this paper does. Step 2 is coming up with a policy of what restrictions to place on allowed transformations