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Truth-videocam

Tamper-proof videocam equipped with GPS receiver and encryption
 
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Even slight credibility that used to go with film cameras (say, back in the 70's) is gone, now that anyone can buy a broadcast-quality digital video cam for a few thousand. With sophisticated video editing software, one could make it seem that almost anything had gone down 'on film.'

Idea: government-certified tamper-proof digital cameras with GPS receiver and a synchronized data-track that gives continuous time and location information for all film clips.

The camera has no accessible internals; there's only a power-in port and a data-out port. Internal storage is on a nice 25GB 2.5" laptop drive, sufficient for many hours of recording.

Video and GPS/time data is stream-cipher encrypted in a special file format that anyone can read, but no one can alter. (Digitally signed). The output is thus tamper-proof - no one can splice, cut, adjust, reframe, or otherwise alter the video.

Of course ordinary misrepresentation is still possible, but the possibility of digital tampering is eliminated.

anachron, Mar 03 2000

Fake http://www.blueartharts.com/uhoh.htm
This circulated for awhile and too many believed it was true. [Klaatu, Oct 04 2004]

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       You can buy GPS simulators, normally used for testing, which emulate GPS satellites and will produce the signals that would occur on any location on Earth. I could imagine modifying GPS to include digital signatures in the satellite transmission, but even then replay attacks are a problem.   

       Likewise, you could just play the (arbitrarily faked) ``scene'' on a high-resolution screen just in front of your videocam's eye...   

       We don't have timewarp technology (yet!), so the primary utility of such a device would probably be to demonstrate that you had certain information at a certain time (handy for demonstrating prior art, etc).   

       In any case, it's difficult to make truly tamper-proof hardware, so such a service would probably be better cast as an Internet-based trusted third party.
egnor, Mar 05 2000
  

       Encryption wouldn't help. You could encrypt a fake scene with a fake timestamp just as easily as a real scene. The encryption proves nothing except that you had access to the public key... and everyone has access to the public key.
egnor, Jul 31 2000
  

       Um... What are we trying to prevent people from fake videotaping? It seems like a lot of work just to keep people from faking UFO films.
eagle, Jul 31 2000
  

       Videotapes of important people in compromising situations ... videotapes of people confessing ... surveillance camera footage ...   

       Videotapes are used all the time as courtroom evidence, and some videos are incredibly famous (the Zapruder film, the Rodney King tape). Remember the flap about the, uh, "edited" video presented by Microsoft in the antitrust case?   

       I haven't heard of any cases of seriously fraudulent video used in a courtroom, but it seems like the technology's there; surely it could happen.
egnor, Aug 01 2000
  

       Red hen systems makes a device that records gps onto the audio track of a camcorder right thru the mic input. Then a GIS application "maps" out the locations from which video was shot allowing random access to video segments from a geographical interface. Neet little toy, but the owner of the company is not a nice person, so don't buy one.
sutheric, Dec 09 2000
  

       Anything that involves sniffing out gov frauds im for. This would be one step towards closing the gap between gov. and the public. There running rampent . Why is nobody talking about this. All they talk about is what there running not hwo there working for.
northstar, Jan 07 2004
  

       But, can't you just fake the picture in post-production? <link>
Klaatu, Jan 07 2004
  


 

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