Cases of fraud within published scientific research are on the rise, with several recent cases involving the falsification of images.

Scientists are subjected to exactly the same pressures and temptations that drive people to commit fraud in all manner of environments and for various reasons. Sometimes the motivation is commercial; perhaps to obtain a research grant or to enhance the profile of the institution and attract more applications. In others it might be professional; to get published in a prestigious Journal or simply to save face after an experiment has failed to deliver the desired
results.

Regardless of the justification, when these actions have legal consequences it is important to have the tools to detect when such fraud occurs. And more importantly to have the ability
to scientifically prove this in a court of law.

Multimedia forensics is invaluable within cases of research fraud, both for presenting a case or defending the accused. However, it’s not good enough to simply bring in an expert witness and have them confidently present their case. Tools exist to carry out the analysis in line with the scientific methodology, giving the judge and in some cases the jury, a basis upon which to evaluate the full weight of the evidence. Consider it ironic, but if the right software is adopted within the legal system then the scientific method may just prove to be the answer to the current crisis facing scientific integrity.

Read the full article published in The Barrister.

Digital images are frequently used to provide supporting evidence within papers and reports, yet are not routinely submitted to any scientific process of authentication. In a world in which the tools to digitally manipulate an image are freely available, it’s no longer acceptable to simply take these images at face value.

The past 12 months has seen the scientific community rocked by a series of scandals relating to the use of manipulated images within published scientific research.

Researchers’ ambition to gain scientific exposure, to achieve career advancement or to secure funding, can drive them to embellish their results in order to attain their goals in the increasingly competitive world of scientific discovery. Equally, the pressure to publish can see them stumbled across doctored images and incorporate them by mistake. In these cases, not only is the individual’s reputation at risk, but also their colleagues’ who are oblivious to the altered nature of the images. The impact of these images is extensive and far-reaching: they threaten to endanger the name of the organization for which the researcher is working, as well as calling into question the integrity of the scientific community at large. This is a critical issue in the current technological day and age, yet very little is being done to address it. Bearing in mind the damage that doctored images can do, scientific publishers and research institutes ought to be more rigorous when setting out the requirements for images that are used in papers.

If some basic screening were applied more extensively to scientific publications, with minimal effort we would be in a much better position to guarantee, or dispute, the authenticity of images within scientific papers for the benefit of science and its wider community.

Working to detect image manipulation in the world of science is a long-term battle, just as it is in photojournalism, forensics, and in any other field where image manipulation is a growing threat to the veracity of images.

Read the full article published in Laboratory News.

As technology has enabled mainstream, widespread image manipulation, it is not surprising that there has been a huge increase in the number of tampered images which find their way into a wide spectrum of industries and sectors. Incidents of doctored images frequently appear in mainstream media where they incite cries of “fake news”.

For example, a photo at the G20 summit this year featured a photoshopped president Putin, giving the impression that he was colluding with president Donald Trump.  The photo proceeded to spread like wildfire across the internet, instigating huge political ramifications from a digital fabrication which would have taken a few minutes to create on a laptop. Last August also showed our vulnerability to tampered photos, with the circulation of a photoshopped image of a shark swimming up the freeway during hurricane Harvey indicating a larger problem with major international news outlets spreading the image as genuine.

Equally there is significant evidence of doctored images being used to support fraudulent scientific research internationally. Doctored experiment results and images continue to rock the research industry with every new fraudulent revelation.   A prominent cancer research scientist in Italy has been under investigation for using a photography studio to manipulate images pivotal to the crux of the “ground breaking” research. Indeed, the journal Nature has suggested that up to 1 in 5 scientific papers contain evidence of some sort of manipulation.

It is clear therefore, that when the stakes are high enough, people will manipulate the truth, and unfortunately given our tendency to trust photographic images, it seems that it is currently worth their while to do so. When the stakes are as high as imprisonment, it is easy to see how tempting it may be to manipulate an image to support an alibi or a particular version of events.

Unfortunately, security investigations are by no means immune to this phenomenon either. In fact, given the increase in the sources of digital images, the integrity of evidence in such investigations is at its all-time most vulnerable. Body worn cameras, smart phones and increasingly sophisticated CCTV surveillance means that investigators are now dealing with a fast-growing pile of unverified evidence.

Read the full article published in The Intersec Journal of International Security.

With the rise of the digital age can experts trust that photographic evidence is legitimate?

Sophie Garrod, from Police Oracle, writes about how a growing number of forensic and counter-terrorism units are getting on board with pioneering image authentication software.

Approximately a third of UK forces have invested in Amped Software products – including Amped Authenticate, an all in one computer programme which can detect doctored images.

Forensic image departments, counter-terrorism units, and government departments say they are saving time and money by sending detectives on a short training course in the software.

Read the full article here to learn more.

Martino Jerian, Amped CEO and Founder, examines context, content, and format of images. From the images and the context in which they are used we can obtain a lot of information that is not visible with the naked eye, and for what is visible with the naked eye, can we trust it? The process of authenticating an image is a mix of technical and investigative elements. This article looks at how to perform a complete image analysis.

Read the article published in the Digital Forensics magazine.

As a predominantly visual species, we tend to believe what we see. Throughout human evolution, our primary sense of sight has allowed us to analyse primeval threats. We are genetically hardwired to process and trust what our eyes tell us.

This innate hardwiring means that the arrival of digital images has posed a problem for the fraud investigation community. There are many different reasons why someone would want to
maliciously alter a photo to ‘tell a different story’. Although photos can be manipulated with ease, many people still harbour a natural tendency to trust photos as a true and accurate representation of the scene in front of us.

The article published in Computer Fraud & Security describes how images may be altered and the techniques and processes we can use to spot photos that have been modified. With the right tools and training, exposing doctored images in fraud investigations is now not only financially and technically viable, but urgently necessary.

Read the full article here