ICIAP 2017

A decade of research has taken media forensics close to its ‘peak of inflated expectations’. The current tools allow forensic analysts to automatically detect forgeries, uncover different kinds of manipulations, identify the device with which an image has been captured, or determine the exact time when a video was recorded, even if all the metadata has been wiped off. Most of these algorithms rely on the presence or absence of characteristic footprints that in many cases are not discernible with a naked eye. Provided that they are properly used, these tools have an enormous potential not only in court, but in other more mundane applications.

These successes should not conceal the fact that media forensics will soon start rolling down towards the ‘trough of disillusionment’. Who will give it the push? This talk will feature an identity parade of the suspects. We will line up among others Simpson’s paradox, Blackboxing, Snowflaking, the CSI effect, and Counterforensics. Understanding them is key to redirecting some of the current research trends, and achieving the standards of DNA forensic analysis which rests on scientific groundwork.

In our short trip we will meet killers, black widows, judges, lawyers, PIs, K9s, CSIs, and, of course, many researchers.