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VANITY: Any way to prove jpegs or pdf's not manipulated?
butterdezillion

Posted on 01/28/2011 10:15:15 AM PST by butterdezillion

I need to know how to make sure there is no question that jpegs or pdf's I post on my blog have not been tampered with in any way. If I simply upload them in my Wordpress blog would they be certifiably genuine? If I took a photo and scanned it to be a jpeg would it show that there had been no tampering?

Thanks for any advice on how to document authenticity.


TOPICS: Hobbies; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: computers; security
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1 posted on 01/28/2011 10:15:17 AM PST by butterdezillion
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To: butterdezillion
Perform a checksum on the file and save the result.

http://getmd5checker.com/download/

An identical file will have an identical checksum.

2 posted on 01/28/2011 10:19:24 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum ("If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun." -- Barry Soetoro, June 11, 2008)
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To: butterdezillion

Send it to Dan Rather for verification.


3 posted on 01/28/2011 10:19:42 AM PST by MNDude
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To: butterdezillion

If you blow it up (zoom) to well over 300%, you should be able to see editing anomalies.

Thats one of the ways they showed that Obama’s COLB was fake.


4 posted on 01/28/2011 10:21:14 AM PST by Safrguns
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To: butterdezillion
MD5 has been employed in a wide variety of security applications, and is also commonly used to check the integrity of files.
5 posted on 01/28/2011 10:21:14 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum ("If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun." -- Barry Soetoro, June 11, 2008)
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To: butterdezillion

I believe that programs like photoshop leave some kind if tag in the data that you can see if you look at the code.


6 posted on 01/28/2011 10:21:36 AM PST by mylife (Opinions: $1.00 ~ Halfbaked: 50c)
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To: butterdezillion

You cannot prove that a jpeg originally came from a photo if that is what you’re asking.


7 posted on 01/28/2011 10:22:46 AM PST by 83Vet4Life
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To: Polarik

Ping.


8 posted on 01/28/2011 10:35:26 AM PST by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: mylife

Yes. Also, a photo from many digital cameras will also have EXIF data.


9 posted on 01/28/2011 10:36:29 AM PST by Army Air Corps (Four fried chickens and a coke)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

So if I scanned a document without editing it in any way, saved it as a jpeg or pdf, and posted it to my blog, could somebody who doubted its genuineness use MD5 to find that it has not been manipulated or edited in any way?

Of course, if I got a PDF from somebody else and they edited it in any way that would show, right?


10 posted on 01/28/2011 10:38:51 AM PST by butterdezillion
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To: Army Air Corps

So if I figured out how to upload an image from my digital camera could people be able to find out that it was genuine, when the photo was taken, etc?

For instance, I posted some photos my husband took with his digital camera, at http://butterdezillion.wordpress.com/2011/01/28/spring-will-come/ . Can a person look at those and determine that they are genuine and when they were taken?

There’s a PDF I uploaded there also, in which I took an image from the web, added words, saved as a PDF, and uploaded it as a PDF. Is there any way for people to know whether I altered the web image before I saved the PDF?

I want to make sure that what I post can be verified as genuine and unedited. If putting things in a PDF obscures the genuineness then I need to avoid PDF’s.


11 posted on 01/28/2011 10:45:39 AM PST by butterdezillion
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To: butterdezillion
So if I scanned a document without editing it in any way, saved it as a jpeg or pdf, and posted it to my blog, could somebody who doubted its genuineness use MD5 to find that it has not been manipulated or edited in any way?

No.

Of course, if I got a PDF from somebody else and they edited it in any way that would show, right?

No, unless you were the one who scanned the original PDF.

12 posted on 01/28/2011 10:48:57 AM PST by Rightwing Conspiratr1
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To: butterdezillion
The genuineness of the original document has nothing to do with the checksum.

You can perform a checksum on your original scanned file and post the image and the checksum on your site.

A person who downloaded the file could run a checksum on it. If his checksum matches the sum you posted, he has a genuine, unaltered copy of your file.

If the checksums differ, the files are not identical.

13 posted on 01/28/2011 10:51:52 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum ("If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun." -- Barry Soetoro, June 11, 2008)
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To: butterdezillion

The EXIF data will include the date (assuming that the date and time were entered correctly in the camera’s internal calendar), time, exposure setting, file type, aperature setting, dpi, etc.


14 posted on 01/28/2011 10:52:11 AM PST by Army Air Corps (Four fried chickens and a coke)
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To: butterdezillion
So if I figured out how to upload an image from my digital camera could people be able to find out that it was genuine, when the photo was taken, etc?

One can easily take a photograph with digital camera, download it, edit it, and upload it back in the camera with fake dates. Ye old polaroid instant camera pictures happen to be the most resistant to tampering.

15 posted on 01/28/2011 10:54:03 AM PST by Rightwing Conspiratr1
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To: butterdezillion
MD5 checksum is fine IF you can trust the checksum value. A digital signature against a certificate issued by a trusted entity e.g. Verisign would be a good choice. Verisign probably has the tools and means to put the cert together, sign the data and provide checking to others that access the data.
16 posted on 01/28/2011 10:58:35 AM PST by Myrddin
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To: butterdezillion

I could read data on image dimensions, bit depth, and dpi, but all the other data was gone.


17 posted on 01/28/2011 11:01:20 AM PST by Army Air Corps (Four fried chickens and a coke)
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To: Army Air Corps

I wonder how I could get an image onto my blog with authentication still possible. Would that take having it certified by somebody like VeriSign (sp?)?


18 posted on 01/28/2011 11:08:23 AM PST by butterdezillion
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To: Safrguns

Do you think most people would consider a document authentic if there weren’t anomalies that showed up at high magnification? If I posted a genuine document could I trust that most people would be able to satisfy themselves that it was genuine, or are there other steps I should take to make sure it can be proven?

I am a total moron when it comes to graphics and computers, but I have important documents whose provenance and genuineness I need to be beyond question.


19 posted on 01/28/2011 11:16:51 AM PST by butterdezillion
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To: butterdezillion

btt


20 posted on 01/28/2011 11:23:12 AM PST by coon2000 (Give me Liberty or give me death!)
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