Digital images source attribution

Abstract

Image's integrity and authenticity verification is paramount when it comes to a court of law. Just like we do in ballistics tests when we match a gun to its bullets, we can identify a given digital camera that acquired an image under investigation. In this research project, we aim at designing and deploying methods for identifying whether or not a given image under investigation was captured by a specific digital camera. We will carry out the research under two vantage points:(1) verification, in which we are interested in verifying whether or not a given camera captured an image under investigation; and (2) recognition, in which we want to verify if an image was captured by a given camera (if any) from a pool of devices, and to point out such a camera. We will perform this investigation considering a real-world scenario, under which we can not rely on the assumption of full access to all of the investigated devices. As a research result, we expect to identify the specific device that captured a given image including its model, brand, and even serial number. The project will count with the key partnership with Brazilian Federal Police and its counterpart in the State of São Paulo. Finally, this work is strictly related with the FAPESP Young Investigators Awards 10/05647-4 (2010-2014) entitled "Digital forensics: collection, organization, classification and analysis of digital evidences", under coordination of Prof. Dr. Anderson Rocha. (AU)