WHO:	Hany Farid , Dartmouth College
TOPIC:	On the Limitations of Visually-Based Image Forensics
ABSTRACT:	In an attempt to quell rumors regarding the health of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Il, the North Korean government released a series of photographs showing a healthy and active Kim Jong-Il. Shortly after their release the BBC claimed that the photographs were doctored. The article pointed to purported visual incongruities which were claimed to be the result of photo tampering. The BBC was wrong. Because judgments of photo authenticity are often made by eye, we wondered how reliable the human visual system is in detecting discrepancies that might arise from photo tampering. We describe three experiments that show that the human visual is remarkably inept at detecting simple geometric inconsistencies in shadows, reflections, and planar perspective distortions. We also describe computational methods that can be applied to detect the inconsistencies that seem to elude the human visual system.
WHEN:	11/9/2009 4:30:00 PM
WHERE:	Meliora 269

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