Roc Camera
253 comments
·October 24, 2025peteforde
barrell
I also used to be really (really really) into photography. Personally, I’ve stopped taking pictures because of the stigma around a camera.
Everyone, me more than most, doesn’t want their picture taken, or to be in the background of other photos. When someone can take thousands of pictures an hour, and upload them all to some social media site to be permanently stored… idk it’s shifted from a way to capture a moment to feeling like you’re being survieled.
A bit hyperbolic, but it’s the best way to describe what I’m feeling
bborud
The concept of «public» has changed.
About 15-20 years ago I attended a lot of car events (races, shows) where I took lots of photos. Mostly of moving cars, but also a lot of closeups of race car drivers using a long lens. For about a year more than half the photos published in a very niche car publication were by me. The magazine had a few thousand subscribers. And to this day I still see some drivers use my shots of them as profile pictures etc. Nobody minded being photographed. In fact, they were really happy about it.
Then social media happened. There’s a different «public» now. Any picture taken and published now has the potential to go viral. To get a global audience. And not least: to be put in unpleasant contexts.
I can understand that people’s attitudes have changed.
I haven’t actually given up taking photos in public. In part because I think it is important that people do. I still take pictures of strangers. Then again, I very rarely publish them online out of respect for their privacy.
I understand how photos represent something else today. And that people view the act of taking a picture differently. But if we stop taking pictures, stop exercising our rights to take pictures, we will lose them. Through a process of erosion.
lynx97
I find the combination of "pictures of strangers" and "our right to take pictures" rather concerning. I have a different perspective, as I am blind. But I was always uncomfortable with having a picture taken of me by basically a stranger. And that feeling didn't just come with social media. It always was there. I disagree that you have a "right" to take pictures of strangers. IMO, you shouldn't have that right. It is probably different depending on what juristiction you are in. But my personal opinion is, that this attitude is rather selfish. In my perfect world, taking pictures of strangers without their consent should be illegal.
spython
Absolutely. Running around with a large format camera (Graflex) with an Instax back (lomograflok) and making photos and immediately giving results back to people changed a lot. Strangers were basically lining up to ask about the camera and have their photo taken. That was a really fun experience, and I noticed how much I missed that excitement - before camera phones took over such moments were much more common. Now I build/3d print my own large and medium format cameras, and that also makes it much more interesting, but the fun of instant photography with an ancient looking camera is just incredible.
tasuki
> Everyone, me more than most, doesn’t want their picture taken, or to be in the background of other photos.
I used to be a little into photography. No one ever protested about me taking a picture of them. Just recently I was photographing an event and thought: I just come there, take photos of everyone, upload them to the internet, and all I get is thanks. I haven't asked anyone for permission. Yes I was invited by the event organizer, but I'm sure they didn't ask permission either.
sjw987
That's odd, and to reassure you I would say that I personally would rather see somebody with a physical camera. That way I know I can avoid the area they're photographing if I don't want to be shot or just be aware I'm going to be in a photo otherwise. It also makes me (rightly or wrongly) think the photo will be uploaded somewhere a bit higher than an Instagram / Facebook feed (my wife used to put DSLR photos on Instagram and for an image feed website I used to be shocked at how poorly images were downscaled, maybe that's changed).
I find something much more pervasive about any upright smartphone being a camera at any given time, whether the person is being obvious about it or not. A dedicated camera is actually more reassuring to me, as its use-cases are probably more innocent than a smartphone camera.
Smartphone cameras have given poor photography to the masses. I reckon I'm probably in thousands of peoples photos that were taken on a whim with a phone. And I've witnessed situations where it appears people are trying to stealthily take photos of people with phones on public transport and the like.
stavros
Instagram isn't for sharing photos, it's for sharing a curated, artificial view into your life. Photos are just the medium, it's not meant for art.
bambax
> That way I know I can avoid the area they're photographing
Not with 360 cameras! Which are super fun btw.
ben_
> for an image feed website I used to be shocked at how poorly images were downscaled, maybe that's changed
It has not, still garbage.
frereubu
I've managed to get around that by returning to my Nikon FM2. People react quite differently when it's clearly a film camera - even better if it's a medium format camera. That also gets around the nagging feeling that you're being guided in what you're taking by how it will appear online too. I don't have any social media accounts aside from HN and a BlueSky account that tweets the diary entries of an 18th century naturalist so I have no motivation to think about that side of things. It's a lovely feeling of my work being private because I can't be tempted in the moment to share a photo online. It feels much healthier.
barrell
Heh I’ve often daydreamed of one day setting up a darkroom and buying a couple medium format cameras, I wondered if that would be disarming enough (I love medium format and TLRs).
Can’t do it while I’m renting, but maybe one day!
MarcelOlsz
The best is making albums with numbered tissue paper silhouettes and the peoples names written on the back with a blurb and the date.
>It's a lovely feeling of my work being private because I can't be tempted in the moment to share a photo online. It feels much healthier.
I find people like it a lot and even give me contact info to get the picture I took of them which is cool.
assimpleaspossi
People feel like there's some man in a dark room somewhere looking at each and every image posted everywhere with evil intent.
barrell
Not really. I think people rightfully feel that there are algorithms online trying to identify every person and every relation and store every bit of information about everyone. They feel that everything now is so permanent and public, that if you’re not at your best you’re at your worst, that that moment will be immortalized, and that you have no control after the picture is taken so it’s better to avoid it from the get go.
MarcelOlsz
Can't you just not care and power through? Someones always going to be miffed regardless. I keep a Rollei A110 on me at all times and a tiny Minox EC that takes me hours to refill. When I bring it out people love it. It's a throwback that people very much appreciate. I can see people getting miffed at a big digital camera though.
barrell
Can’t I just not care that I’m making other people uncomfortable and power through? I think for obvious reasons that takes away a lot of the enjoyment, both of photography and socializing.
YMMV, but every time I’ve brought out a camera in the last 5-10 years it has just made people uncomfortable, so I stopped taking it out, and eventually stopped bringing it.
Tepix
Why do you think anyone is entitled to upload photographs showing other people to the internet where they are completely out of control of what happens next?
mikepurvis
I have an entry level Sony Alpha that I picked up for a vacation earlier this year. With the portrait lens on there it definitely registers as “camera” far more than a phone. Between that factor and the hassle of having to manually go through and upload the photos afterward, I only take it on special occasions — trips, hikes, etc. It’s not worth all that hassle for trying to get day to day stuff.
spaqin
And yet, they're constantly captured by countless CCTV cameras all around, without minding their business. I know the pain and don't take as many portraits as I'd like to sometimes, even with people close to me; but on few occasions that I do sneak in a shot and show them the results later, they're surprised in two ways: "when did you take it?!" and "that doesn't look half bad!". Maybe because I don't overdo it.
Keep up the fight!
oxalorg
I have clicked about ~20,000 photographs on a Sony camera in the last year and a half. And I have published exactly 0 of those photos on social media.
Whenever I meet my friends and family, I show them the pictures myself and the story behind them.
I love the thrill of street photography and it gives me immense pleasure to capture candid moments of humans. It's a great creative outlet for me and helps me think about life and philosophy through my pictures.
Maybe one day I will care enough about publishing these pictures, maybe one day I will care about AI. But right now, I don't. This is the closest I've been to my "kid"-like self, just enjoying something for the heck for it.
quietfox
I really need to get back to that mindset. I keep catching myself unconsciously checking my hobbies and abilities for marketability. I've been playing guitar for almost three decades, one of them spent in a touring metal band. When I started, I used to enjoy making music so much that I played and composed so often an album would just come together naturally. And then another one and another one, I just couldn't stop. These days, I no longer sit down to play just for myself and the moment — instead, I catch myself thinking, “Can I sell sample packs from this? Record a course? Should I code a VST plugin for it and sell that?” And after weeks of moments like this, all I have are three random riffs and frustration.
huimang
> Nobody has ever walked past a photograph because they can't inspect its digital authenticity hash
That the average person hasn't thought about this doesn't mean it couldn't become a thing in the future. People do value authenticity and genuine things, though I agree the particulars aren't relevant in a lot of cases.
This is a (very expensive!) toy camera, but I could see traditional camera companies like Fujifilm, Canon, etc, incorporating this tech later down the line.
kybernetyk
How did you get out of your photography obsession? Because currently I’m really really into photography as well and it gets unhealthy. (Both time and money wise).
bambax
Agreed. This product seems pointless because nobody's interested in a proof of authenticity (except maybe in certain legal niches?)
I take pics for me and my friends and family, and AI has almost zero impact on this (although, face swaping is lots of fun, and everyone understands it's fake and a joke).
Edit: also, and more importantly, the question of authenticity is moot. The point of art in general is to say something / make a statement, and certainly not to produce a faithful representation of the world. Anything that's not an exact copy (which is hard to do if you're not God), has a point of view, which gives it value.
patates
> I was seeking the external gratification of getting likes just like everyone else.
“You will be happy to look okay. You will be happy to turn heads. You will be happy with smoother skin. You will be happy with a flat stomach. You will be happy with a six-pack. You will be happy with an eight-pack. You will be happy when every photo of yourself gets 10,000 likes on Instagram. You will be happy when you have transcended earthly woes. You will be happy when you are at one with the universe. You will be happy when you are the universe. You will be happy when you are a god. You will be happy when you are the god to rule all gods. You will be happy when you are Zeus. In the clouds above Mount Olympus, commanding the sky. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.”
― Matt Haig, Notes on a Nervous Planet , Shortened version of the many-paragraphs-long quote found on: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10913632-you-will-be-happy-...
keepamovin
I think real photography is sort of like archery, you know, in the moment, feeling it, release at the right time, to capture that. I think in a sense of the candid street, or Magnum photogs. That kind of spirit. And that is innately satisfying and a fun way to engage with the world around you. :)
seasongs
Cool idea, could be implemented in future professional cameras but as of right now, I can’t think of a single reason that someone into photography would buy this
jeswin
I am actually willing to support DIY camera efforts, but if you're semi-serious about taking pictures, this just wouldn't work. First, Raspberry Pi (I'm guessing this is a CM4/CM5) is a disaster for a camera board. Nobody wants a 20s boot every time you want to take a picture, cameras need to be near instantaneous. And you can't keep it on either, because the RPi can't really sleep. There are boards that can actually sleep, but with fewer sensor options.
Now moving on to the sensor (IMX 519 - Arducam?) - it's tinier than the tiniest sensor found on phones. If you really want to have decent image quality, you should look at Will Whang's OneInchEye and Four-thirds eye (https://www.willwhang.dev/). 4/3 Eye uses IMX294 which is currently the only large sensor which has Linux support (I think he upstreamed it) and MIPI. All the other larger sensors use interfaces like SLVS which are impossible to connect to.
If anyone's going to attempt a serious camera, they need to do two things. Use at least a 1 inch sensor, and a board which can actually sleep (which means it can't be the RPi). This would mean a bunch of difficult work, such as drivers to get these sensors to work with those boards. The Alice Camera (https://www.alice.camera/) is a better attempt and probably uses the IMX294 as well. The most impressive attempt however is Wenting Zhang's Sitina S1 - (https://rangefinderforum.com/threads/diy-full-frame-digital-...). He used a full frame Kodak CCD Sensor.
There is a market for a well made camera like the Fuji X-Half. It doesn't need to have a lot of features, just needs to have ergonomics and take decent pictures. Stuff like proofs are secondary to what actually matters - first it needs to take good pictures, which the IMX 519 is going to struggle with.
ugh123
From these pics it actually looks like a whole PI4 board is used https://farcaster.xyz/faust
jeswin
Interesting. I'm curious why they would do that.
amne
1. buy stuff for $50
2. 3d print a couple of cases for $10
3. repurpose highschool summer break crypto project .. free? (excluding time spent)
4. ???
5. profit from selling it for $400 a pop
nextlevelwizard
All the stuff is off the shelf. Makes it way easier to develop. There is no reason to actually use RPi, compute module or not, as a base camera board (talking from experience) other than it is super easy to start with.
HelloUsername
> There is a market for a well made camera like the Fuji X-Half.
That product has for its specs a ridiculous price point of €750..
jeswin
But you don't buy it for the specs, you buy it for the experience. It topped sales charts when it was launched. If I had more time to spend on photography, or if I was younger, or if it was a little cheaper I'd have bought it myself.
I suspect more will follow the X-Half, because it gets orientation right. Most images are viewed today in portrait mode, and half-frame is the right format for that.
bborud
The people who buy these cameras would probably be better served by upgrading their phones. Phones are good enough cameras for this use and they are infinitely better at processing.
As a long time hobbyist photographer I can understand buying cameras because they have a certain appeal. But I have to say that I honestly do not understand why someone would spend lots of money and then not want to take advantage of the technology offered.
I think shooting to JPEG and using film profiles is kind of pointless. If you want to shoot film, shoot film. Imagine you have taken a really good picture, but it’ll always look worse than it could because you threw away most of the data and applied some look to it that will date it.
I do understand that a lot of people think these cameras are worth buying. And that they are selling well. But I can’t understand why.
HelloUsername
> if it was a little cheaper I'd have bought it myself.
Same here. Even for the experience it's overpriced.
donaldihunter
I don't think ZK proofs help to establish trust in a photo's authenticity at all. C2PA is a well thought out solution to this problem.
https://spec.c2pa.org/specifications/specifications/2.2/spec...
> The C2PA information comprises a series of statements that cover areas such as asset creation, edit actions, capture device details, bindings to content and many other subjects. These statements, called assertions, make up the provenance of a given asset and represent a series of trust signals that can be used by a human to improve their view of trustworthiness concerning the asset. Assertions are wrapped up with additional information into a digitally signed entity called a claim.
keyle
This is rather expensive for what looks like a home 3D printed toy with some cute software.
Other than that it's a 16MP Sony CMOS, I'd expect a pretty noisy picture...
How do I get my photos off the camera?
Coming soon. We're working on export functionality to get your photos off the camera.
hn_throwaway_99
> This is rather expensive for what looks like a home 3D printed toy with some cute software.
This attitude really rubs me the wrong way, especially on a site called Hacker News.
I think we absolutely should be supporting projects like this (if you think they're worth supporting), else all we're left with is giant corporation monoculture. Hardware startups are incredibly difficult, and by their nature new hardware products from small companies will always cost more than products produced by huge companies that have economies of scale and can afford billions of losses on new products.
So yes, I'm all for people taking risks with new hardware, and even if it doesn't have the most polished design, if it's doing something new and interesting I think it's kinda shitty to just dismiss it as looking like "a 3D printed toy with some cute software".
keyle
Hey it's fine to make a 3d printed camera and cool stuff like that. But it's another thing to make it a product, that isn't shipping yet and asking $399 with a shiny website and with closed source software.
I don't mean to disregard the technical feat, but I question the intent.
deckar01
The BoM is ~$150 MSRP. I doubt the ZKP Rube Goldberg contraption will survive a day of reverse engineering once it gets into the wild.
litlTucker
Check Ali for "shitty" minature key-ring C-thru packaged cameras that look just like this "3D printed toy with some cute software", going for $4.00, not $400!
wiether
Please, stop!
I've been strugling to fight the urge to by a "Kodak Charmera" for a month now, don't tempt me again!
BoorishBears
This literally looks like someone made a closed source hardware kit out of mostly open parts and software then shipped it preassembled.
I support it but I recognize it is a 3D printed toy with some cute software... toys can be interesting too. Not everything needs to be a startup.
nextlevelwizard
It would be cool if this was open source because looking at the pictured this is all off the shelf hardware. I am guessing only bespoke thing here is the stl for the case
typpilol
You literally can't even export the photos...
moffkalast
Simple, you remove the sdcard and mount it on linux, the security of a Pi is a joke.
I wouldn't mind if it was 3D printed if it wasn't done with like a layer height of 0.28, half transparent so it looks weird, and intended for outdoor use where 3D prints are porous and water will seep through. The housing needs at the very least some spray painting and a clearcoat.
What I do mind is the cheapest off the shelf diy button lmao. They are like cents a piece, just add a fucking metal one that are like a few cents more if you're selling a $400 camera, cheapass. I wouldn't be surprised if the software side with the "proof" being a similarly haphazardly brittle implementation as the construction.
Gigachad
It wouldn't work at all as open source since you could just modify the source to sign your AI generated pictures.
philipswood
One could design a toolchain that posts a hashed signed version of the source used to produce a signed binary. Build and deploy what you want and if you want people to trust it and opt in then it is publicly available.
In this case you get the signature and it confirms the device and links to a tamper proof snapshot of the code used to build its firmware.
drdaeman
This is patently incorrect. Just remember the whole TiVo affair and reasons why GPLv3 was born. Source code availability does not guarantee ability to run it on the particular device.
pabs3
The Software Freedom Conservancy thinks the GPLv2 guarantees the ability to modify existing GPLv2 software on a device, but does not guarantee the ability to still use the proprietary software running on top of that, and that the same applies with GPLv3. Reading the preamble of the GPLv2, I'm inclined to agree with them. Hasn't been tested in court yet though I think.
https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/mar/25/install-gplv2/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-t... https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017...
nextlevelwizard
Okay. What prevents you from printing out a AI generated picture and taking a photo of that with the camera?
timberland127
46 chromosomes
alyxya
It’s a cool idea, but I don’t know how much people care about a photo provably being real. I take pictures with my phone because it’s simple and convenient. I get the vibe that it’s kinda like NFTs, where maybe some people would care if certain NFTs are unique and permanently on some blockchain, but most people don’t. Most people won’t understand the technical details behind the proof so at most they can only trust the claim that a picture is provably real.
captainmuon
Nooo... I don't want something to exist that can absolutely prove that a photo is real. This only serves to enforce social norms more rigidly. These include reasonable norms like against committing crimes or behaving abusingly but it also includes stupid norms like behaving uncool or doing something embarrasing. The problem is, where do you draw the line? I think if somebody does something stupid or even morally dubious there should always be a way of forgetting it.
That you can't believe everything you see in the age of AI is a feature, not a bug. We are so used to photographs being hard facts that we'll have to go through a hard transition, but we'll be fine afterwards, just as we were before the invention of photography. Our norms will adapt. And photographs will become mere heresay and illustration, but that's OK.
I think here the same dynamic is at play as with music/videos and DRM. Our society is so used to doing it the old way - selling physical records - that when new technology comes along, which allows free copying, we can't go where the technology leads us (because we don't know how to feed the artists, and because the record industry has too much power), so we invent a mechanism to turn back the wheel and make music into a scarce good again. Similar here: we can't ban Photoshop and AI, but we invent a technology to try to turn back time and make photos "evidence" again.
dimas_codes
I am sorry if I missed something or someone already asked it, but:
If I generate image with AI, print it, then take a photo of it with Roc Camera so that you can't tell that this is actually a printed image, I will then have an AI image with ZKP of its authenticity?
dbdr
Sony has this on their related page:
> A digital signature alone cannot determine whether the captured image is of an actual 3D subject, or of an image or video projected on a high-definition monitor. However, by using metadata including 3D depth information, it is possible to verify the authenticity of images with a high degree of accuracy. By using cameras from Sony, both the image and the 3D depth information can be captured on the sensor along the single light axis, providing information of high authenticity.
That 3D depth data could presumably be used to detect this. In principle, you could also train an AI to generate realistic 3D data. It's just not available yet, and probably harder to train (in general, and also since you would need to collect new massive amount of training data first).
No idea if this specific device has a 3D sensor, addressing the general question.
efskap
I suspect the EXIF data won't make sense, and the faq says the ZKP applies to the metadata as well. But yeah, inherent flaw.
keiferski
Presumably you could stop this by requiring GPS data for the image, and match that against a library of other images in the location?
dusted
I don't understand how the "proof" part works, like, what part of the input to the "proof generation" algorithm is so inherently tied to the real world that one cannot feed it "fake" data ?
ConorSheehan1
My understanding is it can't. The proof is "this photo was taken with this real camera and is unmodified". There's no way to know if the photo subject is another image generated by AI, or a painting made by a human etc.
_carbyau_
^^This so much.
I remember when snapchat were touting "send picture that delete within timeframes set by you!" and all that would happen is you'd turn to your friend and have them take a picture of your phone.
In the above case, the outcome was messy. But with some effort, people could make reasonable quality "certified" pictures of damn near anything by taking a picture of a picture. Then there is the more technical approach of cracking a system physically in your hands so you can sign whatever you want anyway...
I think the aim should be less on the camera hardware attestation and more on the user. "It is signed with their key! They take responsibility for it!"
But then we need:
1. fully active and scaled public/private key encryption for all users for whatever they want to do
2. a world where people are held responsible for their actions...
I'm not sure which is more unrealistic.
condiment
I don’t disagree with including user attestation in addition to hardware attestation.
The notion of their being a “analog hole” for devices that attest that their content is real is correct on the face, but is a very flawed criticism. Right now, anybody on earth can open up an LLM and generate an image. Anybody on earth can open up Photoshop and manipulate an image. And there’s no accountability for where that content came from. But not everybody on earth is capable of projecting an image and photographing it in a way that is in distinguishable from taking a photo of reality. Especially when you’ve taken into consideration that these cameras are capturing depths of field information, location information, and other metadata.
I think it’s a mistake to demand perfection. This is about trust in media and creating foundational technologies that allow for that trust to be restored. Imagine if every camera and every piece of editing software had the ability to sign its output with a description of any mutations. That is a chain of metadata where each link in the chain can be assigned to trust score. If, an addition to technology signatures, human signatures are included, that just builds additional trust. At some point, it would be inappropriate for news or social media not to use this information when presenting content.
As others have mentioned, C2PA is a reasonable step in this direction.
exodust
Perhaps if it measured depth it could detect "flat surface" and flag that in the recorded data. Cameras already "know" what is near or far simply by focusing.
ellenhp
If someone cared enough to spend money on this I think it would be an easy to medium difficulty project to use an FPGA and a CSI-2 IP to pretend to be the sensor. Good luck fixing that without baking a secure element into your sensor.
ajdlinux
I'd be shocked if the major sensor vendors don't already have engineers working on exactly that, though.
johnmaguire
Sony has this - https://authenticity.sony.net/camera/en-us/index.html
whatsupdog
I would also love to know this. Where can I read how it works?
modeless
Seems to me that a camera like this is necessarily, at least in part, a closed system that blocks you from controlling the software or hardware on the device you supposedly own. It's hard for me to think this is a good direction. And as others have pointed out, it can't prevent attacks through the analog hole, e.g. photographing a display.
It's not feasible or desirable for our hardware devices to verify the information they record autonomously. A real solution to the problem of attribution in the age of AI must be based on reputation. People should be able to vouch for information in verifiable ways with consequences for being untrustworthy.
7952
Practically I think there are situations where it is not so black and white. Like camera footage used as evidence in a court case. Signing a video with a public key would give some way to verify the source and chain of custody. Why wouldn't you in that situation? At a minimum it makes tapering harder and weakens false claims that something has been tampered with.
altairprime
> camera like this is necessarily, at least in part, a closed system that blocks you from controlling the software or hardware on the device you supposedly own
Attestation systems are not inherently in conflict with repurposeability. If they let you install user firmware, then it simply won’t produce attestations linked to their signed builds, assuming you retain any of that functionality at all. If you want attestations to their key instead of yours, you just reinstall their signed OS, the HSM boot attests to whoever’s OS signature it finds using its unique hardware key, and everything works fine (even in a dual boot scenario).
What this does do is prevent you from altering their integrity-attested operating system to misrepresent that photos were taken by their operating system. You can, technically, mod it all you want — you just won’t have their signature on the attestation, because you had to sign it with some sort of key to boot it, and certainly that won’t be theirs.
They could even release their source code under BSD, GPL, or AGPL and it would make no difference to any of this; no open source license compels producing the crypto private keys you signed your build with, and any such argument for that applying to a license would be radioactive for it. Can you imagine trying to explain to your Legal team that you can’t extract a private key from an HSM to comply with the license? So it’s never going to happen: open source is about releasing code, not about letting you pass off your own work as someone else’s.
> must be based on reputation
But it is already. By example:
Is this vendor trusted in a court of law? Probably, I would imagine, it would stand up to the court’s inspection; given their motivations they no doubt have an excellent paper trail.
Are your personal attestations, those generated by your modded camera, trusted by a court of law? Well, that’s an interesting question: Did you create a fully reproducible build pipeline so that the court can inspect your customizations and decide whether to trust them? Did you keep record of your changes and the signatures of your build? Are you willing to provide your source code and build process to the court?
So, your desire for reputation is already satisfied, assuming that they allow OS modding. If they do not, that’s a voluntary-business decision, not a mandatory-technical one! There is nothing justifiable by cryptography or reputation in any theoretical plans that lock users out of repurposing their device.
Gigachad
The analog hole can be mitigated by using more sensors. Store a depth map, a time, gps location, and maybe more.
If you’ve got a photo of a public figure, but it doesn’t match the records of where they were at that time, it’s now suspicious.
nixpulvis
I don't think reputation gets you that far alone, we already live in a world where misinformation spreads like wildfire through follower counts and page ranks.
The problem is quality takes time, and therefore loses relevance.
We need a way to break people out of their own human nature and reward delayed gratification by teaching critical thinking skills and promoting thoughtfulness.
I sadly don't see an exciting technological solution here. If anything it's tweaks to the funding models that control the interests of businesses like Instagram, Reddit, etc.
noduerme
Why can't posting a verifiably true image create as much or more instant gratification as sending a fake one? It will probably be more gratifying, once everyone is sending fake ones and yours is the only real one (if people can know that).
7952
Lies are just better at reproducing themselves than truth.
echelon
This feels like pearl clutching.
We do not need "proof". We lived without it, and we'll live without it again.
I grew up before broadband - we survived without photographing every moment, too. It was actually kind of nice. Social media is the real fluke of our era, not image generation.
And hypothetically if these cryptographic "non-AI really super serious real" verification systems do become in vogue, what happens if quantum supremacy beats crypto? What then?
You don't even need to beat all of crypto. Just beat the signing algorithm. I'm sure it's going to happen all the time with such systems, then none of the data can be "trusted" anyway.
I'm stretching a bit here, but this feels like "NFTs for life's moments". Designed just to appease the haters.
You aren't going to need this stuff. Life will continue.
t43562
Back to the time before photographs then - the 1800s.
Crime scene photographs won't be evidence anymore. You photograph your flat (apartment) when you move in to prove that all the marks on the walls were already there and that won't be evidence anymore. The police mistreat you but your video of it won't be evidence either. etc
Gigachad
This worked because we also used to have significantly better and more trustworthy news organisations that you could just trust did the original research and verified the facts. Now they just copy stories off Reddit and make up their own lies.
nixpulvis
Am I just a crazy cynic or are ZK proofs here just a buzzword.
Like, how is this any different than having each camera equipped with a vendor controlled key and then having it sign every photo?
If you can spoof the sensor enough to reuse the key, couldn't you spoof the sensor enough to fool a verifier into believing your false proof?
injidup
You take a photo of an AI generated photo. What's yr proof worth then?
quailfarmer
Kudos for making this exist, it was an inevitable place for the conversation to lead, and I’m actually glad it was “hacked” together as a project rather than forced into a consumer product. The camera specs don’t really matter here, this is about having the conversation. If this catches on, it will be a feature of every smartphone SoC.
On one hand, it’s a cool application of cryptography as a power tool to balance AI, but on the other, it’s a real hit to free and open systems. There’s a risk that concern over AI spirals into a justification for mandatory attestation that undermines digital freedom. See: online banking apps that refuse to operate on free devices.
I used to be really (really really) into photography. I respect anyone working hard on a physical product, but this misses the mark on every front I can think of.
The real issue that photographers grapple with, emotionally and financially, is that pictures have become so thoroughly commodified that nobody assigns them cultural value anymore. They are the thumbnail you see before the short video clip starts playing.
Nobody has ever walked past a photograph because they can't inspect its digital authenticity hash. This is especially funny to me because I used to struggle with the fact that people looking at your work don't know or care what kind of camera or process was involved. They don't know if I spent two hours zoomed in removing microscopic dust particles from the scanning process after a long hike to get a single shot at 5:30am, or if it was just the 32nd of 122 shots taken in a burst by someone holding up an iPad Pro Max at a U2 concert.
This all made me sad for a long time, but I ultimately came to terms with the fact that my own incentives were perverse; I was seeking the external gratification of getting likes just like everyone else. If you can get back to a place where you're taking photographs or making music or doing 5 minute daily synth drills for your own happiness with no expectation of external validity, you will be far happier taking that $399 and buying a Mamiya C330.
This video is about music, but it's also about everything worth doing for the right reasons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvQF4YIvxwE