What do you think- technological implications

[Derek McGowan]

I really would have posted this in a technology forum but it appears that OL doesn't have one!

Just a quick question of curiosity

As technology improves and once we get to the point where CG is so easy (as in drag and drop image, run filter, and render for a few minutes), so cheap (that anyone can buy the software) and cursory for hardware (that average desktops can do the job) it seems obvious to me that we will have an increase in black mails and libel. In other words if I can easily created a video and insert (random celebrity) image into it many people will either try to get something out of the celebrity or even just post the video to ruin reputations.

My real question is, do you think that this will tend to lead to a future where video evidence is considered inadmissible in court?

One possible way out is if the app used for such CG manipulation requires that you be online and connected to their server which then records exactly what was done so that there is always an encrypted database that can be cross-checked just in case. Problem with that is if someone is able to cheat (change the database, do manipulations without being recorded, etc) then their video evidence would have an even higher level of credibility because "everyone knows that you can't beat the system so it must be real"

ps I'm writing 3 questions in different categories to brain storm on. If you have a link, please post what you think the answer is before you post link

[RobinReborn]

"Black mail" and Libel are generally within free speech. (I should note that as a legal term, black mail is the threat to do something illegal, not the threat to do something which is legal but could hurt somebody's reputation, most people's usage of black mail fits the latter definition.)

As for video evidence being inadmissible in court, you raise an interesting point. But I'm not sure it matters that much. So long as the courts have more advanced technology than criminals.

[dldelancey]

I'm reminded of Rising Sun, a Michael Crichton novel then made into a movie starring Wesley Snipes and Sean Connery. It dealt with this very issue, but of course based on 1990s technology. RR makes an excellent point that as technology improves, the experts who rely on its validity must also improve. Faster. I wonder if other as yet unknown investigative methods might emerge to replace that type evidence?

[moralist]

Technology, being amoral, will always be a double edged sword with new ways to do good and new ways to do evil.

Greg

[Peter]

di wrote, "RR makes an excellent point that as technology improves, the experts who rely on its validity must also improve. Faster."

I agree. Pixels can be manipulated but the experts should be one step ahead of that. As usual, the stranger the depiction the more stringent the examination should be. Imagine a special affects stunt in a modern movie, like the hero leaping from a bridge onto a moving flat bed truck. Examination of the data should show "created" vs motion capture photography, just as an expert could see the wires sending Mary Martin through the air as Peter Pan.

Dash cams and worn cams for police or reporters could be hacked but I have no doubt if an alien landing in Manhattan is shown it would be quickly disproved.

[Brant Gaede]

Technology, being amoral, will always be a double edged sword with new ways to do good and new ways to do evil.

Greg

Goody, goody! :smile:

--Brant

I can't wait! (evil yes; evil no--evil, yes; evil, no . . .) :smile: :smile: :smile:

[Derek McGowan]

di wrote, "RR makes an excellent point that as technology improves, the experts who rely on its validity must also improve. Faster."

I agree. Pixels can be manipulated but the experts should be one step ahead of that. As usual, the stranger the depiction the more stringent the examination should be. Imagine a special affects stunt in a modern movie, like the hero leaping from a bridge onto a moving flat bed truck. Examination of the data should show "created" vs motion capture photography, just as an expert could see the wires sending Mary Martin through the air as Peter Pan.

Dash cams and worn cams for police or reporters could be hacked but I have no doubt if an alien landing in Manhattan is shown it would be quickly disproved.

I'm thinking of Bill Cosby. He is already has a lot of public opinion against him so if one of the women created and posted a video of the event she claimed he was involved in they were be less inclination to do the examination unlike your example of a modern action movie.

Or what about a person breaking into a store. This is a everyday crime and if the store owner posted the likeness of some punk kid in the neighborhood that they simply didn't like .... thats where I see a problem

[dldelancey]

Bill Cosby's reputation is forever tainted on nothing more than the word of those women. Many of them had no evidence at all, yet pretty much every project he was involved in was cancelled. No advanced technology necessary, unless you consider the internet advanced technology.

[Brant Gaede]

Crosby had a moral voice which many did not like respecting self responsibility and he also represented a pro-family orientation. That's all gone and the dominant, controlling culture of the left wanted it gone for the entire intellectual-cultural-moral edifice of the left is built on the idea of championing victimhood, preferably large groups of victims the biggest and most visible being blacks. This is the left's power base.

What Crosby did and didn't do with these women I do not and cannot know, but how many have taken polygraph tests or provided good collaboration? In a sense it doesn't matter; there's no getting the old Crosby back. Stick him with a fork; he's done.

The war with the left is brutal and deadly. Those not of that position mostly do not understand that the left only wants freedom for itself and, once it has power, not for others. The left doesn't even bother talking about ideas anymore. There is no such thing as a "liberal" left. It's fascist left. It's most obvious on college campuses which personify what we (oops!) can call "the great shut up" (TGSU.) The left gave "liberal" a bad name for the leftists started calling themselves "progressives." Now they've dirtied that enough and "liberal" has been self-cleaned somewhat by their absence that some are trying to be liberals again. The basic problem is they carry their dirt with them so they can't escape that they--and all Marxists (at the base they're all fascists-Marxists although most might not be enough self aware to know that)--are and have always been fascists. Fascism is essentially rule by force and crush and destroy all opposition or the threat of any opposition and if the state won't do it yet, get a bunch of women to do it for you. Etc. Ultimately it's a war on America itself--America and the idea of America.

--Brant

[moralist]

That is so very well put, Brant.

Notice how excited the left gets over wrongs of others? They become fixated because this is food for them It justifies and sustains them in their own wrongs. This is just like like when little kids who are caught doing something wrong say...

"See?... they're doing it too!"

Whether or not Cosby did what was claimed the end result is the same. And the results demonstrate why doing evil (or even appearing to do evil) under the color of authority of good is the worst evil. Because it encourages others to hate and negate what is good.

Greg

[syrakusos]

As technology improves and once we get to the point where CG is so easy … do you think that this will tend to lead to a future where video evidence is considered inadmissible in court?

The question remains after over 25 years. Back before they stopped publishing, The Whole Earth Catalog had a cover that looked like a direct print from a Kodachrome negative of flying saucers over the TransAmerica Building: "An End to Photographic Evidence?" Of course, we now have police body cameras in Oakland, as perhaps the icing on that cake.

Any kind of evidence can be faked. The FBI found police faking fingerprints back in the 1920s. (Suspect Identities by Simon Cole, reviewed on my blog: http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2011/01/fallibility-of-fingerprinting.html).

On the other hand, "Questioned Documents" (Document Investigation) is a branch of criminalistics that validates or falsifies everything from passports and bank drafts to simple photocopies.

And what about famous art forgeries? For that matter, for many years, the Heritage Auctions website page about the 1916-D Mercury Dime headlined: "250,000 Struck. Half a million in collections!"

[Selene]

I'm reminded of Rising Sun, a Michael Crichton novel then made into a movie starring Wesley Snipes and Sean Connery. It dealt with this very issue, but of course based on 1990s technology. RR makes an excellent point that as technology improves, the experts who rely on its validity must also improve. Faster. I wonder if other as yet unknown investigative methods might emerge to replace that type evidence?

Great movie D!

[moralist]

I'm reminded of Rising Sun, a Michael Crichton novel then made into a movie starring Wesley Snipes and Sean Connery. It dealt with this very issue, but of course based on 1990s technology. RR makes an excellent point that as technology improves, the experts who rely on its validity must also improve. Faster. I wonder if other as yet unknown investigative methods might emerge to replace that type evidence?

Great movie D!

I agree.

There's a natural parallel evolution of good and evil... as the former constantly rises to meet the rising of the latter.

Greg

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Quibble Alert!

Crosby...

Brant,

I presume you meant Cosby, as in Bill Cosby?

As for Crosby, I don't know that much about Bing's sex life and I haven't seen the left spin anything about it recently.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Quibble Alert!

Crosby...

Brant,

I presume you meant Cosby, as in Bill Cosby?

As for Crosby, I don't know that much about Bing's sex life and I haven't seen the left spin anything about it recently.

Michael

Go clean the house; you've not enough to do.

--Brant

and I'll do the same