[sho_hn]

I'm not too spooked. I think as a society we're just going to learn to distrust recorded+reproduced media by default. Already we don't trust photos much for their potential to be a manipulation. You could call this a loss, sure - but maybe we should just never have in the first place. Photo manipulation is a very old practice.

There's already businesses that sell camera apps (or cameras? my memory is a bit dim) that save a photo along with a cryptographic hash to prove authenticity. Their customers are for example insurance companies, which require their clients to take pictures of damaged property etc. for claim filings that way.

[soulofmischief]

> I think as a society we're just going to learn to distrust recorded+reproduced media by default.

There have been instances of of deceit, but in general the ability to give some credence to leaked political tapes has been a positive thing for society.

With this avenue for political exposure disappearing and totalitarianism making a comeback, it is a bit worrisome how we will continue to blow the whistle on politicians when being present with a camera isn't even enough.

> Photo manipulation is a very old practice.

But not modern audio or video. We're running out of options.

> There's already businesses that sell camera apps (or cameras? my memory is a bit dim) that save a photo along with a cryptographic hash to prove authenticity

This only works if the photo is of yourself and you want to prove its authenticity. If the photo is of someone else, it's still your word against theirs regardless of what hashes you have.

[blotter_paper]

Yup. Media will be signed cryptographically and your belief in the media will correspond to your trust in the signer. It will destroy the usefulness and damage of anonymous publication of recorded evidence. Bad for transparency, good for privacy.

[YaxelPerez]

We can't even get people to look for a green lock icon in their URL bar. I really doubt the kinds of people that are most vulnerable to these attacks will suddenly develop an interest in cryptography.

And if the fake confirms someone's worldview or serves their interests, confirmation bias will take over and no "fancy math" is going to change their mind.

[blotter_paper]

I don't think we'll adapt "suddenly," I expect we'll have to experience some major news stories getting redacted due to deepfaked evidence before this reaction becomes mainstream, but I think it's coming. I also don't think an interest in cryptography is necessary, it's not like I expect people to read public keys directly. There will be some system that shows something along the lines of "Confirmed by $USER_NAME" under the media. You don't need an interest in video codecs to appreciate YouTube. And I have seen people reject faked evidence, such as fake screencaps of tweets, even when it backed up their worldview. We're not perfect at it, but I think we're getting better.

[cco]

Do you not see the problem in societies being unable to share trusted and accurate information about reality? I mean that is 100% required for any interpersonal relationship between two people let alone a community.

[sho_hn]

I do see the problem. I'm saying that ship sailed long before the computer age. Photos have been manipulated with analog means before. Currently we're in a state of still placing undue trust.

What I'm hoping is that we'll find means to actually build trust, e.g. with signing as we discussed here. I'm not entirely confident in that, but wouldn't it be nice if we engineers had a hand in building some useful tools for society? :)

[tlrobinson]

Is it? We did ok before the invention of audio and visual recording.