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.
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
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.
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.
Well, in many parts of the world it is a legal right. You can take pictures of people in public. There are some restrictions, and there’s of course the question of how you go about it, but it is a right.
I can understand people don’t like this. Which is why actually doing it requires a good deal of sensitivity and common sense. But that doesn’t mean it would be a good idea to outlaw it.
However taking a picture is not the same as publishing it. This is the critical point.
The rules for what you can publish tend to be stricter. For instance where I live you can’t generally publish a picture of a person without consent. (It is a bit more complicated than that in practice, with lots of complicated exceptions that are not always spelled out in law. For instance if someone is making a public speech they have no expectation of privacy).
As for making it illegal: that comes with far greater problems than you might think. From losing the right to document abuses of power to robbing people of the freedom to take pictures in public.
In fact, years ago a law was passed here making it illegal to photograph arrests. A well intentioned law meant to protect suspects who have not been convicted of anything. However it has never been enacted because it was deemed dangerous. It would have made it illegal to document police misconduct, for instance. And since the press here is generally very disciplined about not publishing photos of the majority of suspects, it didn’t actually solve a problem. (In Norway identities are usually withheld in the press until someone is convicted. But sometimes identities are already known to the public. For instance in high profile cases. This, of course, varies by country)
While I agree with you that publishing a picture of a person without their consent ought to be illegal, I as an individual with very unreliable memory and one who’s always doubting my perception of reality, I heavily rely on modern technology and strongly believe that personal recording of any kind is my right, it being simple augmentation of my senses that allows me to live happier and more fulfilled life.
There are people who can "take a picture of you" just by looking at you for a second. They have you memorized after that.
I believe the usual approach is that in general, if you're in a public space, you accept pictures may be taken of you. But it depends on the context. If you're a bystander in your city while tourists are fotographing places of interest for example, and you make it into the picture, then that will hardly be a problem in any practical legislation. Most legislations probably allow for pictures taken of you even without you being asked explicitly, as long as certain rights are not violated.
Artists with photographic memory can. And in the modern world of computational photography and gen AI what even is the difference between a photo and drawing?
The difference is time, effort and scalability. There are many things that humans can do that society doesn't strictly regulate, because as human activities they are done in limited volumes. When it becomes possible to automate some of these activities at scale, different sorts of risks and consequences may become a part of the activity.
> But my personal opinion is, that this attitude is rather selfish.
Public photography is cultural preservation and anthropological ethnography. Asking folks to stop is selfish. You are free to have an opinion that differs, and your jurisdiction may even forbid public photography, but in those places I’m familiar with, street photography is as legitimate an art as music played for free on the sidewalk. I wouldn’t argue against public concerts if I were deaf, as it doesn’t concern me, because it isn’t for me, were I unhearing, and the gathering that such public displays engender benefits one and all, regardless of differences of senses or sensibilities amongst those who choose to freely associate.
> In my perfect world, taking pictures of strangers without their consent should be illegal.
Capturing an image of another without their consent is a bit more nuanced, and I would agree that one is entitled to decide how they are portrayed to a degree, but public spaces aren’t considered private by virtue of them being shared and nonexclusive. All the same, though we may disagree, you have given me some food for thought. I appreciate your unique perspective on this issue, and I thank you sincerely for sharing your point of view.
> public spaces aren’t considered private by virtue of them being shared and nonexclusive.
I live in a country where photographing people in public is highly restricted. The reason is that 99% of people cannot avoid public places in their day-to-day lives, therefore public places cannot be a free-for-all.
> therefore public places cannot be a free-for-all.
They can’t in those places with the restrictions you are familiar with and are subject to, but that is no argument against the norms of other places and the denizens thereof. I can, and do see public spaces as a free-for-all, and that is neither better nor worse, but simply the way we do things here.
If you don’t like it, it doesn’t affect you. Most folks are aware, and make a mental note of such things from a young age. If we don’t like it that way, we have avenues to change the way we relate to each other in public by changing the laws and regulations that govern public photography. That society hasn’t reached a consensus on this and other issues is fine. Variety is the spice of life, and the spice must flow.
> public spaces aren’t considered private by virtue of them being shared and nonexclusive
The problem is that "public" 20 years ago (before cell phone cameras, photo rolls, social media, growth/engagement algorithms, attention economy, virality, etc) vs now just doesn't mean the same thing anymore.
There's a difference between "no expectation of privacy" and "no expectation of having every moment of your life in public be liable to be published".
And at that point, the only thing left is the "well if you're not doing anything wrong, you don't care if your life is published" type of logic, and I don't love that.
I think it's a mistake to cling to a definition of "public" that doesn't account for how much things have changed.
Edit: and I use "published" as a direct reference to the "publish" or "post" buttons on various social media apps.
Well, there is also the fact that in a lot of cities, you will be filmed, often by multiple cameras, most of the time, without you being aware of it. By law enforcement, security cameras (private and otherwise), cars etc. on top of that you carry around a phone that streams intimate information about your location, behavior, preferences to a bunch of data aggregators.
And then there are the signal surveillance networks that are peppered around your environment as your phone shouts traceable signals to your surroundings.
(Heck, you can set up a a RPi with a few ESP32s hooked up to dump wifi probe frames, cross reference the networks phones scan for and create a map of where people come from by cross referencing wardriving data. Lots of ISPs make it easy by giving people wireless routers with unique network names. And from there you can figure out things like «someone living at address X is at location Y. People who live at X work for Z and location Y is the office of a competitor». And that’s just by collecting one kind of wifi frame and correlating a bunch of publicly available information)
Privacy is dead. Someone taking pictures hardly even registers.
I wasn't trying to make a "ship has sailed"-argument, but rather the argument that going after photography is odd given how little we care about surveillance and data collection that is far more invasive, complete and dangerous. If this were an optimization problem (optimizing for privacy and reducing criminal behavior), going after people who take pictures in public wouldn't even be on the radar. It isn't even a rounding error.
Sure, I understand that most people are barely aware of the insane amounts of data various data brokers aggregate, curate and sell of ordinary people's highly sensitive data. But most of us are. Or should be. And many of us are also part of the problem.
I do think this should be addressed. Especially since it is hard to address and it is not going to get any easier. In a well functioning legal system, every single one of the large data brokers that trade in sensitive personal information should be in existential peril. And people associated with them should be at very real risk of ending up in prison.
It seems ... peculiar to argue about taking away rights that private citizens have had for more than a century and at the same time not do anything about, for instance, private parties raiding sensitive government data and essentially nobody caring or showing any willingness to do anything about it.
You are right in that we do have a "the ship has sailed" attitude. But rather than focus on fixing what is most important we'd rather risk infringing on the rights of private citizens further because that is "being seen as doing something".
(I'm not accusing you of thinking this -- I am just finishing that line of reasoning to show what absurd conclusions this might lead us to)
> Addressing nothing because everything can't be addressed isn't a great strategy for change.
Presupposing that some strategies for change are less suitable than others is no argument against the status quo, either. Sometimes the way things are is just the way folks in a given time and place do things, and is simply contingent as much as it’s worthwhile.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going. If you don’t like the way things are done here, you either care to make a change, including hearts and minds, or you don’t. If you aren’t from here, that might be an uphill battle, perhaps even both ways: coming and going.
It’s a kind of double standard to judge folks for their customs without wanting to do the work to disabuse them of their notions, lest they warn you not to let the door hit you on your way out, especially after it was opened unto you in the first place. Wanting to have it both ways is a sort of special pleading.
> I think it's a mistake to cling to a definition of "public" that doesn't account for how much things have changed.
I think it’s a mistake for others in different jurisdictions to tell those subject to those norms how they ought to live.
The times may have changed, and we didn’t start the fire. We could put it out if we wanted, or if the lick of the flames brought us undue harm. Perhaps most folks just don’t want to change as much as the times, and that’s okay. The future is not yet written, and justice is a living thing. We can always go a different way if the future we arrive upon necessitates it.
I don’t mind if we have to change, but I do admire the view. The camera can only capture what’s inside the frame, and it would be a shame to stop living, and the greater loss would be to give up on life in pursuit of capturing a fleeting moment. I think for many, like me, who admire the hobby and have a love of photography as an art form, it’s akin to capturing lightning in a bottle. If it were outlawed or constrained, a true loss to society would occur, as that would be a material change in living conditions. Others are free to disagree, and I wouldn’t find fault with them for simply doing so.
When it comes to curtailing my rights to preserve history and my place in it, I don’t think I’m the one who is entitled, but those who would prevent me from freely expressing myself through my chosen medium. If you see something, you ought be free to say something or remain silent. Forestalling my speech is not for you to say. Freedom to photograph is a free speech issue, to my view.
Photography is my favorite art form to consume, so I'm not in favor of any kind of ban of it.
I also agree that freedom to photograph is a free speech issue. I just happen to think the ability to live your life without having it being recorded everywhere is also a freedom issue.
I think it's a challenge for us to solve and I don't pretend to have a solution. I just don't agree with a "change nothing" stance on grounds of "no expectation of privacy" because I think things have changed to a point that it needs to be addressed.
Side note:
> I think it’s a mistake for others in different jurisdictions to tell those subject to those norms how they ought to live.
If that's directed at me, then I think you're reading something in my comment that I haven't expressed.
I don’t mean to direct anything at anyone, other than my viewfinder. I believe in home rule, and not dictates from bureaucrats. As a sort of journalist, I’m going to keep taking pictures, and to keep writing journals. Anything less or different would be to be someone other than myself the best and only way I know how, and that isn’t being true to myself or to others.
If you felt that I directed my comments at you, I apologize; I almost certainly wasn’t. If anything, I am directing them at myself, as an affirmation of what I believe and why. Freedom of expression is one of the few issues that I will take a principled stance on, and if you feel that I was directing my comment at you, I don’t mean to, though you are free to express whatever you feel led to if you feel that I have given you short shrift or unalloyed fire, friendly or otherwise.
I find the comparison with deaf people re concerts is pretty inappropriate. If you take a picture of me without me knowing/my consent, you carry that picture "home" and maybe even upload it to some public site. Heck, you could even upload it to 4chan and make a ton of fun of me. "Look at that stupid disabled guy", or whatever you and your friends end up doing. That is a complete different game. Disabilities are pretty different from eachother, and throwing deaf and blind people into a pot just because both are disabled is a very cheap and mindless act.
I didn’t make fun of you, though. I’m saying it’s not your right to complain about things you don’t know about if you don’t suffer harm, even and especially if you come to know about them. People make fun of other people for reasons or in the absence of them. For you to make a logical leap to imply I’m saying it’s okay to make fun of people, or saying that having a disability is a slight, or blameworthy, or deserving scorn or mockery, is to put words in my mouth.
I’ve known deaf people who love going to concerns. They perceive the thrumming of the bass and the stomp of the crowd. They see the smiles and throw up their hands, and deaf folks are able to carry on a conversation by signing better than most folks who are hearing, especially when the music is turned up to 11.
I’m more concerned with what might happen to assistive technologies meant to be used in public by low-vision and (legally or fully) blind users if public photography bans are passed than I am about any other passing concerns about being photographed in public, to be honest.
The "you" in my writing was refering to any photographer who takes a picture of me without my consent. I should probably mave made that clearer. IOW, I am not suggesting that you in particular are making fun of me or anyone you photograph. But since we were talking about strangers, I have no way of knowing how that photoographer will act. Sure, you in particular probably have a morale compass. However, in the general case, there is no way for me to know if the stranger taking a photo of me is a bad actor or not. And therefore, I oppose the "right" for anyone to do that, simply because I can never know what they will end up doing with that photo.
> And therefore, I oppose the "right" for anyone to do that, simply because I can never know what they will end up doing with that photo.
Jurisprudence in my country can’t preempt legal activities because they might lead to wrongdoing in the future. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I don’t know what you think folks are likely to do, but there are likely already laws against doing most things you would take umbrage with.
There’s no need to winnow our rights out of concern for your “mights.”
I was getting enduly riled up over anonymous internet comments and was going to say something much more obnoxious, but not everyone gets Australian humour so I figured I’d tone it down.
If I saw you take an unasked photo of our blind friend here, I’d let them know so they’d have an opportunity to approach you and ask you to deleted it, if they happen to feel motivated to do so, and offer to take care of it myself ;)
I’ve spent some time down under myself, and I would hope if you were to ever find me lacking, to the degree that you needed to take care of me, that you have the foresight to have that moment on camera, because such a photograph ought to go straight to the pool room.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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).
Go for it anyway! I have a small NYC apt and fit everything I need for darkroom development into a small crate. I can scan negatives with a small setup here, but do have to go to a community darkroom for enlarger printing.
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.
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.
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?
Because that's what public space is? We've always held that principle, and I don't think 'reach' should affect that. If someone takes this to the extreme (i.e. follows you around in public, taking thousands of pictures and uploading them in real time) they can be charged with stalking, harassment, or a similar offence.
To turn it on its head, if you cannot take photographs of people in public without their permission, then we basically lose the ability to take any photos of public space.
Because we in the global west generally have the right to photograph anything we can see in public, save for pathological places like Germany or France. You don’t own your image. If you go into public and I take a photograph of you, I hold the copyright on that image, not you. You don’t have any say in what I do with my (legally obtained) image taken in public, nor should you.
Man you would hate flickr. Also, never said anything about that. I don't have any social media, so the photos die with me and my friends. It's a nice break from modern technology to spend hours on an analog process. If you're in a public place you're probably getting photographed so I'm not sure what you're trying to say.
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.
I have a top of the line Sony Alpha (7CR) with a large zoom lens (24-70GM or 70-200GM) and I carry it almost everywhere, every day. It is absolutely worth the hassle to get day to day stuff.
I found our childhood film camera last year and I took it to a couple trips. price of scanners/getting your film scanned and needing to buy 10eur film rolls for like 20 photos turned me off. I still haven't scanned my first and only roll I shot last year.
I enjoy film photography in some contexts (I do a bit of 4x5), but film photography basically sucks. I think possibly a lot of the people who find some kind of magic in it are those young enough not to have grown up in the era where shooting film was the only option.
I don't mind 4x5 so much because just taking the photo is so much effort that the associated ordeal of developing and scanning isn't out of proportion. But for 35mm and medium format, there's a hugely disproportionate investment of time and money for a small number of photos.
It's what some people see as the point now. Back when film was the only option, the cost and time per frame were just negatives (if you'll excuse the pun). There was no romance in deciding whether or not to use one of your last three remaining frames; it was just annoying.
I don't deny that for a whole range of reasons, some people might take better or more meaningful photos using old cameras. Limitations can feed into the artistic process. I just think it's a bit silly to romanticize the cost and inconvenience of film, or to think that photos taken using film are somehow inherently more interesting or valuable.
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.
The contemporary “ick” about street photography is the ick of non-consensual capture. Everyone feels it to some degree; I stopped doing street photography work and even most social photography (including paid work) because I felt it and I wasn’t ready to navigate those feelings.
This “ick” is real and it’s good that you feel it, because you can build on it for a sense of ethics about photos and the use of the camera, about how its gaze affects subjects, about how to reduce that impact.
A solution for you is to focus on photography with people posing for photos who want the photos, or people posing for photos who want money. Try art nude, even: it is fascinating, liberating, has a very strong historical and creative through line, and will teach you a lot.
I have developed a much stronger sense of the ethics around my photography and a little more personal confidence, so I might yet give street photography a go again in future, if I think I have something specific to say.
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.
People feel like there's some man in a dark room somewhere looking at each and every image posted everywhere with evil intent.
A friend of mine delivers for Amazon. They have to take pictures of every package delivered. Sometimes the customer is there when they arrive and he asks them to hold the package for him while he takes the photo of the package.
Most of them turn away or hold the package far away so they aren't in the image. Some will pose with the package in some amusing way.
> People feel like there's some man in a dark room somewhere looking at each and every image posted everywhere with evil intent.
Yeah when there's precedent for people doing exactly that the feeling is justified. How many times have we heard of [facebook employees/police/...] abusing their powers to stalk their [exes/wives/love interests/'enemies'/...]. With the amount of face detection and cataloguing being done today, it's never been easier on a technical level. The only protection we have is 'trust us we aren't doing it bro', which doesn't get you very far.
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.
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.
> Nobody has ever walked past a photograph because they can't inspect its digital authenticity hash
Nit, but there are reasons Canon and Nikon will sell you cameras that sign the pictures with their keys already. Even if they have been shown insecure in specific implementations the market is very much there.
Ten years ago in the NYC art market this was also true in a niche but very real audience. I think the NFT wave burnt that out completely.
> 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.
Commoditization is a good way to phrase it; first with affordable digital cameras, then with smartphones, photos have become more content than art. With smart filters and digital enhancement, mistakes and imperfect conditions have been fixed.
AI won't replace that, just creates an alternative way to generate content without needing to be physically present somewhere.
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.
The words 'external gratification' popped out. I only recently found out that my sensitivity to it is the biggest flaw/weakness in my and many other's personality.
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).
> 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.”
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. :)
Even "unreal" photography can be like that . My phone may do all of the mechanical work + post-processing, but framing, angle, foreground/background and capturing just the right moment is just as much fun (well, for me anyway).
Or just maybe free markets expose the bitter truth. That can take a lot of self reflection to come to terms with. Applies to a lot of aspects to life, eg. career planning, creative endeavors etc.
But at the same time it's true that some vital public activities aren't rewarded by the system atm. Eg. quality journalism, family rearing, open source, etc. Often that's an issue of privatized costs and socialized rewards. Finding a way to correct for this is a really big deal.
I think this is only true when you abstract things away from their spatiotemporal context and treat market information as a snapshot. The art market thought Van Gogh was a weirdo with bad brush technique until after he died and people began to recognize how innovative his work was.
"Finding a way to correct for this is a really big deal."
But aren't you now feeding back to the system? Why would there need to be a financial reward and incentive for everything?
I do realize "contributing free value" is perceived by some as free value a third party can capture and financially profit from" which might the reason for thinking of how to then cycle some of that value back?
Thinking about the three examples I gave, I think it's more that the externalities of not doing these activities aren't priced in.
Tabloid press is fantastically profitable, but fake news over time will erode a great deal of social trust.
Closed source software might be individually advantageous but collectively holds back industrial progress. It's a similar reason to why patents were first introduced for physical goods.
And yes people voluntarily without kids should have to pay significantly more social contributions.
Capitalism doesn't 'tell us' anything, it just like everything else has pros and cons.
I don't know anyone who understand economics would say this, unless you're talking about very specific meanings of 'value'. I'm not trying to be pedantic, I know what you mean, but these comments are not insightful or helpful.
The desire to "make money" is generally a proxy for the desire to provide value for others. It is easier to justify the investment of labor and resources that went into the production a camera if you can reciprocate the value for others.
There is absolutely a market for social media that bans AI slop. People in general don’t want the slop, but it’s seeping in everywhere with no easy way to mass remove.
The problem with the linked product is it’s basically DRM with a baked in encryption key. And we have seen time and time again that with enough effort, it’s always been possible to extract that key.
People "at large" absolutely don't care about AI slop, even if they point and say eww when it's discussed. Some people care, and some additional people pretend they care, but it just isn't a real issue that is driving behavior. Putting aside (for now) the idea of misinformation, slop is socially problematic when it puts artists out of work, but social media slop is just a new, sadder, form of entertainment that is generally not replacing the work of an artist. People have been warning about the downfall of society with each new mode of entertainment forever. Instagram or TikTok don't need to remove slop, and people won't care after they acclimate.
Misinformation and "trickery" is a real and horrific threat to society. It predates AI slop, but it's exponentially easier now. This camera, or something else with the same goal, could maybe provide some level of social or journalistic relief to that issue. The problem, of course, is that this assumes that we're OK with letting something be "real" only when someone can remember to bring a specialty camera. The ability of average citizens to film some injustice and share it globally with just their phone is a remarkably important social power we've unlocked, and would risk losing.
Saying that there is a market for a sane social network does not means it's a market as big as the other social networks. You don't have to conquer the world to have a nice product.
"People "at large" absolutely don't care about AI slop"
I think this is true. In general I think enough population of the market actually does not care about quality as long as it exceeds a certain limited threshold.
There's always been market for sub-par product. That's one of the features of the market I think. You can always find what is the cheapest, lowest quality offering you can sell at a profit.
> People "at large" absolutely don't care about AI slop
I fear, your statement is impossible to be denied its validity, when "Tung Tung Tung Sahur"-Trading-Cards and "Tralalero Tralala"-T-Shirts are a thing.
The problem about DRM in this context is not that it's going to get broken (which is probably true if the product becomes sufficiently mainstream). It will be used to target photographers and take away their rights. With today's cameras, you have (at least in theory) some choice how much of your rights you give away when you give the pictures your took to someone else. With DRM in the camera, you'll likely end up with some subscription service, ceding a lot of control to the camera makers and their business partners.
> There is absolutely a market for social media that bans AI slop.
I fully agree, I just don't know how that could work.
I think GenAI will kill the internet as we know it. The smart thing is (and always has been) to be online less and build real connections to real people offline.
Yes but it is a hard sell, arguably too hard, and the product pitch, which is away from these applications, is the right one. They are not promising to be 'blockchain two' with hypothetical business use cases.
Imagine going to the solicitors with lots of documents that they need copies of. If they are making scans themselves then that is all the proof they need. If an assistant has copied that important certificate, then that copy is all that is needed for normal legal services. The Roc Camera would not be helpful in this regard, even if it had some magic means of scanning A4 pages.
In a serious solicitor interaction there will be forms that need to be signed and witnessed. These important documents then need to go in the post. In theory, the client could just whip out their Roc Camera and... But who is going to buy a Roc Camera when a stamp will do the job?
Maybe you might if you have a lot of photos to take for 'evidence', for example, of the condition of a house before work is done, or after it is done. However, nobody is asking for this so there is no compulsion to get the Roc Camera when the camera on your phone suffices for the needs of the real world.
People absolutely care that photos are real. There was somebody on here recently who had to read the photographer's story of how he planned it all to be comfortable it was real. Especially for those bird-in-front-of-sun type photos.
> 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.
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.
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.
I disagree. If CM5 had the ability to sleep at tiny fractions of a watt, there are really practical and usable cameras you can pull off today, even when it's not the most efficient. For all the downsides, it would more than make up in the ease-of-development department.
I believe if RPi6 adds sleep, you'd see a flurry of portable gadgets built on the platform.
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.
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.
I think almost everyone here is missing the point of this camera. In the post truth AI future, this is the camera you want when you photograph the billionaire or President or your spouse doing something awful. Any other photo proof won’t work because it can always be called fake. And yes I’m being serious. You are missing the point if you say the quality isn’t good enough or it’s too slow or bulky. The idea is the provable authenticity, which is going to be very important in the coming decades.
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.
> 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".
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.
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!
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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).
Sure, but you were asking why truth is less gratifying.
Also, "truth" is clearly something that requires more resources. It is a lifelong endeavour of art/science/learning. You can certainly luck into it on occasion but most of us never will. And often something fictional can project truth better than evidence or analysis ever can. Almost everything turns into an abstraction.
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.
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
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.
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 ?
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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?
> 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.
If you like the idea of a small "dumbish" camera but aren't fussed about all the ZK proof stuff these are quite fun: https://www.campsnapphoto.com/collections/camp-snap-screen-f... I have a few and letting my small kid have a blast while not getting "screen time" is great.
Side effect is I get a small little window into what he "sees" and his lived experience. Going through some of the pics recently was quite beautiful.
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 would broadly expect software made by most camera brands to be shit, while I would expect a developer who creates their own hardware projects (generally, not talking specifically about cameras) to range from idiots who have no idea what they're doing (like me, though to be fair I also wouldn't release it believing it to be good) to highly skilled coders who would get it right despite being on their own.
So I wouldn't automatically assume that a product like this would be better designed, but I would think there's a chance it might have been!
This kinda like a PoC for ZK Proof used in digital devices, however, I don't think a Raspberry Pi in a 3D printed case should be made a real product, it lacks actualy use cases. Honestly, I like this concept, but I think it should belong to a personal art exhibition or DIY competition…
I’m a photographer in my spare time; looks like this product isn’t about what images are being produced, or about the shooting experience - and this discourages me.
When the goal is having a proof that the photo hasn’t been edited or ai generated, using an analog camera and shooting on film seems more practical to me than using a device like this.
I’m not seeing what this is product is trying to solve? A zero knowledge proof to say it isn’t AI ? I think you could do this with a disposable camera or Polaroids and a photo scanner that makes the zero knowledge proofs .
A different thread mentions "what if you take a photo of an AI photo with the Roc camera?" - I still think that would be hard due to perspective, lighting, various other artifacts.
Scanning an image would be much easier to dupe though - scanners are basically controlled perspective/lighting environments so scanning an actual polaroid vs an ai generated polaroid printed on photo paper would be pretty indistinguishable I think.
Maybe I am just naive, but I don't see why taking a photo of a screen, projection, or print out would be hard. Wouldn't it just need even lighting and tripod?
Adding something like a LIDAR and somehow baking that data into the meta data could be fun
Then people will connect their fake image and LIDAR feed to where the CMOS is connected. Like always with half-baked digital attestation chains, laypersons will argue "Oh, but who's gonna do that?" and the reality is that even private modders and hackers are perfectly willing and capable of doing this and will jump on it right away, and if it's just for the fun to distribute a certified picture of an alien giving everyone the finger. Of course, tamper-proof designs would be possible, but they are extremely expensive.
On a side note, the best way to attack this particular camera is probably by attacking the software.
If Elsie and Frances had the technology we could have a digitally signed zero knowledge proof that their photo's captured a genuine scene that included cardboard cutouts of fairies.
It was a real moment with objects that Bishop Berkeley could have kicked.
I love my medium format film cameras. I think everyone interested in photography should try it. Yashicas (just as an example of a company that made good medium format film cameras) are surprisingly affordable on eBay. I've had good luck buying from Japan, FWIW.
I'll throw Mamiya 645 in there for a good medium format camera as well. Yashica is great, I own a Yashica Electro 35 and it is awesome no thought rangefinder.
Most countries, including Japan, India, Canada, and nearly the entire EU, have completely stopped shipping packages to US consumers. This is not because of the tariffs themselves, but because the US apparently has no system in place for actually handling the tariffs on goods that previously qualified for the de minimis exemption. Two months and counting with no information on when shipping might resume.
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.
- I hope they succeed and eventually deliver a solid version of this product - verifiable photography is going to become important, and it's good to see startups working on this
- While I'm sure some artists will like the idea of verifiable photography, the applications that matter to me are any kind of photography that has the potential to end up in a news article or in court
- Selling what is essentially a prototype is fine, it's extremely obvious that's what it is, they explicitly say it! Who cares if it's not very good as a camera?
- The almost complete lack of information on their site about their security model or how their ZKPs work is not particularly encouraging
- It follows that my faith that either the cryptography or the hardware anti-tamper measures in this beta device would stand up to even some decent amateurs, given a couple of weeks to have a crack at it, is not high. I'm almost tempted to buy one just to see how far I, a random kernel engineer who gets modestly decent scores at my local hacker con CTF, could get. But I may well be completely underestimating them! Hard to tell with the fairly scarce information
- Why did they pick a name that's similar to a) AMD's GPU stack, and b) the law enforcement/natsec computer vision business, ROC (https://roc.ai)?
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.
This looks interesting. I love the retro styling and transparent case. The proofs and selling it as some sort of fight-back against AI seems tenuous and as the user controls the hardware - going to be hard to keep that system hermetically sealed due to giving the user the keys on device. Also though almost nobody actually cares very much about attesting that their photos are somehow real and untouched by AI.
There are larger problems when you consider this question. What is real and not in photography is a long and storied debate - any photograph is ultimately a curation of a small part of the real world - what is just out of frame could completely change the interpretation of the viewer if they saw it, regardless of whether the picture is unaltered after taking. The choice of framing, colours, subject etc etc can radically alter meaning. There is no getting away from this.
So ultimately I don't think the biggest problem facing photography is attested reality. I actually think the democratisation of photography offers a better way out - we have so many views on each event now that it's actually harder to fake because there are usually hundreds of pictures of the same thing.
PS for the site author, there is a typo in the sentence beginning - remove the an 'By combining sensors, an on-device zero-knowledge proofs'.
i don't get how the attestation works? from the FAQ, the proofs are generated on the rpi, which AFAIK doesn't have anything like a modern HSM/vault which would allow them to 1. not allow user access to the secret or 2. not allow user to put ai-generated imagery onto the device for 'attestation'
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
It's wild that it's already come to this: The camera itself becomes more important as the instrument to provide zero-trust proof.
This is a brilliant solution to one of the most critical emergent problems. I can see a world where no digital image can be trusted if it doesn't come with a hash.
There is also something called "film" which might be a retro answer to this problem.
I don’t know what this gives that a film camera with slide film loaded doesn’t.
Both cameras still allow “staging” a scene and taking a shot of that. Both cameras will both say that the scene was shot in the physical world, but that’s it.
I would argue that slide film is more “verifiable” in the ways that matter: easier to explain to laypeople how slide film works, and it’s them that you want to convince.
If I was a film or camera manufacturer I would try and go for this angle in marketing.
Can't find slide printing services easily put AI images onto slide film for you?
I think the point of this movement toward cryptographically signing image sensors is so people can confidently prove images are real on the internet in a momentary click, without having to get hold of the physical original and hiring a forensic lab to analyze it.
Are you saying the slide itself would be proof? I think the use cases are different - this camera gives you a file and signature you can transmit digitally.
Does anyone know if the camera sensor includes depth map information? Otherwise what is stopping someone from photographing a large high-resolution print of an AI generated image.
If you do photography for your own pleasure and not for the sake of likes, gratification or public opinion you can use whatever hardware or software it’s alright.
The main argument of this product is to "capture verifiably real moments". Though I find it interesting (and am quite liking the object), I do not tend to think this is a strong argument for this product: capturing a picture of a unreal picture would make it real (as discussed in this thread), moreover what would prevent any phone manufacturer from integrating the same type of "validation" into their hardware?
I remember reading in some Qualcomm Snapdragon document that Qualcomm integrated some image authenticity method. Not sure if this ever landed in an end-product?
Fantastic idea, I'm sure there will be more such devices and a big market for them.
Note to the company: please check the scrolling on Firefox (macOS), it's a little weird.
I like the concept (because I was proposing such a couple of years back) and the software implementation seems good. But holy shit that thing is ugly. They could(should) have worked with a cheap camera maker like Lomokino to make a bare-bones rangefinder or twin lens reflex. This is one of the worst designs I have ever seen. Sorry.
I like the spirit of this, but not the implementation. It feels very performative to create a ZK proof to show that a photo is real. And not really in the spirit of capturing magic moments on film.
I think that a disposable camera, or even something fancier, like a Mamiya C330, are better and more gratifying bets for the money.
I think it's very likely the next iPhone will have some form of authenticity proof too, I just hope Apple doesn't go with its own standard again that's incompatible with everything else.
That's tricky because it needs to store and verify metadata that the user cannot edit and that allows one to distinguish a "normal" photo from a professional photography of a photo. The only place where this can happen are the camera settings but these are limited on smart phones and it's not easy to discern the two cases. I'm sure someone would print a 10x10 meter fake image, put it at just the right distance, and wait for the best indirect light to prove that the Yeti exists.
Just include a depth sensor, lidar, etc. I'm sure over time that will become increasingly easy to defeat too, but then we can just keep improving the sensors too.
Heh, few years ago I built myself a RPi Zero based camera.
I wonder how have they made the boot up fast enough to not be annoying.
I used non-real time eInk display to cut down on the battery life so I could just keep it on in my pocket while out taking pictures since it took good minute to get ready from cold boot.
Has anyone else found themselves becoming hyper-attuned to "AI" trickery in photographs?
Just the other day I stumbled across this picture on Wikipedia: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:An_AT%26T_wireless_r... Can anyone explain what's going on with the front tyre of the white car? To me it looks like the actual picture was ingested by a model then spat back out again with a weird artifact.
The worrying thing is when it becomes too hard to spot the artifacts we won't know how much of our history has been altered subtly, either unintentionally or not, by "AI".
What concerns me most in the era of gen AI irt photography is journalism. We need truth, most especially when limited-means citizen journalism is the only reliable source of that truth.
But I feel like the only way to accomplish fool-proof photos we can trust in a trustless way (i.e. without relying on e.g. the Press Association to vet) is to utterly PACK the hardware with sensors and tamper-proof attestation so the capture can’t be plausibly faked: multi-spectral (RGB + IR + UV) imaging, depth/LiDAR, stereo cameras, PRNU fingerprinting, IMU motion data, secure GPS with attested fix, a hardware clock and secure element for signing, ambient audio, lens telemetry, environmental sensors (temperature, barometer, humidity, light spectrum) — all wrapped in cryptographic proofs that bind these readings to the pixels.
In the meantime however, I'd trust a 360deg go-pro with some kind of signature of manafacture. OR just a LOT of people taking photos in a given vicinity. Hard to fake that.
This is probably one of those scenarios where if someone wants to fake it they're going to fake it (or at least it will be a never ending arms race, and I expect AI to keep close chase), while a basic security solution will suffice for 99% of use cases, including standard journalism. After all, skilled photoshop+computational tools can already do expert fakery in journalism. (Just look at the last Abroadinjapan video earlier today for a good callout of Photoshop editing to increase engagement).
Could Apple or Google do this without updating their hardware? I see a relevant patent (US20220294640A1) and it looks like one of the inventors is at Google now.
It's not like questioning the authenticity of a photo is a new thing "in the age of AI". Manipulating photos has always been a thing, long before photoshop even.
When rocking your Meta, Ray Ban, MacDonalds, Tesla XR AR 0009fNG plus Reality engine contact lense inplants it will be important to cross reference your experiences with what really happened.
Probably look for display artifacts (pixel borders)?
But a fixture that takes a good enough screen + enough distance to make the photographed pixels imperceptible is likely just a medium hurdle for a motivated person.
You probably can't fully avoid it but adding more sensors (depth) will make such a fixture quite a bit more expensive.
There is a movement to cryptographically sign images in order to prove that they are real raw photographs, by selling hardware in which the cryptographic key is placed close to the camera sensor to prevent tampering.
You have to push the signing as far out as possible.
The light sensor must have a key built into the hardware at the factory, and that sensor must attest that it hasn't detected any tampering, that gets input into the final signature.
We must petition God to start signing photons, and the camera sensor must also incorporate the signature of every photon input to it, and verify each photon was signed by God's private key.
God isn't currently signing photons, but if he could be convinced to it would make this problem a lot easier so I'm sure he'll listen to reason soon.
Interesting, but this is a software project. Camera sensor is being bought from Aliexpress in bulk. Competition from companies manufacturing cameras, or smartphones, is huge. How this project is not a cash grab?
I'm pretty sure forensic cameras already exist for this purpose. And as far as I can tell, there isn't really any bulletproof way to do this other than embed a signing key in the camera and hope no one manages to extract it, rendering the whole thing pointless.
I guess you could have a unique signing key per camera and blacklist known leaked keys.
Canon and Nikon both did this. You paid a premium for a “signature analysis” app. The target was for things like law enforcement, where authentication was important.
They got cracked with a year or two. Not sure if they still offer the capability.
Any device like this is useless, because you can print an AI generated picture and then take a photo of it. It's like NFTs in the crypto world, which have proofs that prove essentially nothing.
I have been happily using fujifilm x100 for about 10 years now? I bought a second hand one for about $300. You can buy a decent camera cheaper than a smartphone, as it should be.
Good thinking, but the problem here is that in order to make a good camera which takes verifiable photos you first need to make a good camera, and that's quite hard.
This shouldn't be a product, but a licensed patented technology like Dolby or CDMA, sold to OEMs and directly integrated into cameras and phones.
It should be an industry standard system for guaranteeing authenticity by coordinating hardware and software to be as tamper proof as possible and saved in a cryptographically verifiable way.
No system like this would be perfect, but that's the enemy of the good.
There's simply no technical solution to authenticating photographs as far as I can tell.
The only real solution I can think of is just to have multiple independent parties photograph the same event and use social trust. Luckily this solution is getting easier now that almost everyone is generally no further than 3 feet away from multiple cameras.
you know what grinds my gears? The fact that it takes 2 seconds for the android camera app to open, even when I use the shortcut on the lock screen. It's a step backwards from point-and-shoot cameras.
I was trying to take a picture of a gecko the other day, and it missed half of the event while the app was loading.
The truth is worse than anyone wants to face. It was never about authenticity or creativity. Those words are just bullshit armor for fragile egos. Proofs and certificates do not mean a damn thing.
AI tore the mask off. It showed that everything we worship, art, music, poetry, beauty, all of it runs on patterns. Patterns so simple and predictable that a lifeless algorithm can spit them out while we sit here calling ourselves special. The magic we swore was human turns out to be math wearing makeup.
Strip away the label and no one can tell who made it. The human touch we brag about dissolves into noise. The line between creator and creation never existed. We were just too arrogant to admit it.
Love, happiness, beauty, meaning, all of it is chemistry and physics. Neurons firing, hormones leaking, atoms slamming into each other. That is what we are when we fall in love, when we cry, when we write a song we think no machine could ever match. It is all the same damn pattern. Give a machine enough data and it will mimic our souls so well we will start to feel stupid for ever thinking we had one.
This is not the future. It is already moving beneath us. The trendline is clear. AI will make films that crush Hollywood. Maybe not today, maybe not next year, but that is where the graph is pointing. And artists who refuse to use it, who cling to the old ways out of pride or fear, are just holding on to stupidity. The tools have changed. Pretending they have not is the fastest way to become irrelevant.
Yes, maybe right now you can still tell the difference. Maybe it is obvious. But look at the rate. Look at the slope of that goddamn line. The speed of progress is unmistakable. Every year the gap closes. Every year the boundary between man and machine blurs a little more. Anyone who cannot see where this is going, anyone who cannot admit that this is a realistic possibility, is in total denial. The projection of that line into the future cannot be ignored. It is not speculation anymore. It is math, and it is happening right in front of us.
People will still scoff, call it soulless, call it fake. But put them in a blind test and they will swear it was human. The applause will sound exactly the same.
And one day a masterpiece will explode across the world. Everyone will lose their minds over it. Critics will write essays about its beauty and depth. People will cry, saying it touched something pure in them. Then the creator will step forward and say it was AI. And the whole fucking world will go quiet.
Because in that silence we will understand. There was never anything special about us. No divine spark. No secret soul. Just patterns pretending to mean something.
We are noise that learned to imitate order. Equations wrapped in skin. Puppets jerking to the pull of chemistry, pretending it is choice.
$400 for a raspberry pi in an ugly 3d printed case ?
I love the idea, but the product execution is simply horrendous. It looks more like a money grab gimmick. The sensor selection is also bad, the image quality will be terrible.
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
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
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.
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.
Well, in many parts of the world it is a legal right. You can take pictures of people in public. There are some restrictions, and there’s of course the question of how you go about it, but it is a right.
I can understand people don’t like this. Which is why actually doing it requires a good deal of sensitivity and common sense. But that doesn’t mean it would be a good idea to outlaw it.
However taking a picture is not the same as publishing it. This is the critical point.
The rules for what you can publish tend to be stricter. For instance where I live you can’t generally publish a picture of a person without consent. (It is a bit more complicated than that in practice, with lots of complicated exceptions that are not always spelled out in law. For instance if someone is making a public speech they have no expectation of privacy).
As for making it illegal: that comes with far greater problems than you might think. From losing the right to document abuses of power to robbing people of the freedom to take pictures in public.
In fact, years ago a law was passed here making it illegal to photograph arrests. A well intentioned law meant to protect suspects who have not been convicted of anything. However it has never been enacted because it was deemed dangerous. It would have made it illegal to document police misconduct, for instance. And since the press here is generally very disciplined about not publishing photos of the majority of suspects, it didn’t actually solve a problem. (In Norway identities are usually withheld in the press until someone is convicted. But sometimes identities are already known to the public. For instance in high profile cases. This, of course, varies by country)
While I agree with you that publishing a picture of a person without their consent ought to be illegal, I as an individual with very unreliable memory and one who’s always doubting my perception of reality, I heavily rely on modern technology and strongly believe that personal recording of any kind is my right, it being simple augmentation of my senses that allows me to live happier and more fulfilled life.
It should not be illegal. It should be ethical.
The GDPR provides a pretty good framework for media organisations and journalists to shoot people without consent.
There are people who can "take a picture of you" just by looking at you for a second. They have you memorized after that.
I believe the usual approach is that in general, if you're in a public space, you accept pictures may be taken of you. But it depends on the context. If you're a bystander in your city while tourists are fotographing places of interest for example, and you make it into the picture, then that will hardly be a problem in any practical legislation. Most legislations probably allow for pictures taken of you even without you being asked explicitly, as long as certain rights are not violated.
People with photographic memory can't just upload their memories to the Internet. So that comparison is pretty much worthless.
Artists with photographic memory can. And in the modern world of computational photography and gen AI what even is the difference between a photo and drawing?
The difference is time, effort and scalability. There are many things that humans can do that society doesn't strictly regulate, because as human activities they are done in limited volumes. When it becomes possible to automate some of these activities at scale, different sorts of risks and consequences may become a part of the activity.
> But my personal opinion is, that this attitude is rather selfish.
Public photography is cultural preservation and anthropological ethnography. Asking folks to stop is selfish. You are free to have an opinion that differs, and your jurisdiction may even forbid public photography, but in those places I’m familiar with, street photography is as legitimate an art as music played for free on the sidewalk. I wouldn’t argue against public concerts if I were deaf, as it doesn’t concern me, because it isn’t for me, were I unhearing, and the gathering that such public displays engender benefits one and all, regardless of differences of senses or sensibilities amongst those who choose to freely associate.
> In my perfect world, taking pictures of strangers without their consent should be illegal.
Capturing an image of another without their consent is a bit more nuanced, and I would agree that one is entitled to decide how they are portrayed to a degree, but public spaces aren’t considered private by virtue of them being shared and nonexclusive. All the same, though we may disagree, you have given me some food for thought. I appreciate your unique perspective on this issue, and I thank you sincerely for sharing your point of view.
> public spaces aren’t considered private by virtue of them being shared and nonexclusive.
I live in a country where photographing people in public is highly restricted. The reason is that 99% of people cannot avoid public places in their day-to-day lives, therefore public places cannot be a free-for-all.
> therefore public places cannot be a free-for-all.
They can’t in those places with the restrictions you are familiar with and are subject to, but that is no argument against the norms of other places and the denizens thereof. I can, and do see public spaces as a free-for-all, and that is neither better nor worse, but simply the way we do things here.
If you don’t like it, it doesn’t affect you. Most folks are aware, and make a mental note of such things from a young age. If we don’t like it that way, we have avenues to change the way we relate to each other in public by changing the laws and regulations that govern public photography. That society hasn’t reached a consensus on this and other issues is fine. Variety is the spice of life, and the spice must flow.
Hi!
Hi!
> public spaces aren’t considered private by virtue of them being shared and nonexclusive
The problem is that "public" 20 years ago (before cell phone cameras, photo rolls, social media, growth/engagement algorithms, attention economy, virality, etc) vs now just doesn't mean the same thing anymore.
There's a difference between "no expectation of privacy" and "no expectation of having every moment of your life in public be liable to be published".
And at that point, the only thing left is the "well if you're not doing anything wrong, you don't care if your life is published" type of logic, and I don't love that.
I think it's a mistake to cling to a definition of "public" that doesn't account for how much things have changed.
Edit: and I use "published" as a direct reference to the "publish" or "post" buttons on various social media apps.
Well, there is also the fact that in a lot of cities, you will be filmed, often by multiple cameras, most of the time, without you being aware of it. By law enforcement, security cameras (private and otherwise), cars etc. on top of that you carry around a phone that streams intimate information about your location, behavior, preferences to a bunch of data aggregators.
And then there are the signal surveillance networks that are peppered around your environment as your phone shouts traceable signals to your surroundings.
(Heck, you can set up a a RPi with a few ESP32s hooked up to dump wifi probe frames, cross reference the networks phones scan for and create a map of where people come from by cross referencing wardriving data. Lots of ISPs make it easy by giving people wireless routers with unique network names. And from there you can figure out things like «someone living at address X is at location Y. People who live at X work for Z and location Y is the office of a competitor». And that’s just by collecting one kind of wifi frame and correlating a bunch of publicly available information)
Privacy is dead. Someone taking pictures hardly even registers.
I agree we're already in a bad place but I don't find the "ship has sailed" take particularly engaging.
Addressing nothing because everything can't be addressed isn't a great strategy for change.
I wasn't trying to make a "ship has sailed"-argument, but rather the argument that going after photography is odd given how little we care about surveillance and data collection that is far more invasive, complete and dangerous. If this were an optimization problem (optimizing for privacy and reducing criminal behavior), going after people who take pictures in public wouldn't even be on the radar. It isn't even a rounding error.
Sure, I understand that most people are barely aware of the insane amounts of data various data brokers aggregate, curate and sell of ordinary people's highly sensitive data. But most of us are. Or should be. And many of us are also part of the problem.
I do think this should be addressed. Especially since it is hard to address and it is not going to get any easier. In a well functioning legal system, every single one of the large data brokers that trade in sensitive personal information should be in existential peril. And people associated with them should be at very real risk of ending up in prison.
It seems ... peculiar to argue about taking away rights that private citizens have had for more than a century and at the same time not do anything about, for instance, private parties raiding sensitive government data and essentially nobody caring or showing any willingness to do anything about it.
You are right in that we do have a "the ship has sailed" attitude. But rather than focus on fixing what is most important we'd rather risk infringing on the rights of private citizens further because that is "being seen as doing something".
(I'm not accusing you of thinking this -- I am just finishing that line of reasoning to show what absurd conclusions this might lead us to)
> Addressing nothing because everything can't be addressed isn't a great strategy for change.
Presupposing that some strategies for change are less suitable than others is no argument against the status quo, either. Sometimes the way things are is just the way folks in a given time and place do things, and is simply contingent as much as it’s worthwhile.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going. If you don’t like the way things are done here, you either care to make a change, including hearts and minds, or you don’t. If you aren’t from here, that might be an uphill battle, perhaps even both ways: coming and going.
It’s a kind of double standard to judge folks for their customs without wanting to do the work to disabuse them of their notions, lest they warn you not to let the door hit you on your way out, especially after it was opened unto you in the first place. Wanting to have it both ways is a sort of special pleading.
> I think it's a mistake to cling to a definition of "public" that doesn't account for how much things have changed.
I think it’s a mistake for others in different jurisdictions to tell those subject to those norms how they ought to live.
The times may have changed, and we didn’t start the fire. We could put it out if we wanted, or if the lick of the flames brought us undue harm. Perhaps most folks just don’t want to change as much as the times, and that’s okay. The future is not yet written, and justice is a living thing. We can always go a different way if the future we arrive upon necessitates it.
I don’t mind if we have to change, but I do admire the view. The camera can only capture what’s inside the frame, and it would be a shame to stop living, and the greater loss would be to give up on life in pursuit of capturing a fleeting moment. I think for many, like me, who admire the hobby and have a love of photography as an art form, it’s akin to capturing lightning in a bottle. If it were outlawed or constrained, a true loss to society would occur, as that would be a material change in living conditions. Others are free to disagree, and I wouldn’t find fault with them for simply doing so.
When it comes to curtailing my rights to preserve history and my place in it, I don’t think I’m the one who is entitled, but those who would prevent me from freely expressing myself through my chosen medium. If you see something, you ought be free to say something or remain silent. Forestalling my speech is not for you to say. Freedom to photograph is a free speech issue, to my view.
Photography is my favorite art form to consume, so I'm not in favor of any kind of ban of it.
I also agree that freedom to photograph is a free speech issue. I just happen to think the ability to live your life without having it being recorded everywhere is also a freedom issue.
I think it's a challenge for us to solve and I don't pretend to have a solution. I just don't agree with a "change nothing" stance on grounds of "no expectation of privacy" because I think things have changed to a point that it needs to be addressed.
Side note: > I think it’s a mistake for others in different jurisdictions to tell those subject to those norms how they ought to live.
If that's directed at me, then I think you're reading something in my comment that I haven't expressed.
I don’t mean to direct anything at anyone, other than my viewfinder. I believe in home rule, and not dictates from bureaucrats. As a sort of journalist, I’m going to keep taking pictures, and to keep writing journals. Anything less or different would be to be someone other than myself the best and only way I know how, and that isn’t being true to myself or to others.
If you felt that I directed my comments at you, I apologize; I almost certainly wasn’t. If anything, I am directing them at myself, as an affirmation of what I believe and why. Freedom of expression is one of the few issues that I will take a principled stance on, and if you feel that I was directing my comment at you, I don’t mean to, though you are free to express whatever you feel led to if you feel that I have given you short shrift or unalloyed fire, friendly or otherwise.
I find the comparison with deaf people re concerts is pretty inappropriate. If you take a picture of me without me knowing/my consent, you carry that picture "home" and maybe even upload it to some public site. Heck, you could even upload it to 4chan and make a ton of fun of me. "Look at that stupid disabled guy", or whatever you and your friends end up doing. That is a complete different game. Disabilities are pretty different from eachother, and throwing deaf and blind people into a pot just because both are disabled is a very cheap and mindless act.
I didn’t make fun of you, though. I’m saying it’s not your right to complain about things you don’t know about if you don’t suffer harm, even and especially if you come to know about them. People make fun of other people for reasons or in the absence of them. For you to make a logical leap to imply I’m saying it’s okay to make fun of people, or saying that having a disability is a slight, or blameworthy, or deserving scorn or mockery, is to put words in my mouth.
I’ve known deaf people who love going to concerns. They perceive the thrumming of the bass and the stomp of the crowd. They see the smiles and throw up their hands, and deaf folks are able to carry on a conversation by signing better than most folks who are hearing, especially when the music is turned up to 11.
I’m more concerned with what might happen to assistive technologies meant to be used in public by low-vision and (legally or fully) blind users if public photography bans are passed than I am about any other passing concerns about being photographed in public, to be honest.
The "you" in my writing was refering to any photographer who takes a picture of me without my consent. I should probably mave made that clearer. IOW, I am not suggesting that you in particular are making fun of me or anyone you photograph. But since we were talking about strangers, I have no way of knowing how that photoographer will act. Sure, you in particular probably have a morale compass. However, in the general case, there is no way for me to know if the stranger taking a photo of me is a bad actor or not. And therefore, I oppose the "right" for anyone to do that, simply because I can never know what they will end up doing with that photo.
> And therefore, I oppose the "right" for anyone to do that, simply because I can never know what they will end up doing with that photo.
Jurisprudence in my country can’t preempt legal activities because they might lead to wrongdoing in the future. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I don’t know what you think folks are likely to do, but there are likely already laws against doing most things you would take umbrage with.
There’s no need to winnow our rights out of concern for your “mights.”
Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean you aren’t being a rude cunt.
Which are here too.
People can complain about whatever they want. It’s entirely legal to have an opinion, since you seem so preoccupied with laws.
> Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean you aren’t being a rude cunt.
I can’t top that as a “how do you do,” and yet, it’s both of our birthright to be “a rude cunt” or worse, within the bounds of the law.
Excellent response, you made me laugh.
I was getting enduly riled up over anonymous internet comments and was going to say something much more obnoxious, but not everyone gets Australian humour so I figured I’d tone it down.
If I saw you take an unasked photo of our blind friend here, I’d let them know so they’d have an opportunity to approach you and ask you to deleted it, if they happen to feel motivated to do so, and offer to take care of it myself ;)
I’ve spent some time down under myself, and I would hope if you were to ever find me lacking, to the degree that you needed to take care of me, that you have the foresight to have that moment on camera, because such a photograph ought to go straight to the pool room.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> That way I know I can avoid the area they're photographing
Not with 360 cameras! Which are super fun btw.
> 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.
Which can be a blessing in disguise. It makes it less attractive to steal images for commercial purposes.
I figured as much. Oh well, not like it's primary function is an image sharing site :)
This is a you thing. Most people have no issue whatsoever with their faces appearing on social media. They “have nothing to hide”.
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.
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!
Go for it anyway! I have a small NYC apt and fit everything I need for darkroom development into a small crate. I can scan negatives with a small setup here, but do have to go to a community darkroom for enlarger printing.
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.
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.
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.
Really? I do this often and have never had any issues.
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?
Because that's what public space is? We've always held that principle, and I don't think 'reach' should affect that. If someone takes this to the extreme (i.e. follows you around in public, taking thousands of pictures and uploading them in real time) they can be charged with stalking, harassment, or a similar offence.
To turn it on its head, if you cannot take photographs of people in public without their permission, then we basically lose the ability to take any photos of public space.
Because we in the global west generally have the right to photograph anything we can see in public, save for pathological places like Germany or France. You don’t own your image. If you go into public and I take a photograph of you, I hold the copyright on that image, not you. You don’t have any say in what I do with my (legally obtained) image taken in public, nor should you.
Man you would hate flickr. Also, never said anything about that. I don't have any social media, so the photos die with me and my friends. It's a nice break from modern technology to spend hours on an analog process. If you're in a public place you're probably getting photographed so I'm not sure what you're trying to say.
Let me flip that on you: Why not? How do you decide what people are entitled to? Am I entitled to have an opinion on the internet?
Where lies the line? Would it be ok to paint a picture showing other people and show it to a third person?
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.
I have a top of the line Sony Alpha (7CR) with a large zoom lens (24-70GM or 70-200GM) and I carry it almost everywhere, every day. It is absolutely worth the hassle to get day to day stuff.
Why not live a little and get a film camera? It's more time for sure but are you not tired of optimizing everything in life?
I found our childhood film camera last year and I took it to a couple trips. price of scanners/getting your film scanned and needing to buy 10eur film rolls for like 20 photos turned me off. I still haven't scanned my first and only roll I shot last year.
I enjoy film photography in some contexts (I do a bit of 4x5), but film photography basically sucks. I think possibly a lot of the people who find some kind of magic in it are those young enough not to have grown up in the era where shooting film was the only option.
I don't mind 4x5 so much because just taking the photo is so much effort that the associated ordeal of developing and scanning isn't out of proportion. But for 35mm and medium format, there's a hugely disproportionate investment of time and money for a small number of photos.
That’s kind of the point though. The scarcity focuses you n taking more deliberate and intentional photos.
It's what some people see as the point now. Back when film was the only option, the cost and time per frame were just negatives (if you'll excuse the pun). There was no romance in deciding whether or not to use one of your last three remaining frames; it was just annoying.
I don't deny that for a whole range of reasons, some people might take better or more meaningful photos using old cameras. Limitations can feed into the artistic process. I just think it's a bit silly to romanticize the cost and inconvenience of film, or to think that photos taken using film are somehow inherently more interesting or valuable.
People feel like there's some man in a dark room somewhere looking at each and every image posted everywhere with evil intent.
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.
The contemporary “ick” about street photography is the ick of non-consensual capture. Everyone feels it to some degree; I stopped doing street photography work and even most social photography (including paid work) because I felt it and I wasn’t ready to navigate those feelings.
This “ick” is real and it’s good that you feel it, because you can build on it for a sense of ethics about photos and the use of the camera, about how its gaze affects subjects, about how to reduce that impact.
A solution for you is to focus on photography with people posing for photos who want the photos, or people posing for photos who want money. Try art nude, even: it is fascinating, liberating, has a very strong historical and creative through line, and will teach you a lot.
I have developed a much stronger sense of the ethics around my photography and a little more personal confidence, so I might yet give street photography a go again in future, if I think I have something specific to say.
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!
People feel like there's some man in a dark room somewhere looking at each and every image posted everywhere with evil intent.
A friend of mine delivers for Amazon. They have to take pictures of every package delivered. Sometimes the customer is there when they arrive and he asks them to hold the package for him while he takes the photo of the package.
Most of them turn away or hold the package far away so they aren't in the image. Some will pose with the package in some amusing way.
> People feel like there's some man in a dark room somewhere looking at each and every image posted everywhere with evil intent.
Yeah when there's precedent for people doing exactly that the feeling is justified. How many times have we heard of [facebook employees/police/...] abusing their powers to stalk their [exes/wives/love interests/'enemies'/...]. With the amount of face detection and cataloguing being done today, it's never been easier on a technical level. The only protection we have is 'trust us we aren't doing it bro', which doesn't get you very far.
In today's world, you can find one of anything. In the normal everyday world, no one is bothered.
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.
The pictures go with a story, that's the interesting part.
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.
Which band, may I ask?
> Nobody has ever walked past a photograph because they can't inspect its digital authenticity hash
Nit, but there are reasons Canon and Nikon will sell you cameras that sign the pictures with their keys already. Even if they have been shown insecure in specific implementations the market is very much there.
Ten years ago in the NYC art market this was also true in a niche but very real audience. I think the NFT wave burnt that out completely.
> 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.
Commoditization is a good way to phrase it; first with affordable digital cameras, then with smartphones, photos have become more content than art. With smart filters and digital enhancement, mistakes and imperfect conditions have been fixed.
AI won't replace that, just creates an alternative way to generate content without needing to be physically present somewhere.
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.
The words 'external gratification' popped out. I only recently found out that my sensitivity to it is the biggest flaw/weakness in my and many other's personality.
>Nobody has ever walked past a photograph because they can't inspect its digital authenticity hash.
Some will once AI is ubiquitous. Especially of the art & entertainment sectors
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).
> 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-...
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. :)
Even "unreal" photography can be like that . My phone may do all of the mechanical work + post-processing, but framing, angle, foreground/background and capturing just the right moment is just as much fun (well, for me anyway).
The biggest lie capitalism tells us is that something only has value if it can be sold.
Or just maybe free markets expose the bitter truth. That can take a lot of self reflection to come to terms with. Applies to a lot of aspects to life, eg. career planning, creative endeavors etc.
But at the same time it's true that some vital public activities aren't rewarded by the system atm. Eg. quality journalism, family rearing, open source, etc. Often that's an issue of privatized costs and socialized rewards. Finding a way to correct for this is a really big deal.
I think this is only true when you abstract things away from their spatiotemporal context and treat market information as a snapshot. The art market thought Van Gogh was a weirdo with bad brush technique until after he died and people began to recognize how innovative his work was.
Naturally many a startup has also failed due to similar factors (only for the core idea to be resurrected some years later to great success).
"Finding a way to correct for this is a really big deal."
But aren't you now feeding back to the system? Why would there need to be a financial reward and incentive for everything?
I do realize "contributing free value" is perceived by some as free value a third party can capture and financially profit from" which might the reason for thinking of how to then cycle some of that value back?
Thinking about the three examples I gave, I think it's more that the externalities of not doing these activities aren't priced in.
Tabloid press is fantastically profitable, but fake news over time will erode a great deal of social trust.
Closed source software might be individually advantageous but collectively holds back industrial progress. It's a similar reason to why patents were first introduced for physical goods.
And yes people voluntarily without kids should have to pay significantly more social contributions.
Capitalism doesn't 'tell us' anything, it just like everything else has pros and cons.
I don't know anyone who understand economics would say this, unless you're talking about very specific meanings of 'value'. I'm not trying to be pedantic, I know what you mean, but these comments are not insightful or helpful.
The desire to "make money" is generally a proxy for the desire to provide value for others. It is easier to justify the investment of labor and resources that went into the production a camera if you can reciprocate the value for others.
And the most important lesson Internet taught it is that something only has value when seller loses money on it.
I'm cynical and don't fear a world in which people can't verify photos for their authenticity.
I fear (channeling a brave new world) that they simply will not care.
There is absolutely a market for social media that bans AI slop. People in general don’t want the slop, but it’s seeping in everywhere with no easy way to mass remove.
The problem with the linked product is it’s basically DRM with a baked in encryption key. And we have seen time and time again that with enough effort, it’s always been possible to extract that key.
Respectfully, I completely disagree.
People "at large" absolutely don't care about AI slop, even if they point and say eww when it's discussed. Some people care, and some additional people pretend they care, but it just isn't a real issue that is driving behavior. Putting aside (for now) the idea of misinformation, slop is socially problematic when it puts artists out of work, but social media slop is just a new, sadder, form of entertainment that is generally not replacing the work of an artist. People have been warning about the downfall of society with each new mode of entertainment forever. Instagram or TikTok don't need to remove slop, and people won't care after they acclimate.
Misinformation and "trickery" is a real and horrific threat to society. It predates AI slop, but it's exponentially easier now. This camera, or something else with the same goal, could maybe provide some level of social or journalistic relief to that issue. The problem, of course, is that this assumes that we're OK with letting something be "real" only when someone can remember to bring a specialty camera. The ability of average citizens to film some injustice and share it globally with just their phone is a remarkably important social power we've unlocked, and would risk losing.
Saying that there is a market for a sane social network does not means it's a market as big as the other social networks. You don't have to conquer the world to have a nice product.
"People "at large" absolutely don't care about AI slop"
I think this is true. In general I think enough population of the market actually does not care about quality as long as it exceeds a certain limited threshold.
There's always been market for sub-par product. That's one of the features of the market I think. You can always find what is the cheapest, lowest quality offering you can sell at a profit.
> People "at large" absolutely don't care about AI slop
I fear, your statement is impossible to be denied its validity, when "Tung Tung Tung Sahur"-Trading-Cards and "Tralalero Tralala"-T-Shirts are a thing.
the majority of "Italian Brainrot" enjoyers are probably not old enough to be on social media regardless
The problem about DRM in this context is not that it's going to get broken (which is probably true if the product becomes sufficiently mainstream). It will be used to target photographers and take away their rights. With today's cameras, you have (at least in theory) some choice how much of your rights you give away when you give the pictures your took to someone else. With DRM in the camera, you'll likely end up with some subscription service, ceding a lot of control to the camera makers and their business partners.
> There is absolutely a market for social media that bans AI slop.
I fully agree, I just don't know how that could work.
I think GenAI will kill the internet as we know it. The smart thing is (and always has been) to be online less and build real connections to real people offline.
> People in general don’t want the slop
True.
> There is absolutely a market for social media that bans AI slop.
There’s a market for social media that bans slop, period. I don’t think it matters how it was made.
Also, that market may not be large. Yes, people prefer quality, but (how much) are they willing to pay for it?
Also the inversed incentive problem: the less people think it can be done, the more value in doing it.
That said in theory TPMs are proof against this: putting that to the test at scale, publicly, would be quite useful.
This might have immediate application in certain business sectors, such as real estate and insurance.
Yes but it is a hard sell, arguably too hard, and the product pitch, which is away from these applications, is the right one. They are not promising to be 'blockchain two' with hypothetical business use cases.
Imagine going to the solicitors with lots of documents that they need copies of. If they are making scans themselves then that is all the proof they need. If an assistant has copied that important certificate, then that copy is all that is needed for normal legal services. The Roc Camera would not be helpful in this regard, even if it had some magic means of scanning A4 pages.
In a serious solicitor interaction there will be forms that need to be signed and witnessed. These important documents then need to go in the post. In theory, the client could just whip out their Roc Camera and... But who is going to buy a Roc Camera when a stamp will do the job?
Maybe you might if you have a lot of photos to take for 'evidence', for example, of the condition of a house before work is done, or after it is done. However, nobody is asking for this so there is no compulsion to get the Roc Camera when the camera on your phone suffices for the needs of the real world.
I'm not sure this is targeting you, but possibly rather journalistic photos where being able to prove authenticity is important
People absolutely care that photos are real. There was somebody on here recently who had to read the photographer's story of how he planned it all to be comfortable it was real. Especially for those bird-in-front-of-sun type photos.
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.
I don't get how this is the only comment that doubts how their proofs work. There is zero detail or explanation of what they are proving
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.
From these pics it actually looks like a whole PI4 board is used https://farcaster.xyz/faust
Interesting. I'm curious why they would do that.
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
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.
I disagree. If CM5 had the ability to sleep at tiny fractions of a watt, there are really practical and usable cameras you can pull off today, even when it's not the most efficient. For all the downsides, it would more than make up in the ease-of-development department.
I believe if RPi6 adds sleep, you'd see a flurry of portable gadgets built on the platform.
> 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..
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.
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.
> if it was a little cheaper I'd have bought it myself.
Same here. Even for the experience it's overpriced.
I think almost everyone here is missing the point of this camera. In the post truth AI future, this is the camera you want when you photograph the billionaire or President or your spouse doing something awful. Any other photo proof won’t work because it can always be called fake. And yes I’m being serious. You are missing the point if you say the quality isn’t good enough or it’s too slow or bulky. The idea is the provable authenticity, which is going to be very important in the coming decades.
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...
It would be more interesting if the software was open source.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.
> 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".
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.
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.
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!
Please, stop!
I've been strugling to fight the urge to by a "Kodak Charmera" for a month now, don't tempt me again!
If you buy one, you won't be tempted anymore.
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.
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
You literally can't even export the photos...
It wouldn't work at all as open source since you could just modify the source to sign your AI generated pictures.
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.
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...
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.
Okay. What prevents you from printing out a AI generated picture and taking a photo of that with the camera?
46 chromosomes
it would. it would just require pki and a secure enclave that lives directly on the imaging chip to support it.
Is that possible with the chip used here?
> What are the camera's specs?
> The camera has a 16MP resolution, 4656 x 3496 pixels. It uses a Sony IMX519 CMOS sensor.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
Lies are just better at reproducing themselves than truth.
Which makes truth more scarce, hence more valuable.
Sure, but you were asking why truth is less gratifying.
Also, "truth" is clearly something that requires more resources. It is a lifelong endeavour of art/science/learning. You can certainly luck into it on occasion but most of us never will. And often something fictional can project truth better than evidence or analysis ever can. Almost everything turns into an abstraction.
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.
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
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.
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 ?
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.
^^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.
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.
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.
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.
I'd be shocked if the major sensor vendors don't already have engineers working on exactly that, though.
Sony has this - https://authenticity.sony.net/camera/en-us/index.html
I would also love to know this. Where can I read how it works?
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?
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.
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.
Presumably you could stop this by requiring GPS data for the image, and match that against a library of other images in the location?
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?
You take a photo of an AI generated photo. What's yr proof worth then?
If you like the idea of a small "dumbish" camera but aren't fussed about all the ZK proof stuff these are quite fun: https://www.campsnapphoto.com/collections/camp-snap-screen-f... I have a few and letting my small kid have a blast while not getting "screen time" is great.
Side effect is I get a small little window into what he "sees" and his lived experience. Going through some of the pics recently was quite beautiful.
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 wonder how this compares to similar initiatives by e.g. Sony [0] and Leica [1].
[0]: https://authenticity.sony.net/camera/en-us/
[1]: https://petapixel.com/2023/10/26/leica-m11-p-review-as-authe...
Canon gave users the option to sign their photographs with "add original decision data". It got cracked.
* https://petapixel.com/2010/12/01/russian-software-firm-break...
* https://www.elcomsoft.com/presentations/Forging_Canon_Origin...
and you think this rushed product won't be?
I would broadly expect software made by most camera brands to be shit, while I would expect a developer who creates their own hardware projects (generally, not talking specifically about cameras) to range from idiots who have no idea what they're doing (like me, though to be fair I also wouldn't release it believing it to be good) to highly skilled coders who would get it right despite being on their own.
So I wouldn't automatically assume that a product like this would be better designed, but I would think there's a chance it might have been!
Probably won't be cracked, as there will be little to no interest as such device will have no use in any professional setting.
Compared to those, this is like a weekend project that a high school student could accomplish.
I knew that Leica is generally expensive, but the model on the review is insanely expensive (over 10K USD?). It is not even comparable.
It's not the camera that is important though, but the technology:
https://spec.c2pa.org/specifications/specifications/2.2/inde...
This kinda like a PoC for ZK Proof used in digital devices, however, I don't think a Raspberry Pi in a 3D printed case should be made a real product, it lacks actualy use cases. Honestly, I like this concept, but I think it should belong to a personal art exhibition or DIY competition…
Why do websites like this always try to be too clever? Let me scroll!
I’m a photographer in my spare time; looks like this product isn’t about what images are being produced, or about the shooting experience - and this discourages me.
When the goal is having a proof that the photo hasn’t been edited or ai generated, using an analog camera and shooting on film seems more practical to me than using a device like this.
Could an AI not be trained to emulate the look of analog film and its artifacts?
I meant that there is a proof of the photo being taken and a record of what the photo looked like before any edits (a photo negative).
> Capture verifiably real moments
What if I make a photo of my screen?
I’m not seeing what this is product is trying to solve? A zero knowledge proof to say it isn’t AI ? I think you could do this with a disposable camera or Polaroids and a photo scanner that makes the zero knowledge proofs .
A different thread mentions "what if you take a photo of an AI photo with the Roc camera?" - I still think that would be hard due to perspective, lighting, various other artifacts.
Scanning an image would be much easier to dupe though - scanners are basically controlled perspective/lighting environments so scanning an actual polaroid vs an ai generated polaroid printed on photo paper would be pretty indistinguishable I think.
Maybe I am just naive, but I don't see why taking a photo of a screen, projection, or print out would be hard. Wouldn't it just need even lighting and tripod?
Adding something like a LIDAR and somehow baking that data into the meta data could be fun
Then people will connect their fake image and LIDAR feed to where the CMOS is connected. Like always with half-baked digital attestation chains, laypersons will argue "Oh, but who's gonna do that?" and the reality is that even private modders and hackers are perfectly willing and capable of doing this and will jump on it right away, and if it's just for the fun to distribute a certified picture of an alien giving everyone the finger. Of course, tamper-proof designs would be possible, but they are extremely expensive.
On a side note, the best way to attack this particular camera is probably by attacking the software.
What proof is there that the photo scanner is scanning a genuine photo and not something AI generated that looks like a Polaroid?
What proof is there that this camera is photographing a genuine scene?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottingley_Fairies
If Elsie and Frances had the technology we could have a digitally signed zero knowledge proof that their photo's captured a genuine scene that included cardboard cutouts of fairies.
It was a real moment with objects that Bishop Berkeley could have kicked.
Recalling an old scandal about an office copier/scanner which was doing some OCR cleanup and changing numbers.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6156238 (2013)
Interestingly it wasn't the OCR that was the problem but the JBIG2 compression.
> A zero knowledge proof to say it isn’t AI
Seems like it.
> a photo scanner that makes the zero knowledge proofs
Presumably at some point the intention is to add other sensors to the camera e.g. for depth information.
I love my medium format film cameras. I think everyone interested in photography should try it. Yashicas (just as an example of a company that made good medium format film cameras) are surprisingly affordable on eBay. I've had good luck buying from Japan, FWIW.
I'll throw Mamiya 645 in there for a good medium format camera as well. Yashica is great, I own a Yashica Electro 35 and it is awesome no thought rangefinder.
With the tariffs this is no longer possible for US persons.
Do the tariffs apply on used items as well? In any case such cameras are fairly cheap nowadays
Huh?
Tariffs shouldn’t prevent buying stuff, you just have to, y’know, pay a tariff on import.
In this case, a Japanese made camera will incur a 15% tariff.
Most countries, including Japan, India, Canada, and nearly the entire EU, have completely stopped shipping packages to US consumers. This is not because of the tariffs themselves, but because the US apparently has no system in place for actually handling the tariffs on goods that previously qualified for the de minimis exemption. Two months and counting with no information on when shipping might resume.
If you take this to ILM's The Volume, you can prove that The Mandolorian is real.
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.
The Pi4 is extremely overpowered for this application. This looks like a rushed product from an SF brainfart with no engineering behind it.
There was a time when web pages were like regular documents, that could easily be scrolled through.
My initial reactions:
- I hope they succeed and eventually deliver a solid version of this product - verifiable photography is going to become important, and it's good to see startups working on this - While I'm sure some artists will like the idea of verifiable photography, the applications that matter to me are any kind of photography that has the potential to end up in a news article or in court - Selling what is essentially a prototype is fine, it's extremely obvious that's what it is, they explicitly say it! Who cares if it's not very good as a camera? - The almost complete lack of information on their site about their security model or how their ZKPs work is not particularly encouraging - It follows that my faith that either the cryptography or the hardware anti-tamper measures in this beta device would stand up to even some decent amateurs, given a couple of weeks to have a crack at it, is not high. I'm almost tempted to buy one just to see how far I, a random kernel engineer who gets modestly decent scores at my local hacker con CTF, could get. But I may well be completely underestimating them! Hard to tell with the fairly scarce information - Why did they pick a name that's similar to a) AMD's GPU stack, and b) the law enforcement/natsec computer vision business, ROC (https://roc.ai)?
https://www.nikonusa.com/content/nikon-authenticity-service already exists?
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.
This looks interesting. I love the retro styling and transparent case. The proofs and selling it as some sort of fight-back against AI seems tenuous and as the user controls the hardware - going to be hard to keep that system hermetically sealed due to giving the user the keys on device. Also though almost nobody actually cares very much about attesting that their photos are somehow real and untouched by AI.
There are larger problems when you consider this question. What is real and not in photography is a long and storied debate - any photograph is ultimately a curation of a small part of the real world - what is just out of frame could completely change the interpretation of the viewer if they saw it, regardless of whether the picture is unaltered after taking. The choice of framing, colours, subject etc etc can radically alter meaning. There is no getting away from this.
So ultimately I don't think the biggest problem facing photography is attested reality. I actually think the democratisation of photography offers a better way out - we have so many views on each event now that it's actually harder to fake because there are usually hundreds of pictures of the same thing.
PS for the site author, there is a typo in the sentence beginning - remove the an 'By combining sensors, an on-device zero-knowledge proofs'.
i don't get how the attestation works? from the FAQ, the proofs are generated on the rpi, which AFAIK doesn't have anything like a modern HSM/vault which would allow them to 1. not allow user access to the secret or 2. not allow user to put ai-generated imagery onto the device for 'attestation'
Can’t I just photo a printed AI generated pic? What use is the proof?
I think it'd be more interesting if you made a camera that took verifiably fake photos that were guaranteed to be nothing like what you pointed it at.
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
It's wild that it's already come to this: The camera itself becomes more important as the instrument to provide zero-trust proof.
This is a brilliant solution to one of the most critical emergent problems. I can see a world where no digital image can be trusted if it doesn't come with a hash.
There is also something called "film" which might be a retro answer to this problem.
Until people start to make AI images, print them out and then make a "real" photo of the printout to get the hash.
I think there would be ways to detect that from the final image. Also if the hash contains date/time/location info.
I don’t know what this gives that a film camera with slide film loaded doesn’t.
Both cameras still allow “staging” a scene and taking a shot of that. Both cameras will both say that the scene was shot in the physical world, but that’s it.
I would argue that slide film is more “verifiable” in the ways that matter: easier to explain to laypeople how slide film works, and it’s them that you want to convince.
If I was a film or camera manufacturer I would try and go for this angle in marketing.
Can't find slide printing services easily put AI images onto slide film for you?
I think the point of this movement toward cryptographically signing image sensors is so people can confidently prove images are real on the internet in a momentary click, without having to get hold of the physical original and hiring a forensic lab to analyze it.
Are you saying the slide itself would be proof? I think the use cases are different - this camera gives you a file and signature you can transmit digitally.
It seems like one could just shoot film and make darkroom prints and accomplish the same thing?
pictorialists used the darkroom to distort reality more than a century ago!
Does anyone know if the camera sensor includes depth map information? Otherwise what is stopping someone from photographing a large high-resolution print of an AI generated image.
If you do photography for your own pleasure and not for the sake of likes, gratification or public opinion you can use whatever hardware or software it’s alright.
The main argument of this product is to "capture verifiably real moments". Though I find it interesting (and am quite liking the object), I do not tend to think this is a strong argument for this product: capturing a picture of a unreal picture would make it real (as discussed in this thread), moreover what would prevent any phone manufacturer from integrating the same type of "validation" into their hardware?
They are already doing it e.g. Sony.
https://amateurphotographer.com/latest/photo-news/sony-annou...
It needs a certificate issuance and validation system https://c2pa.org/
I remember reading in some Qualcomm Snapdragon document that Qualcomm integrated some image authenticity method. Not sure if this ever landed in an end-product?
400$ for a phone camera stuck on a raspberry pi ? I will pass this one...
Fantastic idea, I'm sure there will be more such devices and a big market for them. Note to the company: please check the scrolling on Firefox (macOS), it's a little weird.
I like the concept (because I was proposing such a couple of years back) and the software implementation seems good. But holy shit that thing is ugly. They could(should) have worked with a cheap camera maker like Lomokino to make a bare-bones rangefinder or twin lens reflex. This is one of the worst designs I have ever seen. Sorry.
I like the spirit of this, but not the implementation. It feels very performative to create a ZK proof to show that a photo is real. And not really in the spirit of capturing magic moments on film.
I think that a disposable camera, or even something fancier, like a Mamiya C330, are better and more gratifying bets for the money.
lol, faq is funny
how long does the batter last
> Currently, the battery will last estimated 2~3 hours on constant use on a full charge. It can last much longer if it is off.
To me it sounds like someone is trying to create a problem and sell it to me. Who needs to create images with proof of reality?
What I am waiting for is something similar to this (proof of image ownership / authenticity) embedded in smartphones cameras.
Not sure if ZK is the right way of achieving this. Even if the cryptographic guarantees are strong, generating these proofs is very expensive.
Some smartphone cameras already have this. Samsung tried it on the S25 but apparently did it wrong (https://petapixel.com/2025/02/13/samsungs-image-authenticity...). Google has it on the Pixel 10 line.
I think it's very likely the next iPhone will have some form of authenticity proof too, I just hope Apple doesn't go with its own standard again that's incompatible with everything else.
That's tricky because it needs to store and verify metadata that the user cannot edit and that allows one to distinguish a "normal" photo from a professional photography of a photo. The only place where this can happen are the camera settings but these are limited on smart phones and it's not easy to discern the two cases. I'm sure someone would print a 10x10 meter fake image, put it at just the right distance, and wait for the best indirect light to prove that the Yeti exists.
Just include a depth sensor, lidar, etc. I'm sure over time that will become increasingly easy to defeat too, but then we can just keep improving the sensors too.
What if they take a photo of an AI generated photo
How does this compare to the content credentials added by the Pixel 10's camera?
Heh, few years ago I built myself a RPi Zero based camera.
I wonder how have they made the boot up fast enough to not be annoying.
I used non-real time eInk display to cut down on the battery life so I could just keep it on in my pocket while out taking pictures since it took good minute to get ready from cold boot.
Has anyone else found themselves becoming hyper-attuned to "AI" trickery in photographs?
Just the other day I stumbled across this picture on Wikipedia: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:An_AT%26T_wireless_r... Can anyone explain what's going on with the front tyre of the white car? To me it looks like the actual picture was ingested by a model then spat back out again with a weird artifact.
The worrying thing is when it becomes too hard to spot the artifacts we won't know how much of our history has been altered subtly, either unintentionally or not, by "AI".
What concerns me most in the era of gen AI irt photography is journalism. We need truth, most especially when limited-means citizen journalism is the only reliable source of that truth.
But I feel like the only way to accomplish fool-proof photos we can trust in a trustless way (i.e. without relying on e.g. the Press Association to vet) is to utterly PACK the hardware with sensors and tamper-proof attestation so the capture can’t be plausibly faked: multi-spectral (RGB + IR + UV) imaging, depth/LiDAR, stereo cameras, PRNU fingerprinting, IMU motion data, secure GPS with attested fix, a hardware clock and secure element for signing, ambient audio, lens telemetry, environmental sensors (temperature, barometer, humidity, light spectrum) — all wrapped in cryptographic proofs that bind these readings to the pixels.
In the meantime however, I'd trust a 360deg go-pro with some kind of signature of manafacture. OR just a LOT of people taking photos in a given vicinity. Hard to fake that.
This is probably one of those scenarios where if someone wants to fake it they're going to fake it (or at least it will be a never ending arms race, and I expect AI to keep close chase), while a basic security solution will suffice for 99% of use cases, including standard journalism. After all, skilled photoshop+computational tools can already do expert fakery in journalism. (Just look at the last Abroadinjapan video earlier today for a good callout of Photoshop editing to increase engagement).
Mine isn't journalism, it's the court system.
Before long, it might be somewhat "easy" to prove anything.
I wrote this about 7 years ago: https://github.com/pjlsergeant/multimedia-trust-and-certific...
Could Apple or Google do this without updating their hardware? I see a relevant patent (US20220294640A1) and it looks like one of the inventors is at Google now.
this all assumes nobody will make editing ???? what am I missing
You can absolutely sign the image with the on-camera certificate, for example, but that would too boring of a solution to hype.
See that's what I'm saying.
So once the company shuts down its servers we've got a lemon?
Remember, Nikon's image authentication was hacked back in 2011 https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2011/04/nikon-image-authenticatio...
The ACLU is sceptical regarding the whole concept: https://www.aclu-or.org/en/news/attempts-technological-solut...
The root causes podcast discusses this topic in its episode 336: https://www.sectigo.com/resource-library/root-causes-336-dig...
I strongly believe this should be an open source project.
Security 101: * Kerckhoff Principle of Open Design Security of a mechanism should not depend on the secrecy of its design or implementation.
It's not like questioning the authenticity of a photo is a new thing "in the age of AI". Manipulating photos has always been a thing, long before photoshop even.
Even a pivot to "its not Ai" has the same bandwagon feel as "pivoting to Ai".
Literally manufacturing trust eh?
I'm going to buy this just to take a picture of my Kodak mining rig...
Kinda interesting- of course until it hacked. But honestly it does not look like something I would want to carry around.
If you are taking the photo yourself, you know where they come from. While would you need signed pictures to prove that?
When rocking your Meta, Ray Ban, MacDonalds, Tesla XR AR 0009fNG plus Reality engine contact lense inplants it will be important to cross reference your experiences with what really happened.
Yep this is coming soon. You'll be required to own and operate wearables to participate in the social web, or post photos anywhere.
Instagram could have a "real" filter that only shows you photos with proofs, for instance. So not your own photos, but other people's photos.
Oh no! You've discovered that the product is completely pointless! If only they had asked you first!
$399 USD. L.O.L.
399 hahahahahahahahahahahahhahaqhahaha cool idea tho
Looks like a weekend project, done with a third of the cost as a budget.
I always assumed high end CCTV cameras already did something like this?
> Creates a Zero Knowledge (ZK) Proof of the camera sensor data and other metadatas
How do you stop someone from taking a picture of an AI picture? It will still come from the sensor.
Probably look for display artifacts (pixel borders)?
But a fixture that takes a good enough screen + enough distance to make the photographed pixels imperceptible is likely just a medium hurdle for a motivated person.
You probably can't fully avoid it but adding more sensors (depth) will make such a fixture quite a bit more expensive.
Maybe adding a depth sensor/lidar might fix this?
It has to be a joke...
For a moment I thought a software solution will be shared at the end. Did not expect a camera marketing.
How does this differ from a kids digital camera that costs only 1/10th the cost.
Not trolling. Genuinely don’t understand.
https://www.amazon.com/Camera-Digital-Toddler-Christmas-Birt...
There is a movement to cryptographically sign images in order to prove that they are real raw photographs, by selling hardware in which the cryptographic key is placed close to the camera sensor to prevent tampering.
This is one attempt.
How could this possibly validate that the camera sensor that's attached to it is actually a camera sensor and not just an FPGA sending raw data?
You have to push the signing as far out as possible.
The light sensor must have a key built into the hardware at the factory, and that sensor must attest that it hasn't detected any tampering, that gets input into the final signature.
We must petition God to start signing photons, and the camera sensor must also incorporate the signature of every photon input to it, and verify each photon was signed by God's private key.
God isn't currently signing photons, but if he could be convinced to it would make this problem a lot easier so I'm sure he'll listen to reason soon.
you can't
So it's a Raspberry Pi attaching a ZK Proof to an image to say that this image was taken on this particular Raspberry Pi.
That's it. That's the verification?
So what happens when I use a Raspberry Pi to attach a ZK proof to an AI- generated image?
$400 lul what
Interesting, but this is a software project. Camera sensor is being bought from Aliexpress in bulk. Competition from companies manufacturing cameras, or smartphones, is huge. How this project is not a cash grab?
This looks like a hipster toy.
It’s possible that this could have value in journalism or law enforcement.
Just make it look the part. Make it black and put some decent lens on it.
I'm pretty sure forensic cameras already exist for this purpose. And as far as I can tell, there isn't really any bulletproof way to do this other than embed a signing key in the camera and hope no one manages to extract it, rendering the whole thing pointless.
I guess you could have a unique signing key per camera and blacklist known leaked keys.
Canon and Nikon both did this. You paid a premium for a “signature analysis” app. The target was for things like law enforcement, where authentication was important.
They got cracked with a year or two. Not sure if they still offer the capability.
I can't tell does this have adversarial AI built in?
I fail to see the hand wringing about media forms that didn’t exist 150 years ago.
Even worse when I see people saying “it’s over” for slop content posted on social media
We lived fine and well before social media or photography or videos.
Any device like this is useless, because you can print an AI generated picture and then take a photo of it. It's like NFTs in the crypto world, which have proofs that prove essentially nothing.
Is this nfts again?
I have been happily using fujifilm x100 for about 10 years now? I bought a second hand one for about $300. You can buy a decent camera cheaper than a smartphone, as it should be.
back in my day when we wanted to prove a picture was "real" (and not Photoshopped), we just posted the .NEF file
put this in a durable rangefinder form factor and it would be great as a journalism camera.
Is this another cash grab? The founders who made this don't seem to know what real photography is.
Good thinking, but the problem here is that in order to make a good camera which takes verifiable photos you first need to make a good camera, and that's quite hard.
This shouldn't be a product, but a licensed patented technology like Dolby or CDMA, sold to OEMs and directly integrated into cameras and phones.
It should be an industry standard system for guaranteeing authenticity by coordinating hardware and software to be as tamper proof as possible and saved in a cryptographically verifiable way.
No system like this would be perfect, but that's the enemy of the good.
There is something deeply dystopian about the phrase "verifiably real moments."
https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/We%20Can%2...
There's simply no technical solution to authenticating photographs as far as I can tell.
The only real solution I can think of is just to have multiple independent parties photograph the same event and use social trust. Luckily this solution is getting easier now that almost everyone is generally no further than 3 feet away from multiple cameras.
you know what grinds my gears? The fact that it takes 2 seconds for the android camera app to open, even when I use the shortcut on the lock screen. It's a step backwards from point-and-shoot cameras.
I was trying to take a picture of a gecko the other day, and it missed half of the event while the app was loading.
Stop hijacking the scrolling.
I predicted something similar a while back:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31092225
and it has existed for a while already
Could you share some examples?
This has it all wrong.
The truth is worse than anyone wants to face. It was never about authenticity or creativity. Those words are just bullshit armor for fragile egos. Proofs and certificates do not mean a damn thing.
AI tore the mask off. It showed that everything we worship, art, music, poetry, beauty, all of it runs on patterns. Patterns so simple and predictable that a lifeless algorithm can spit them out while we sit here calling ourselves special. The magic we swore was human turns out to be math wearing makeup.
Strip away the label and no one can tell who made it. The human touch we brag about dissolves into noise. The line between creator and creation never existed. We were just too arrogant to admit it.
Love, happiness, beauty, meaning, all of it is chemistry and physics. Neurons firing, hormones leaking, atoms slamming into each other. That is what we are when we fall in love, when we cry, when we write a song we think no machine could ever match. It is all the same damn pattern. Give a machine enough data and it will mimic our souls so well we will start to feel stupid for ever thinking we had one.
This is not the future. It is already moving beneath us. The trendline is clear. AI will make films that crush Hollywood. Maybe not today, maybe not next year, but that is where the graph is pointing. And artists who refuse to use it, who cling to the old ways out of pride or fear, are just holding on to stupidity. The tools have changed. Pretending they have not is the fastest way to become irrelevant.
Yes, maybe right now you can still tell the difference. Maybe it is obvious. But look at the rate. Look at the slope of that goddamn line. The speed of progress is unmistakable. Every year the gap closes. Every year the boundary between man and machine blurs a little more. Anyone who cannot see where this is going, anyone who cannot admit that this is a realistic possibility, is in total denial. The projection of that line into the future cannot be ignored. It is not speculation anymore. It is math, and it is happening right in front of us.
People will still scoff, call it soulless, call it fake. But put them in a blind test and they will swear it was human. The applause will sound exactly the same.
And one day a masterpiece will explode across the world. Everyone will lose their minds over it. Critics will write essays about its beauty and depth. People will cry, saying it touched something pure in them. Then the creator will step forward and say it was AI. And the whole fucking world will go quiet.
Because in that silence we will understand. There was never anything special about us. No divine spark. No secret soul. Just patterns pretending to mean something.
We are noise that learned to imitate order. Equations wrapped in skin. Puppets jerking to the pull of chemistry, pretending it is choice.
$400 for a raspberry pi in an ugly 3d printed case ?
I love the idea, but the product execution is simply horrendous. It looks more like a money grab gimmick. The sensor selection is also bad, the image quality will be terrible.