PHOTO ANALYSIS AND TAMPERING DETECTION
Unveil the processing history of a digital image to determine if it can be used as reliable evidence
- Detect tampered areas in images
- Determine the authenticity of images and documents
- Analyze multiple images with batch tools
- Identify the device used to take the photo
What is Amped Authenticate?
Amped Authenticate is the leading forensic software for unveiling the processing history of a digital image. Amped Authenticate provides a suite of powerful tools to determine whether an image is an unaltered original, an original generated by a specific device, or the result of manipulation using a photo editing software, making its admissibility as evidence questionable. Amped Authenticate is used by digital forensic experts and intelligence agencies worldwide.
Why Amped Authenticate?
With the constant development and introduction of new digital technologies, digital images are now key sources of evidence for investigations. And thanks to social media and the prevalence of high-quality mobile phone cameras, there is a dramatic increase of images submitted as evidence by citizens and witnesses, to law enforcement agencies.
Modern digital images are mines of information: in addition to the visual content, metadata often contain precise information about when, where and who captured the image. But unfortunately, in just a few seconds, both visual content and metadata can now be easily manipulated to create credible fakes.
Without solid ways to validate that the information is accurate, these photographs could pose issues when they are presented as evidence in a case and in court. Therefore, thoroughly investigating an image and ensuring its trustworthiness and source is critical in today’s investigations.
It is also necessary to be able to link photographs to a specific camera and consequently to a suspect. Billions of images are uploaded to the internet and shared on social media platforms every day. Investigators are constantly faced with the task of trying to identify the person who posted the original photo on the internet. Linking a photo to a camera is now as important as linking a bullet to a gun.
The Difficult Way of Working
Understanding if an image is an original or the result of manipulation is not an easy task. Only a few world-recognized experts were able to determine if an image used as evidence in court was an original or if someone tampered with it, making the photo unacceptable as evidence or alibi. Experts previously had to do this with self-made tools, very specialized scientific techniques, or a cobbled-together set of very expensive mathematical/engineering tools.
The Easy Way of Working
In order to permit more investigators and forensic labs to analyze the processing history of photos, Amped Software has integrated into one single software package, forensically accepted techniques that were previously only available to top-notch researchers.
Amped Authenticate empowers law enforcement agencies and forensic lab experts with very effective tools to identify tampering on an image and to verify if a digital photograph has been generated by a specific device. The camera ballistics feature in Amped Authenticate determines that a specific device - and not just the camera make or model – was used to generate a specific photo.
As opposed to other solutions that provide only one, or just a few tools for authenticating images, Amped Authenticate puts the power of multiple scientific tools, procedures, and reporting, in one software package to improve the user's ability to detect tampered images or determine originality.
All tools available in Amped Authenticate are based on peer reviewed scientific papers, each performing a different test on the structure of an image and how it was created.
World Leader
Amped partners with universities and research groups to remain constantly up to date with scientific achievements, in order to fill the gap, as quickly as possible, between the research lab and usage in real cases.Powerful
Amped Authenticate provides more than 40 tools and filters with customizable configuration and optional post-processing parameters.Fast
Amped Authenticate’s Batch Processing applies all filters to all images in a folder. Smart Report automatically selects the most appropriate subset of filters for each image, providing brief and readable reporting. Saved cache folders allow for speedy follow-up analysis.Ballistics
Image ballistic tools allow you to verify which camera was used to shoot a specific photo, even if the photo has been scaled, cropped or re-saved. Experiments demonstrate that image ballistics can also work with images uploaded to social media platforms.Comparison
Compare the results of two images side by side to understand where and how an image has been modified.Flexible and Affordable
Amped Authenticate is a single solution and does not require additional plug-ins, third-party software or special expensive hardware. There is just one platform to learn, maintain and deploy on hardware you already own. Because Amped Authenticate is compatible with standard PCs, the time and cost to deploy are minimal.Integrations
Amped Authenticate is integrated with some of the leading tools used by many law enforcement organizations: Griffeye Analize DI, CameraForensics, Microsoft Excel, Google Maps, Google Images, Flickr. Integrations increase speed and accuracy of your work. Thanks to Authenticate’s command line interface, users are also free to write their own integrations to link Authenticate to other tools.It is Easy to Manipulate a Digital Photo
The courts and savvy defense attorneys and prosecutors have begun to understand how easy it is to manipulate a digital photo, so experts are often asked to analyze the authenticity and provenance of digital images.
A practical example of this is the Beckley case that the Second Appellate District Court (Los Angeles, CA) ruled:
...In this opinion we hold that the prosecution's failure to authenticate a photograph ...should have barred their admission... We also conclude there was insufficient evidence to support the street gang enhancement of each defendant's sentence.
The court also decided that a photograph is a "writing" and stated:
...Authentication of a writing is required before it may be received in evidence. (Evid. Code, §§ 250, 1401, subd. (a)...)(People of CA vs. Beckley, Los Angeles County Superior Court Case Number: TA094886 6/9/10)
With this ruling, precedent is set in California for the challenge of any digital evidence on the grounds of authenticity or lack of scientific authentication.
As precedent is set by an appellate court, this doctrine may be applied elsewhere in the US where similar evidence rules exist.