Exposing fraudulent digital images
David Spreadborough · Computer Fraud & Security · 2017
As a predominantly visual species, we tend to believe what we see. Throughout human evolution, our primary sense of sight has allowed us to analyse primeval threats. We are genetically hardwired to process and trust what our eyes tell us. Edgar Dale's cone of learning states that the brain retains information visually, over any other sensory stimulus.1 We tend to believe what we see. But in the digital age, images are easily manipulated, and this can cause problems for fraud investigators. David Spreadborough of Amped Software describes how images may be altered and the techniques we can use to spot pictures that have been modified. With the right tools and training, exposing doctored images in fraud investigations is now not only financially and technically viable, but urgently necessary.