Adobe fights deep fakes: brings new content attribution tool

Adobe has begun testing the content attribution tool in Photoshop that lets creators attach secure watermark to photos

Adobe created a new tool in order to fight deep fakes.

Adobe announced that it created a new feature in Photoshop that will be available for a group of beta testers.^[1] According to the company, the content attribution tool should let creators attach cryptographically secure authorship data to photos. This new function is Adobe way to fight deep fakes^[2] and other misleading information on the internet and is a part of the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI).^[3]

Deep fakes^[4] are fake videos or images in which a real person in an existing one is replaced with someone else. Even though many users think that fake content looks funny, these videos are causing a lot of issues too. For example, the makers of deep fakes are using the faces of celebrities to spread pornographic videos, fake news, and other scams.

Will Allen, the Adobe executive in charge of the software, says^[5] that in the coming weeks the new watermark tool will be available to several users in the beta release of Photoshop and Behance. He explained:

The tool is built using an early version of the open standard that will provide a secure layer of tamper-evident attribution data to photos, including the author’s name, location and edit history. This will help consumers better understand the content they view online and give them greater confidence to evaluate its authenticity.

The company hopes that the new tool will prevent users from using photo-editing software to manipulate media.

The Content Credentials panel will add information to the image's meta-data

Seems like using the new feature won't be difficult. When the content creator opens Photoshop and tries to work with the program, a palette called the Content Credentials panel pops up. This panel looks similar to brushes or other palettes in the Adobe UI.

The Content Credentials panel lets the creator turn on or off the meta-data on the image they are working on. This meta-data contains important information. For example, you can find the author of the image by using meta-data. If the Content Credentials panel is active, it keeps tracking the actions and adds them to the meta-data of the picture.

Of course, the new tool will help to track more information than just the basic details that can currently be added to images. Using the collected data users will see who created the picture, the original image's thumbnail, information about how it has been altered, and more. This important data will be secure and it will be easy to understand if the image was edited with Photoshop.

Adobe's general counsel Dana Rao said:^[6]

If you have something that you want people to believe is true, then this is a tool to help you get people to believe in it.

Content Authenticity Initiative is promoting the adoption of meta-data

The Content Credentials panel is being promoted by a group called Content Authenticity Initiative. This group was created a year ago by Adobe in collaboration with Twitter and the New York Times. Since that time, CAI has collaborated with different publishers, software tools, human rights organizations, academic researchers, and others to develop new content attribution standards.

As digital tools get better and better every day, it's becoming even more difficult to understand what's real and what's not on the internet. If this new tool created by Adobe will help to detect deep fakes and other misleading information, cyberspace will be a little safer.