Digital Cameras Leave a “Fingerprint” On Every Photo

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

As more and more people are discovering, it’s hard to hide your tracks in the high tech world we now live in. Post a crack about your employer on a blog and get fired. Use a half nude photo in your MySpace profile and wonder why you didn’t get that job. And today: even the camera you used to take a picture will be joined with that image and you via a digital fingerprint.

A new forensic technique means many digital photographs can now be traced to the individual cameras that took them. The method works by analysing imperfections in the cameras’ light sensors. Jessica Fridrich and colleagues at Binghamton University in New York, US, analysed more than 3000 digital images taken using 11 different models of digital camera. They found that minute flaws in each camera’s sensors left their mark on the images, making it possible to link each picture to a particular camera. Source: New Scientist

We Say: Aside from detectives and pervs, this is nothing to worry about, but interesting stuff just the same.