Research Projects

This public FotoForensics service is a research tool for advancing digital forensics, network security, and online privacy. The following list includes a sample of completed and ongoing research topics performed at this site.

Filename Ballistics	Given a filename, identify the type of camera or online service that generated the picture. The current solution is applicable over 60% of the time, and averages over 95% accuracy. Introducing filename ballistics Complicated filename formats
Prohibited Content Detection (aka "anti-porn filters")	The public FotoForensics site prohibits pornography, nudity, and sexually-explicit content. This research project is designed to rapidly identify prohibited content. The current solution can be generalized into any kind of rule-based automated content detection. Problems with skin-detection algorithms Rapidly banning prohibited content Auto-ban
Trend Detection	Identify news before it is reported as news. Trend detection Trend detection problems Current popular and trending pictures
Fraud Detection	Fraud using altered photos for banking, insurance, and other services is a multi-billion dollar industry. Can we detect the tools and techniques that the professional fraud groups use? The Bayer Method: A fraud technique originally created by Bayer in Asia, but that has spread to other pharmaceutical companies in Asia. Fake IDs: Identifying photos that contain IDs and personal information. These are often used for fraud.
Precog	Most users just want to use the site, but some want to attack. Can we reduce our attack surface or identify attackers before they attack? Better than nothing security: simple tips to lower your attack surface. Tracking network attacks to China Profiling attackers Browser profiling and intent Using a web server to identify infected browsers Some of the big lessons learned already: There appears to be no correlation between people with malicious intent and people who (1) anonymize user-agent strings and (2) use private browsing mode. (That's right, unlike academic journals, we don't mind disclosing negative results.) Anonymous proxy services, such as Tor, are more likely to be abusive. About 40% of these users upload prohibited content and/or attack the server. Browsers infected with malware, adware, or spyware that is detectable by the web server are about 10 times more likely to upload prohibited content.
Similar Picture Search	Given a picture, quickly find other visually-similar images. We are developing a variety of picture search engines. The fastest so far is also one of the best: it can compare nearly 3 billion signatures per second (single-threaded and without special hardware) -- nearly 3000x faster than PhotoDNA (on the same hardware) and just as accurate. Introduction to perceptual hashes More perceptual hash algorithms RootAbout: an online searvice for searching pictures at the Internet Archive.
Forensic Tool Usability and Simplification	Digital photo forensics is a complicated topic. What can be done to lower the learning curve and increase accuracy for the analyst? FotoForensics training at CACC (2014) and results Online "Challenges" (forensic puzzles to test your knowledge) Evaluating WebRTC for online training Comparing virtual conferencing options
Data Visualization	How do you visualize results and identify trends? Visualizing uploads and network volume Graphing trends
Network Distribution	People have been talking about IPv4 address exhaustion and the migration to IPv6 for decades. But how many systems actually use IPv6? Are there any common issues related to IPv6? FotoForensics enables IPv6 IPv6 and forensics
Browser Profiling	Different browsers support different features. If we want to support the most common browsers and service providers, then what functionality should we support? Proxy and language detection Detecting ISPs from supercookies Browser profiling Detecting malware on client browsers

This list is a sample of some of the research projects that use data from the public FotoForensics site. If you prefer to keep your uploads private, then we recommend using the FotoForensics Lab. Lab differs from this public service by providing privacy; data at Lab remains private and is not used for research.