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How cryptography and Web3 can help restore trust in digital media

A group of researchers explore how the tools of cryptography can be used to verify the veracity of the images and videos you see online.
Photo of photojournalist in a war zone.
As technology advances it will become harder to tell the difference between images that are true and those that are manipulated. | iStock/South_agency

Many of the lies, distortions, and pieces of disinformation online are easy to spot. But as technology advances it will become harder to tell the difference between video and images that are true and accurate and those that are manipulated or outright made up.

In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Jonathan Dotan, of Stanford’s Starling Lab for Data Integrity, and host, bioengineer Russ Altman, discuss what researchers are doing to keep ahead of advances in deep fakes and other forms of manipulated media. Dotan explains how the lab is using cryptography and blockchain technologies to verify the veracity of images and videos, and how these tools are already being used to document war crimes in Syria and Ukraine, and to secure the testimonies of genocide survivors. Listen and subscribe here.

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