Learn About Powerful Tools to Verify the Authenticity of Your Photos

Learn About Powerful Tools to Verify the Authenticity of Your Photos

Over the last decade, our lifestyle changed dramatically, irrespective of age, due to the effect of social networking. In the past we used to organizeget-togethers frequently to spend time with one another personally. Nowadays, we remain in touch  through social networking websites. They became the most common platform to connect to people across the globe without any hindrances, except for the time zone.

We tend to choose the social networking sites available in the market according to our purposes and interests. We post/share our pictures to let our contacts know what happened in our lives. Sometimes we bond to a number of new friends through the mutual contacts without personally meeting them.

Social networking is a very powerful way to create a connection with people but at the same time, Social Networking can be risky when we start sharing everyday that happens in our life in the form of messages or photos. Unfortunately, this gives an opportunity for hackers to misuse the information, especially photos, available on the internet, which can be used to scandal users intentionally. We need to be extra careful before placing any content on social networking platforms. Cyber-crimes and frauds happen at all levels.

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• Fake profiles are created in Social networking sites to trap/hack the intended users
• Replicate the copyrighted images into a commercial portals with their names as watermarks without seeking for any permission from the owner of the image
• User’s photos stolen from the Internet can reach the wrong hands for a wrong purpose
• Media can spread fake images and wrong information without any facts, just to gain the attention

There are tools available in the market to educate the users in the following areas  to :

• Recognize if the picture is original or manipulated
• Verify if the copyrighted images are used elsewhere without owner’s approval
• See the details of the source for the uploaded image on internet
• Efficiently verify the facts to avoid misleading the public during emergency times during which the public relies on the media to differentiate between a real News and a fake News image on the internet

If you are a professional photographer, you will be very keen to protect your photographs so that you take the credits for the efforts you have put to click the image. One option is NOT to place your collection of images on the Internet and the other most commonly used option is to protect it using the watermark.

Duplicate Image Checker is very important for a Blogger so he can make a plagiarism check for the content as this is concerned with his/her reputation and blogging career.

Let’s learn about the most powerful tools available in the market that help us and make our job easier.

• Google Image Search Engine:

This is an awesome readily available tool introduced by Google. Click on the link . There’s a camera icon next to the Search button. Click on that and upload a picture you desire to look the results for. Google search engine will give you the location where the image has been used.

• TinEye:

This tool looks for the exact images similar to the one that are uploaded. TinEye database gets updated on a regular basis to ensure that the precise results are presented to the User. The result reveals the details of the links where the images appeared earlier.

• WebMii:

This tool gives the references of the person in the international market in the form of web visibility rating. This will help us identify the fake profiles with the details available in the international websites. There are many other ways to identify the fake profiles. So when you get a request from an unknown profile, ensure to look at the log of the profile, friends list and also the recent activities in the profile’s page to identify the intention of the request and block such users to avoid disturbances in future.

• EXIF:

EXIF is another reverse image search image tool to interpret the type of the photograph – if the photo is original or edited before placing it on the Internet. The original picture which is taken from a camera will have the image details (focal length, aperture, exposure-time and flash) but the photo-shopped version will not provide such details. This is one of the several solutions to authenticate a photo. You will be amazed to see details we can obtain from the EXIF data. It will provide the details of the type of camera used to capture the picture, and it can also sometimes reveal the last piece of software used to save the image.

• Foto Forensics

This tool can run ‘Error Level Analysis’ (ELA) to identify the parts of the picture which were added. After the picture is processed, the program produces the image with edited parts clearly shown separately, there will be the difference in the lighting of those parts compared to the rest of the picture. EXIFtool is used by Foto Forensics to get the details information on the picture and quite useful to identify if the picture is unique or photo-shopped.

This tool will help you know to identify if the picture is original or manipulated one. Upload the image in Izitru and get the details just by uploading an original picture which is taken in the Camera.

• Findexif

A free tool where you could upload a photo or provide a reference to it and Findexif will identify EXIF-data (when and with what device a photo was made, image characteristics, sometimes a place, where a photo was made, could also be identified).

This tool searches for the details in various social networks to track the details of the User and gives you relevant information about him/her along with the photos, if any. You need to provide either of these details – Name/ email/ username/ Phone number.

This tool verifies the Authenticity of the image based on the weather condition in the specified location of the picture.

Happy Browsing and remember to safeguard your identity when you are in a Social Network.