The fundamental problem is going to be that many people seem to actually like being in their comfortable echo chamber. So, if they're presented with a video that reaffirms their hunch that the Clintons run a child trafficking ring from under a pizza store, those people seem to be unlikely to venture out and do the necessary due diligence to verify the information they're being given :(
[1]: https://medium.com/mit-technology-review/the-defense-departm...
Especially since people in those circles have for the last year been pushing the idea that the attention on deep fakes is preemptive cover for such a video rumored to be out there.
Like, seriously, this is shaping up to be a cyberwar nobody wants to admit. Either we can trust video sources from now on, or we can't - how is it going to be possible for TPTB to continue to divert public attention with video, if we can no longer trust our own eyes?
Can you clarify this part, especially "self-verified unsigned"? I don't think I understand it - presumably you could generate camera-and-video-specific signatures which an edit couldn't reproduce, but it's not obvious to me how you would verify them without access to the original camera.
As far as sign-while-recording, I agree. We'll quickly end up in a world where video of ongoing events is signed as it's taken. The simplest tactic I can think of is submitting a hash of the video file to some public store, which at least authenticates when it was shot. For an event with a well-known time (a speech, public protest, etc), that should suffice to prove the footage isn't faked, and corroboration of multiple videos should prove it's not an outright fabrication (e.g. pre-rendering a whole different speech).
For time-nonspecific events like a video of a suspicious meeting, this wouldn't be enough. A hardware signature might prove that a video was real, but we'd still face a significant change in that unsourced videos floating around the web couldn't be treated as convincing. We're already getting there with photos, of course, but at the moment a clear, high-res video is pretty trustworthy without a source.
All that matters is that it is possible to do so, and supporters of political candidate A will claim with possible deniability that political candidate A never said "X". While also claiming that political candidate B definitely said "Y", even though this may be false. Soon there will be no way to prove whether or not the videos are actually real and people will believe whatever fits their preconceived notions.
For example you'd fake hidden camera footage of politicians beating prostitutes and accepting brown envelopes from russian agents.
Strangely a German TV satire team have claimed they doctored the video to make it look like he's giving the finger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx-1LQu6mAE (although I stil wonder if they did the opposite: doctor the gesture out of the video, IMO the gesture itself was par for the course for him and perfectly acceptable).
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/video-of-acosta-incident-p...
John and Tony Podesta collect some very creepy art - google it. Certainly not evidence of a crime, but fairly-public figures closely connected to a presidential campaign collecting art of children bound and in morbid situations raises some eyebrows for sure.
We would need to invent something like public/private key auth which signs every videostream and which allows you to trust specific sources like reporters from NYT for example.
Video of Trump saying something already proves nothing especially not that he ever said it because now he says he never did. And all that even without deep fake technology.
People care less and less about history of reality. They become aware that it's to large extent unknowable drowned in narratives.
Right, like my favorite one is the idea that she took $150 million from Russia in exchange for a shipment of our uranium. Those funds went to the Clinton Foundation a _charity_. Sheesh.
While independent investigations have concluded there was no wrongdoing, the reason above is really no defense. The Trump Foundation, for example, has shown how nonprofits can be manipulated to the benefit of the founders.
1. If you were going to give somebody an illegal bribe, would you write "bribe" in the For: line on the check? (no, you would hide or disguise your bribe)
2. What plausible, legitimate reasons are there for Russia to donate to the Clinton Foundation?
3. Is charitable giving to anybody, especially in quantities exceeding $25-50 million, normal for Russia?
Cthulhu_ and arcticfox are definitely both right that charities are used by many rich people to avoid taxes and just because it's a charity doesn't mean the owner isn't benefiting from it.
I'd appreciate hearing your response. Not saying it happened one way or the other, just making some observations based on the tiny bit I've heard about this.
Edit:
Regarding #2, a quick search turned up [1]. I don't know anything about the Borgen Project, but a quick glance at the page doesn't look too suspicious. So, assuming that page is correct and that Russia donated similar quantities in 2013 as they did the same year the uranium incident happened, they donated over 50% to the Clinton Foundation. If those assumptions are fair and that actually is the case, it sure sounds suspicious to me.