Today, all kinds of images and photographs circulate on the web. But, have you ever thought about the possibility that several of those images or photographs have been manipulated? Times are quite susceptible to manipulation, deception or misunderstandings. A simple digital file is capable of generating many problems for a person or an organization. Fortunately, it exists Forensically and is a free web-based solution. This guide will show you what you need to know to start using right now.
Forensically is a solution that consists of a set of tools that will allow us to effectively perform the forensic analysis of digital images. The same applies to photographs. All the tools are accessible through the web and at no cost, so you will not have to perform any download, you will only need a web browser and an Internet connection to upload the photos and perform the forensic analysis.
Forensically tools
With this solution you can perform clone detection, error analysis, metadata extraction and much more. Next, we will take an in-depth tour of each of the main tools that we have available, and how to get the most out of them.
Magnifier
It behaves like the magnifying glass that we all know. You can see even the smallest details in both an image and a photograph. Specifically, it enlarges the pixel size of the file, in addition to the contrast in the window. Going deeper into the subject of contrast, there are three procedures that Forensically allows you to perform to alter the contrast of the file for forensic analysis:
- Histogram Equalization: this is a more advanced option, which is a processing method for adjusting the contrast. Mainly because it allows to maintain the original quality of the file and avoid the potential loss of data.
- Auto Contrast: Keeps colors intact, as they can be viewed.
- Auto Contrast Per Channel: You can alter the original contrast of the image or file.
Clone detection
It is responsible for highlighting similar regions identified in an image or photograph. Every region that is identified has a blue mark and, in short, is connected with a red line. Now, if several overlapping regions are identified, it means that the image or photograph is a clone or has been altered. If the latter is applied, all those regions will be white.
Error level analysis
An image or photograph is taken to compare with a compressed version. This process helps us a lot to detect manipulated images or photographs. With error-level analysis, any region that is lighter or darker than the others is evidence that it has been manipulated.
According to the official portal of this web solution, it is recommended to use this tool with great care since the results could be somewhat confusing at first. Specifically for the error analysis tool, they recommend accessing the Fotoforensics portal. It specializes in Error Level Analysis and even has practical cases to help you better understand what to expect from this Forensically feature.
An interesting and didactic fact that Fotoforensics highlights is that an original photograph that originates from a camera, should have many white regions at the time of subjecting said photograph to ALS analysis. Those white regions should look like white noise or airbrushed white paint. As a photo is loaded into various viewing or editing programs and saved in JPEG format, the high level of detail and frequencies are lost.
Consequently, at the time of passing a photograph to an ALS analysis, many black sections will be found. Those black sections indicate a lack of detail in the image. Of course, this does not exactly mean that a photograph is of doubtful origin.
Noise analysis
It is based on a reverse noise removal algorithm. What does this consist of? Instead of removing noise from the image, the data from the image itself is removed in order to isolate the noise. This is extremely useful if you want to detect certain manipulations of images or photographs such as deformations. The use of very high-quality images is recommended for best results.
GPS location and metadata extraction
According to the need, you can choose to obtain the metadata of both photographs and images. Also, data related to the location. Of course, it will be possible to know about it if the GPS location is activated and if you enable the option to store said location data.
In principle, this can be quite useful when conducting applied forensic analysis in certain contexts. However, having the ability to manipulate metadata and file location data that does not belong to you is quite dangerous. Today, cybercriminals have enough knowledge and resources to be able to take advantage of these types of sensitive data and execute cyberattacks that can further compromise the data of those affected.
These and other features offered by Forensically are accessible for free and without the need to create an account. You simply have to access the official Forensicalle website that will take you to the tool itself and start using it as soon as possible. If you want to and to carry out your internships, we suggest the use of stock photos available on portals such as Pexels . The latter offers not only very beautiful, but high-quality photographs that can help you a lot to make the best use of this forensic analysis suite without having to upload your own photos.
