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posted by Fnord666 on Friday December 16 2016, @05:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-photos? dept.

The Freedom of the Press Foundation has called on professional camera makers to implement encryption in cameras to prevent governments from easily searching and seizing the contents:

An open letter written by the Freedom of the Press Foundation and signed by over 150 filmmakers and photojournalists calls on professional camera makers such as Nikon, Canon, Olympus, and Fuji to enable encryption to protect confidential videos from seizure by oppressive governments or criminals. The Freedom of the Press Foundation is a non-profit organization that has several noteworthy members, such as "Pentagon Papers" Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden, and EFF's co-founder John Perry Barlow, on its board of directors.

[...] Filmmakers and photojournalists that film documentaries or shoot photos of abuses committed by governments or terrorists in dangerous parts of the world are constantly under threat of having their videos and photos seized and destroyed. The danger is even bigger when these bad actors can see what's on the cameras--it's not just the documentation of abuses that is exposed, but also the confidential sources that may have wanted to keep their identities hidden. Encryption would ensure those who seize their cameras couldn't see the contents of the cameras, nor the journalists' sources.

This won't necessarily ensure that the information collected by journalists is disseminated, since border agents and law enforcement officers can just destroy encrypted equipment. For that, cloud storage or live streaming features are needed, as well as reliable access to the Internet even during times of political crisis and network shutdowns.

Also at The Register, CNET, and TechCrunch (they also found a small cameramaker that is planning to ship on-camera encryption).


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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday December 17 2016, @01:34AM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday December 17 2016, @01:34AM (#442310)

    So much better than encrypting your images on the physical device would be encrypting them and communicating them up to "the cloud." Devices can always be destroyed. A few milliseconds on a 4G network can preserve a multi-megapixel image forever.

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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday December 17 2016, @02:48AM

    by frojack (1554) on Saturday December 17 2016, @02:48AM (#442337) Journal

    A few milliseconds on a 4G network can preserve a multi-megapixel image forever.

    No, it will take VASTLY longer than a few milliseconds, especially with what passes for 4G in many places.
    Further, you've just moved the problem to a different place, and brought MORE restrictive laws into play, and put the encrypted images into the hands of more governments.

    There is no point in taking pictures if they are never to be seen - EVER. But until you are well clear of the location being restricted, and have had time to scrub all exif and raw info, you don't dare put them out there on the web or in the cloud - encrypted or not.

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    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 18 2016, @01:51AM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday December 18 2016, @01:51AM (#442580)

      So, yes, there are places where network connectivity simply does not exist. But, even when you don't get "true 4G speeds", getting images out of your camera, off of your physical person, stored on servers in other political territories, is infinitely more likely to lead to those images getting published where they are most needed. Your physical person is just as subject to arrest, and even erasure, as your memory cards are. If you don't work alone, getting images to your colleagues outside the hot zone is the goal - and network will accomplish that much much faster than sneaker net.

      Personally, if I were filming the next Rodney King, I'd want those images streaming out of my camera as fast as possible, because with each passing frame you are at an increased risk that a "defender of the blue line" is going to walk up behind you, crack you on the back of the head with a billy club for "resisting arrest," destroy that camera, and then take you in to the station where they will hold you as long as possible before dropping the charges.

      Now, if I'm filming human rights abuses in the DPRK, I'll want two main things: one, an encrypted, invisible partition in my SD cards where encrypted high resolution copies of my best photos are stored (looks like random noise in un-allocated space if you don't have the key and the software to decrypt it), plus I'd want to steganographically encode the best images into the sub-space of some benign approved pictures that I frequently e-mail out from my monitored network connections. I'd also want the cryptography/steganography software to be encoded as a rotating key easter-egg inside something like a Candy Crush app on my phone. They'll still throw you in a hole and forget to feed you if they think you're leaking their secrets, but at least make it hard for them to be sure, and try to keep constant contact with someone on the outside while doing approved journalism.

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