Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!mcdphx!mcdchg!ddsw1!tronsbox!dsoft!dfrancis
From: dfrancis@dsoft.UUCP (Dennis Heffernan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Manipulation of Courtroom Evidence
Keywords: video graphics computer alter evidence
Message-ID: <687@dsoft.UUCP>
Date: 17 Feb 90 07:00:55 GMT
References: <102034@pyramid.pyramid.com>
Lines: 30

In article <102034@pyramid.pyramid.com> wniren@pyrtech (Walter Nirenberg)
writes:
>Hi.  My friend is a 2nd year law student and she is working on a
>fascinating project with which she needs a little help.
>
>Basically, she is investigating the impact of recent computer
>graphics technology advances on the use of video and photographs as
>courtroom evidence.  As many of you may know, it has been possible
>over the past few years to manipulate photographs and videos at
>a bit-level using new generations of graphics computers.  The results
>are that you can completely alter what these media display.

	As I see it, machines like the Amiga can't quite modify photographs 
that well- YET.  The Mac II's with 32-bit QuickDraw have enough colors, but
the
resolution is still low.  (As I understand it, the resolution of film is
pretty
high, on the order of thousands of pixels by thousands of pixels.)

	It won't be too much longer before low-end machines have this 
capability, though.  That Video Transputer might be able to do the job now, 
though it isn't exactly "low-end" :-).  When that happens, there is going to
be a great big bloody mess in our courts, and the end result is going to be
that photographs won't be admissible as evidence any more.  I don't see how it
can turn out any other way, since "forgeries" won't be detectable.

	And I have no idea what the courts will use to replace photographs...



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