I've been worried about this for several years. About 8 years ago, I worked with a very talented graphics artist. George was a PhotoShop wizard who could manipulate a still image any way he wanted* in no time at all. He was also very good with a professional quality video program called SoftImage (the same software used to create the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park). We discussed the issues of evidence manipulation and it was his opinion that, within a few years, it would be very easy to doctor audio, photo, or video imagery in any way you wanted sufficient to pass off in court.

I think we're already at that point, at least with high end software. It won't be long before home quality software will be able to do the same. Give me a 30 minute speech by anyone and I could cut and paste the words to say just about anything (and I'm by no means a professional in that area). Run the audio through a cell phone and it'd be hard to determine it was fake.

I wonder how long it'll be before video surveillance images or audio files will no longer be acceptable in a court as evidence. Perhaps we need to look at putting some form of encryption into the data streams that can indicate if the data has been altered.

*We were having an office birthday party one day and I saw George going for a second piece of cake, despite being on a diet. I asked him, "Hey George, what's it worth to you for me not to tell you wife about that second piece of cake."

He said, "What's it worth to you for me not to send your wife a picture of you in bed with some bimbo."

I got the cake for him.