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Credit to Author: Lucas Mearian| Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2020 03:00:00 -0800<\/strong><\/p>\n In 2018, a video of former President Barrack Obama surfaced on YouTube<\/a> explaining how easily technology could be used to manipulate video and create fake news. It got more than 7.2 million views.<\/p>\n In the video, Obama explains how we live in dangerous times when \u201cenemies\u201d can make anyone say anything at any point in time. Moments later, it\u2019s revealed that the video was itself faked.<\/p>\n Whether its news articles, images or video, fake and misleading content has proliferated across the internet over the past five or so years. One possible solution to the problem now being proposed would standardize how content is delivered online, with anything outside those standards not trusted.<\/p>\n Enter blockchain as a method of whitelisting news and other web content.<\/p>\n As part of a Web 3.0 evolution, blockchain is being used to create a decentralized web, where an immutable ledger records information about content and then is inextricably linked back to that content to ensure its authenticity. Personal data stores would also allow companies and individuals to retain control over content they \u00a0make or consume.<\/p>\n By 2023, up to 30% of news and video content world-wide could be authenticated as real by blockchain \u2013 in effect, countering Deep Fake technology, according to the Gartner 2020 Predicts report released in December.<\/p>\n \u201cBlockchain can track the provenance of news (text or video content) so that consumers of the content know where it came from and are assured it has not been altered,\u201d Avivah Litan, a Gartner vice president of research, said in a recent blog<\/a>. \u201cPutting social media and social networks on blockchain will enable users to control not only their own information, [but also] the algorithms and filters that direct their information flows.\u201d<\/p>\n BrandPost<\/span> Sponsored by HPE <\/span> <\/p>\n Defining the Next Chapter for the IT Industry: On-Premises IT-as-a-Service<\/a> <\/p>\n The \u201cAs a Service\u201d model delivers services, not products; flexibility, not rigidity; and costs that align to business outcomes.<\/p>\n In December, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced that Twitter<\/a>\u00a0is \u201cfunding a small independent team of up to five open-source architects, engineers, and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media.\u201d<\/p>\n Twitter\u2019s concept is to allow users to read what they want, offering filters that could be based on blockchain to authenticate content if they want or unfiltered content if they chose that, according to Litan.<\/p>\n Over the past two years, several high-profile projects using blockchain aimed at thwarting fake news have emerged.<\/p>\n The New York Times<\/em>-sponsored News Provenance Project<\/a>, the Deep Trust Alliance<\/a> and PO.ET<\/a>, are all examples of efforts to standardize the way news, images and video is pushed out to the web, while recording the journey it takes from source to consumer.<\/p>\n Po.et is developing a decentralized system based on Bitcoin blockchain as an immutable record that timestamps content and uses current media industry interoperability standards.<\/p>\n The News Provenance Project worked with IBM\u2019s Garage<\/a> to develop a proof of concept using Hyperledger Fabric<\/a> blockchain to store contextual metadata about news photos and video, including who shot footage, where it was shot and when it was edited and published. The blockchain would record a photo\u2019s origins<\/a>: when, where and by whom it was taken, who published it and how it had been used across a network of news organizations.<\/p>\n The Deep Trust Alliance was founded by Kathryn Harrison, who was formerly director of global product management for IBM Blockchain, where she contributed to Hyperledger Fabric development and building the company\u2019s managed service on top of it.<\/p>\n \u201cMost companies and efforts start with deep fake video and images, which aren\u2019t even prevalent on the internet; that\u2019s such a small percent of fake content,\u201d Litan said. \u201cThey started with deep fakes because they\u2019re the easiest.\u201d<\/p>\n Unlike manually manipulated content, such as a news article created or edited by bad actors, deep fake news refers to an image or video that is generated by AI and machine learning technology known as generative adversarial networks<\/a> (GANs).<\/p>\n Danny O\u2019Brien, director of strategy for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the use of technology to solve a social problem rarely works.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d happily bet 10 bitcoins 30% of news not authenticated by blockchain by 2023,\u201d O\u2019Brien said, referring to the Gartner prediction.\u00a0\u201cSome people believe that the solution to the problem with fake news is to create a system to vouch for true news. That stumbles in a couple places. First, just because you put it out doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s true. And secondly, people responding to and [sharing] fake news are rarely motivated to find out if it\u2019s true.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words, consumers aren\u2019t typically interested in using critical thinking to determine whether news is real or not \u2013 as long as it fits a narrative they like.<\/p>\n The New York Times<\/em>\u2019 News Provenance Project, however, didn\u2019t begin with articles. It started by experimenting with images, because it\u2019s easier for the software to examine pixels and determine whether they\u2019d been changed or remained authentic, Litan said.<\/p>\n In contrast, the best method for authenticating written text would be an industry consensus around the sources that produced it. In other words, using blockchain\u2019s native consensus algorithm to allow content producers to agree when something is authentic before it can be published.<\/p>\n \u201cThe best use for blockchain is content management. If everyone adopted a content management system that [cryptographically] signed your stories and every edit made to them, and then recorded that and authenticated it using blockchain, the chances of it being fake would be zero,\u201d Litan said.<\/p>\n There is, however, malicious fake news created by state operators who construct narratives for political purposes. It matters little whether they join an authentication system because any such system will never be universal, O\u2019Brien said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you try to throw your weight behind a system that creates a badge of authenticity for \u2018legitimate\u2019 news, either that won\u2019t work for getting rid of it or you can\u2019t get everyone to sign up,\u201d O\u2019Brien said.<\/p>\n Litan agree, saying there\u2019s no chance all media outlets will agree on a single content management system.<\/p>\n Along with being used to white-list authentic news sources, however, Litan said blockchain is being explored as a method for:<\/p>\n \u201cA decentralized social network platform could still feed you distorted sensational news, but presumably only if that\u2019s what you choose to read. With blockchain provenance you could also be assured for the source for that news,\u201d Litan said. \u201cIn the end, it will be your purposeful choice to read fake news from bad actors.\u201d<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.computerworld.com\/category\/security\/index.rss<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Credit to Author: Lucas Mearian| Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2020 03:00:00 -0800<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n