Differential Imaging Forensics: A Feasibility Study

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel digital forensic method for photographer identification using an optical side-channel, revealing a new privacy threat and bridging side channels with inverse problems.

Contribution

It presents a new forensic approach for photographer de-anonymization, exploiting a discovered optical side-channel and connecting side channels with inverse problems.

Findings

Feasibility demonstrated through proof-of-concept study

Revealed a new privacy threat in digital forensics

Bridged side channels and inverse problems in research

Abstract

We motivate and develop a new line of digital forensics. In the meanwhile, we propose a novel approach to photographer identification, a rarely explored authorship attribution problem. We report a proof-of-concept study, which shows the feasibility of our method. Our contributions include a new forensic method for photographer de-anonymization and revealing a novel privacy threat which had been ignored before. The success of our creation builds on top of a new optical side-channel which we have discovered, as well as on how to exploit it effectively. We also make the first attempt to bridge side channels and inverse problems, two fields that appear to be completely isolated from each other but have deep connections.