Someone once told me to "believe only 1/2 of what you hear, 3/4 of what you read and all of what you see", but that is no longer true. The advance of technology continues to destroy the axioms of the past. You can no longer believe 100% of what you see. Nowhere is this more evident than in electronic media. Electronic media has become the lifeblood of modern society. In a cursory view of communication this is obvious.In personal communication we use the cellphone for verbal conversation and the same device for written conversation via texting. We send images both static and moving with the same device. Not only do we communicate person to person on a social level but we also conduct our business this way. When I was in the sign business the fax machine was an important part of my business. I could send a client renderings of a proposed project for approval before beginning construction. Recently, when my wife was curious about the appearance of tissue after minor surgery, she used her phone to take a photograph of the suspect area and send it to her doctor. Upon analysis by a medical professional a prescription was emailed to a local pharmacist for a topical medication. Within the last year I attended the Citizens Police Academy at our local police department. The officers explained how dash cameras in patrol cars and body cameras worn by officers were used to collect evidence in potential court cases. Documents in our judicial and banking systems depend on transmission via fax machines.
Imagine, if you will, that you have been stopped by the local police for driving erratically. Your driving skill has been impaired by prescription medication. You fail the rudimentary tests for sobriety. You fail to touch your nose, walk a straight line, and so on. All this is recorded by the policeman's body cam and the patrol car's dash cam. You are arrested and released on bond awaiting trial. Later the police write their reports and submit them, along with video evidence, to the proper authorities. You are upset and feel that you have ben unfairly charged and decide to call an old college classmate for help. When you appear in court at the appointed date you find that all charges have been dropped. What happened?
Your old college classmate is a hacker. He has penetrated the police department files of video evidence and contaminated them so that they are no longer useful. The images of you are no longer recognizable, you have a different face. When the written documents were faxed to the proper authorities, he hacked into the fax network and changed the wording in the documents.
The preceding is fiction, but completely possible.
The Department of Homeland Security is well aware of video hacking and its ICS-CERT recently issued warnings concerning a particular brand of security camera. The Industrial Control Systems-Cyber Emergency Response Team issued an advisory concerning Hikvision Cameras. These particular cameras, with over 16,000 in use, are easily accessible to hackers. This is but one security camera that can be easily hacked.
It would stand to reason that if hackers have access to the video images they could also alter them. In a recent August Article in Wired, covering the DefCon conference in Las Vegas, a senior policy analyst with the ACLU said, "The fact that some law enforcement evidence-collecting devices can be hacked evokes some true nightmare scenarios". Also in the article a hacker showed how easy it was to hack into a body cam and replace the actual footage recorded. A Fortune, August, 2018, article states that all hackers need is the phone number of a fax machine to hack into it and gain access to faxed documents. If it is an "all in one" printer connected to the office through wifi, then the hackers have access to any device on the network. In the same vein home security systems are easy targets for hackers and associated malice. An often overlooked security camera is the nursery cam or baby cam. Parents frequently use these nursery cams to monitor baby's activity. A hacker close by can access this camera corrupt the image, perhaps luring an unsuspecting parent into a precarious situation.
All electronic media can be hacked. By definition hacking is the unauthorized gaining of access to a data system via a computer. Secure systems remain secure only as long as no one hacks them. Therefore we can no longer be confident that what we read, hear or see is true, i.e. factual. Government agencies as well as private individuals and businesses must remain vigilant against hackers. Manufacturers must continually improve the security of their products. Perhaps future generations will see security as something of which myths are made.
AFTERTHOUGHT
The entertainment industry has manipulated media for years whether the media is read, heard or seen. In many cases the news industry has followed the same trend but to a lessor degree. Bias in news reporting is not always obvious to the consumer, but Hollywood is in the business of creating illusion. We expect it whether it is creating Brad Pitt's aging face in the Curious Case of Benjamin Button or the enhancement of William Shatner's derrière in the Star Trek movies, but it does not necessarily stop there.
