The Future Frontier: Forgery and it's Historical Implications

The amount of images that are created on a daily basis is expanding exponentially with each passing technological development. For future historians using these images as sources for research, they may offer some interesting insights into society at the time. Historians may be able to make a myriad of inferences, cross-referenced with traditional sources, regarding such things as social values, mainstream political thought and social behaviour. However, one disparaging thought that may emerge from such future research is the historical question of motive and subsequently, cause and effect. Doctored photos reveal many malign characteristics of society, for many of these photos are devious and produce negative results.

Doctored photos will most likely be a serious issue for future historians. The work of computer scientist and digital forensic sleuth, Hany Farid, is caught in a perpetual tug-of-war with forgers. Farid is optimistic that the algorithms his team are producing and the detectors, which future computer scientists will produce, will make it so difficult to doctor photos without being detected that it will deter many from doing so. This is all well in good, but what does it mean for future historians? What implications will it have on the historical process?

The relationship between the human eye and brain is wired to recognize inconsistencies and pattern. In the past, it has been relatively simple to identify doctored photos. Yet, to the degree at which forgeries are being created today, quite often, the human eye isn’t enough. Although the tools exist to identify a forgery, does this imply that historians using photos, as source-material in research, will have to go to new lengths to determine the authenticity of every photo they use?

This, however, is really not all that new. Even prior to the advent of photography, images were being created. Just as historians read written documents with a critical eye, we must view images through this same analytical and skeptical lens. Paintings and sketches are commonly used as evidence, offering a tangible representation of appearances of people and places of the distant past. As critical researchers, historians have had to look at these images warily in expectation that motives may have skewed the subject. For example, early European pencil drawings of Indians they encountered in North America came in a variety of ways. Quite often, those who were commissioned to document the terra incognita worked for a government that was attempting to promote colonization. Therefore, images depicted Indian life as benign and gentle, primitive beings that needed only but a helping hand. However, depictions of Indians could also take on a malevolent, godless form in order to promote warfare and subjugation.

Forgery will always be an issue for historians. Whether it’s the direct doctoring of images, or the manipulation of a subject in order to present an underlying message, historians will, as they always have, continue to treat these materials critically. The process will undoubtedly be more difficult as the wealth of sources seems infinite and daunting as we progress through an information revolution. It has and will continue to be, however, an intricate part of the historian’s craft to question the sources with available tools. Forgeries of the past misled contemporary societies as forgeries of today may deceive our own. With a little optimism, however, and faith in the work of such professionals as Farid, historians of the future will have the tools of the future to assess the works of the past.

There are, nonetheless, still many unanswered questions, notably the effects that forgeries have on society today. Furthermore, historians use and interpret images of the past that deluded their contemporary societies. Yet, what is happening to the originals that are used to create a forgery? To have both the original and the forgery will allow the historian to investigate into the nature and motive for the manipulation. This then, may be a more pertinent implication for the historical process. Even if the technology exists to detect a forgery, without an available original, the historian may be left guessing as to why the image was doctored. Of course, this again, is not new. Part of the historian's craft is to use a plethora of sources to come to an interpretation.

It's difficult to infer the implications of forgery on the historian's craft. However, using the historian's past, we may make educated guesses to attempt to assess how the future of history will play out on a new and digital frontier.


For more information on the work of Hany Farid, visit: http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/home.html

See also Steve Casimiro, Can Photos Be Trusted, Popular Science (2005): http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/press/popularscience05/popsci05.html