Biometric Digital Tokens for Detecting Altered Content
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Solution Overview
Problem
The spread of misinformation and altered news stories through social media platforms lacks authenticity and accountability, necessitating a system that ensures the integrity and provenance of digital media content.
Innovation Solution
A digital authentication token is generated by combining author biometrics, such as DNA sequence information, with the content, using a deterministic function to create a secure, immutable token that integrates with a distributed ledger, ensuring any modification to the content disrupts the token, allowing consumers to distinguish original from altered content.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Speed
If digital media content is distributed through social media platforms, then information reach and distribution speed are improved, but authenticity and accountability of the content deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary authentication by generating a digital token at the point of content creation, embedding author biometrics and content hash before distribution. This preliminary action ensures authenticity is established upfront, allowing rapid distribution without compromising reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
A distributed ledger system acts as an intermediary between content creators and consumers, providing immutable verification of content authenticity. The ledger mediates trust by recording and verifying digital tokens without requiring centralized control, enabling fast distribution while maintaining accountability.
2Device complexity
If traditional authentication methods are used, then system complexity is reduced, but detection of altered content becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The system merges multiple authentication factors (biometric data, content hash, timestamp, location) into a single digital token that is embedded with the content. This combination provides comprehensive alteration detection while maintaining manageable system complexity through integrated verification.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses cryptographic hashing to transform content into a unique digital fingerprint (analogous to color change). Any alteration to the content produces a completely different hash value, making detection of modifications straightforward despite the underlying cryptographic complexity.
3Reliability
If multi-factor authentication tokens are generated combining biometric data and content, then authenticity is improved, but computational requirements and processing time increase
Solution Approach 1:
The computationally intensive operations (biometric processing, cryptographic hashing, token generation) are performed preliminarily at the point of content creation. Once the digital token is generated, verification by consumers requires minimal computation, reducing overall energy consumption while maintaining high authenticity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates a cryptographic copy (hash) of the content that serves as its unique identifier. Verifying authenticity involves comparing hashes rather than re-analyzing the entire content, significantly reducing computational energy requirements for verification while maintaining strong authentication.
Data Source
AI summary
Authentication tokens, systems, and methods are described. An illustrative method is disclosed to include receiving an electronic file including a digital image, receiving biometric information that is associated with a person, modifying the electronic file with the biometric information such that one or more pixels in the digital image are replaced with the biometric information, and storing the modified electronic file as a digital authentication token to be used in connection with authorized publications of original digital work.