Information Forensics: An Overview of the First Decade

TLDR

Recent decades have seen rapid evolution of information technologies, leading to ubiquitous multimedia devices and content, which in turn creates a critical need for forensic methods to verify authorized use and reconstruct digital content events. The paper reviews what has been accomplished over the last decade in information forensics, covering theories, methodologies, state‑of‑the‑art techniques, major applications, and future outlook. The authors conduct a comprehensive literature review to synthesize these theories, methodologies, techniques, applications, and prospective developments.

Abstract

In recent decades, we have witnessed the evolution of information technologies from the development of VLSI technologies, to communication and networking infrastructure, to the standardization of multimedia compression and coding schemes, to effective multimedia content search and retrieval. As a result, multimedia devices and digital content have become ubiquitous. This path of technological evolution has naturally led to a critical issue that must be addressed next, namely, to ensure that content, devices, and intellectual property are being used by authorized users for legitimate purposes, and to be able to forensically prove with high confidence when otherwise. When security is compromised, intellectual rights are violated, or authenticity is forged, forensic methodologies and tools are employed to reconstruct what has happened to digital content in order to answer who has done what, when, where, and how. The goal of this paper is to provide an overview on what has been done over the last decade in the new and emerging field of information forensics regarding theories, methodologies, state-of-the-art techniques, major applications, and to provide an outlook of the future.