As I have been musing on how to distinguish between real photographs and graphical images printed on photoquality paper in my email exchanges with Seshu, I thought I might as well ask you all your opinions on that. I think after this fiasco, the issue of authentic photographs and manipulated images assumes more significance. This will only worsen the troubles of “sting operations” carried out by the likes of Tehelka.

Basically, I am wondering if there are any technologies available through which images (hard copy ones) can be examined to find out if they are real or if they are created graphically or altered. I think this might mean, graphic editing tools must comply with a rule such that all images created by that tool will have a mark of distinction which can be used to recognise the image. But this again might give rise to some “privacy issues” like those of the DVD players. Whats your take?