Can everything be faked? Digital editing and manipulated data

     Spoiler alert -- once upon a time (in 1993) a murder mystery movie was released called "Rising Sun". Part of the evidence was a digital video of an area which presumably was the time/space where a murder took place. It turned out that the digital video was edited (but not quite carefully enough) to fake the evidence.
     In 1993 (25 years ago as of the writing of this blog), this was relatively new to ponder. We knew that photos could be doctored/changed/altered but, in this movie, a central point was that digital video could also be changed. (Once changed digitally, film copies could be made if desired.) Twenty-five years ago, this took a lot of time and many computers. Doing such a thing still requires a lot of processing power but that power is now available on many home computers (or even phones or tablets).
     We are seeing this capability ad nauseum within the social media. Within less than 24 hours, a new set of memes, photos, and sometimes videos are released purporting to prove something or call something out. Some are real. Sometimes it is obvious (quotes from Lincoln about the Internet SHOULD be immediately recognized as fake although I have found that a lot of people tend to believe them) but often it is not. Sometime the source is a public satire, or irony, site and "should" be recognized as such by those that read them -- but they often aren't. This happens on all segments of the political spectrum.
     An awful lot (too much) of the time, a forgery is only discovered to have taken place by recreating how the fake was created (such as finding the original photos that have been merged together).
     The foundation problem is that if it CAN be faked, how does one determine the primary reality for this particular universe? For articles and "news" segments, it is possible to research multiple sources, find a general agreement from various sources and determine with a high probability (but not 100%) what the reality is. What does one do about forged supporting documents? It is not easy, but it is possible, to find component parts from various photos, videos, sound recordings, and such to be reasonably sure that something has been compiled together, and manipulated, into a different item -- a "photoshopped" photo, an edited sound recording, and so forth.
      However, we are reaching the point of being able to synthesize (or create) from scratch whatever we want. Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) has gotten so good that, for films, they sometimes deliberately make it appear less real because people can be annoyed if they think it is "real" when it isn't; they like to know it is CGI. That objection doesn't apply when the person, or group, creating the artifact WANTS to have it be accepted as real.
     As per previous blogs, this doesn't just apply to distorting current things of interest -- it can also be applied to faking history and re-inventing the past. Nor (as per other previous blogs) can we rely on memory to be sure. There are those who do not remember what was said by a politician the previous day.
     So, to attempt to answer the question posed in the subject -- can everything be faked? Probably so. As is true that social change falls behind that of technological changes, our ability to create fake items is overwhelming our ability to prove that it has been done. What methods of verification do you use? What can be done to more easily separate the close-to-true from the false? Is this just a new reality that we need to accept and learn to deal with?

Solidified Memory: How do we make sure we remember what we experienced?

    If memories are so unreliable (and they truly are) then what can we do to make them more reliable? How do we convert them from transient to permanent? Well, on a technical basis, that process is called moving them from short-term to long-term memory. But, as we have discussed, that still doesn't make the memories any more "true" just because we remember them longer.
    First off, it is good to acknowledge that almost any "evidence" can now be forged -- with enough money spent, it can be forged to the point that it is impossible to detect that it was not from reality. Technology has moved along a lot since the movie "Rising Sun" was made with Sean Connery. Photos, and video, can be created pixel by pixel. Cursive writing can be reformed from templates into any combination of letters, words, and sentences that may be desired. Audio is still, currently, the hardest to forge as it is a representation of analog (continuously changing) information -- but it is still possible to create something that would be very hard to distinguish from "real".
    The only real protection individuals have from data forging is that most of us are NOT "worth the trouble". Even though it is easier and easier, with more easily used tools, to manipulate and fake data it still takes time, knowledge, experience, money (for equipment and software) and (for the second mention) time.
    So, how to create a record for oneself that we can use to keep our memories "solid"? We have already inferred a number of methods. Photos. We can take photographs (preferably with notes associated with them). We do have to be careful to not infer about what we do NOT see. If we take that photo of a person in a red hat -- we do not know the color of the other side of the hat. We do not know who hid behind a tree. However, if we are taking these photos for ourselves, we can include notes to help get the information correct.
    Audio is a great way to note things down -- but audio of what we experience is more useful than our taking an audio note of what we noticed or experienced. (That is just as easily misled as any other account of events.) If we can record someone saying something then we can refer back to it as what they said. Content, sequencing, and who said what can be noted and solidified.
    Video combines the two of image and sound. The more the merrier. We just have to make sure that we recognize that what is not recorded may be as important, or more important, as what IS recorded. Do not take the "evidence" further than what is really there.
    A final method of solidifying memory is just that -- physical reconstructions and recordings. Statues and sculptures, writing, models, and so forth can capture events and the emotions of events.
    Do these methods make memories more reliable? No, not really -- although they can record details that we can forget ("Did I wear a green shirt that day or the plaid one?"). But they do help them to stop changing.