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Quick Facts
Biography
Hany Farid is a professor of computer science at Dartmouth College and former chair of Dartmouth's Neukom Institute for Computational Science. Farid specializes in image analysis, human perception, and has been called the "father" of digital image forensics by NOVA scienceNOW. The recipient of a 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2002 Sloan Fellowship for his work in the field, Farid has consulted for intelligence agencies, news organizations, courts, and scientific journals seeking to authenticate the validity of images. This is critically important because graphics programs, such as Photoshop, are frequently used to crop and to label figures in scientific publications. Such manipulations can be used to alter or disguise the data. In 2009, after digitally analyzing a photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald holding a rifle and newspaper, Farid published his findings concluding that "the photo almost certainly was not altered". When the 2012 World Press Photo of the Year was alleged as being "fake", Farid spoke out against the allegation and criticized its underlying method, error level analysis.
He received his B.S. in computer science and applied mathematics from the University of Rochester in 1989. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997.
In June 2016, Farid, as a Senior Advisor to the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), unveiled a software tool for use by Internet and social media companies to "quickly find and eliminate extremist content used to spread and incite violence and attacks." It functions similarly to PhotoDNA, a system that uses robust hashing technology Farid worked on developing with Microsoft, which is "now widely used by Internet companies to stop the spread of content showing sexual exploitation or pornography involving children."
To operationalize this new technology to combat extremism, Farid and CEP proposed the creation of a National Office for Reporting Extremism (NORex), which would house a comprehensive database of extremist content and function similar to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC).
Selected publications
- Farid, H. A Survey of Image Forgery Detection, IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, 26:2 (2009) 16-25.
- Farid, H. Digital Image Forensics, Scientific American, 298:6 (2008) 66-71.
- Johnson, M K and H Farid, Exposing Digital Forgeries in Complex Lighting Environments, IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 2:3 (2007) 450-461.
- Johnson, M K and H Farid, Exposing Digital Forgeries Through Specular Highlights on the Eye, 9th International Workshop on Information Hiding, Saint Malo, France (2007).
- Lyu, S, D Rockmore, and H Farid, A Digital Technique for Art Authentication, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 101:49 (2004) 17006-17010.
- ^ "Hany Farid - Dartmouth Faculty Directory". Dartmouth College. Retrieved 21 January 2010.