Cybersecurity: Photos can be traced to individual smartphones

Published January 2, 2018 This content is archived.

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An article on Innovation Toronto reports a UB-led team of researchers has discovered how to identify smartphones by examining just one photo taken by the device, and quotes Kui Ren, SUNY Empire Innovation Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

“Like snowflakes, no two smartphones are the same. Each device, regardless of the manufacturer or make, can be identified through a pattern of microscopic imaging flaws that are present in every picture they take,” he said. “It’s kind of like matching bullets to a gun, only we’re matching photos to a smartphone camera.”

Read the story here.