The doc­u­men­tary film­maker, Errol Mor­ris, inter­views Hany Farid, a Dart­mouth pro­fes­sor and an expert on dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy, on using pho­tog­ra­phy as a weapon.

Of course, we all know that doc­tor­ing (pho­to­shop­ping) pho­tographs to make them dra­matic, mis­lead­ing, or polit­i­cally con­tro­ver­sial is a wide­spread issue (prob­lem?), but what about using cap­tions to influence?

The pho­tographs pre­sented by Colin Pow­ell at the United Nations in 2003 pro­vide sev­eral exam­ples. Pho­tographs that were used to jus­tify a war. And yet, the actual pho­tographs are low-res, muddy aer­ial sur­veil­lance pho­tographs of build­ings and vehi­cles on the ground in Iraq. I’m not an aer­ial intel­li­gence expert. I could be look­ing at any­thing. It is the labels, the cap­tions, and the sur­round­ing text that turn the images from one thing into another.

via Schneier on Security