The goal of FOSTERER (Robust Multimedia FOrensic Solutions To Enhance ModeRn MEdia TRustworthiness in Adversarial Conditions) is to preserve the dependability of digital media, by developing MMF tools that overcome the problems of lack of robustness and security of DL techniques in the MMF framework, still leveraging on the superior capabilities of modern DL technologies.

We will exploit the peculiarities of the MMF framework and of the analysis of modern media to develop new tailored effective defenses.

FOSTERER builds upon two main focal points

• Raising adversarial attacks awareness

• Development of robust detectors

The research activity of this project will be split into 4 interrelated work packages (WPs), whose goals and methodologies are reported below.

WP1 will constitute the support base for the other project workpackages. Its main goal will be twofold:

• To gather and advance the knowledge about attacks tailored to MMF detectors.

• To acquire and organize datasets useful to validate MMF methods. This is the primary necessary step to build relevant and accurate defenses, and assess their performance.

Furthermore, a parallel and very focused activity of updating the state-of-the-art concerning solutions and methods, published in the literature and dealing with the issue of robustness in MMF detectors, will be carried out.

The main goal of WP2 is to develop detectors that gain robustness thanks to the use of external additional data with respect to the classical case where a single medium and/or a unique  detection modality is taken into account. 

The idea is to use additional pieces of information that come with a digital media, in addition to the signal itself (e.g., metadata, multiple modalities, source information, near-duplicate versions of a media, etc.).

The main goal of WP3 is to develop detectors that have an intrinsic improved robustness against attacks.

This corresponds to design detectors that resort to more robust features or detectors based on security-enhanced architectures and training.

The main goal of WP4 is to build and analyze a real-world use-case, showcasing the advancements of the project as well as proving the necessity of robust MMF techniques.

Another goal of WP4 is to promote awareness about MMF attacks and their role in disinformation campaigns.