Moment of Truth
140 Technion students worked for 24 hours on developments that would reduce the impact of fake news on our lives
Fake news, "post-truth" and "alternative facts" – these were the topics of Doing Good - the annual hackathon of the Taub Faculty of Computer Science. The hackathon, which took place last weekend (May 8-9), was designed to develop technological solutions for real needs related to disinformation and misinformation.
During a 24-hour programming marathon, 140 students worked in groups, guided by faculty members, AI researchers, cognitive experts and cyber and media experts, to bring solutions with real proofs of feasibility to the finish line.
First place went to the True Lens team, which developed a unique camera that allows the user to prove that the photos taken with it are real. The camera recognizes the photograph as an authentic recording of a real environment, Not a two-dimensional image, and confirms this with an encrypted signature.
In second place – the Syncsense team, which developed technology for identifying fake videos (deepfake) based on synchronization gaps between voice and image.
In third place – the SMSER team, which developed a smart SMS application that classifies messages in Hebrew into categories such as phishing, sales promotions and personal messages, without violating the user's privacy. Association representatives. The judges' favorite prize was won by the Truth Trail team, which developed a Chrome extension that displays the distribution chain of each statement on the Internet in real time.
Another team that impressed the judges developed monitoring software that allows tracking of sexual content distributed to children. The software was developed with the assistance of the National Headquarters for Child Protection on the Internet.
The Israeli Internet Association, which was a professional partner in the event, announced their intention to promote community-based developments of the ideas, and to expose the developers to the international arena.
The hackathon was organized by students Eden Elgoi, Keren Losev, and Glaur Lazar, who explained that “information has never been so accessible – and at the same time so dangerous. In the age of social networks, search engines, and artificial intelligence, we are witnessing a constant flood of content – but also a growing blurring of truth and falsehood.” They presented several examples of the impact of these trends – the 2016 US election, disinformation during the Corona era, and the false videos published during the war against Israel. “This is a painful reminder that the digital front is not just an addition to the campaign,” they noted, “but a critical arena in its own right.”
The hackathon day was opened by Emmanuel Nachshon, who until recently served as the Deputy Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Public Diplomacy. He presented several different examples of fake news and told the students that this is a phenomenon that causes enormous damage and that it is important to develop technological tools that will not only distinguish between truth and lies but also clarify how the visual lie is produced, by what means and what the agenda behind it is.
A few days before the hackathon, the participants were invited to a lecture by Brigadier General (res.) Itai Brun, who lectured on the "national security rooms" where intelligence information is analyzed and fateful decisions are made. Brigadier General Brun expanded on the failures that made the October 7 massacre possible, saying that "a lot of people talk about personal, local failures, and ask who is to blame. But the blame also lies with a problematic culture that has developed over decades. We must develop a more correct, skeptical and argumentative culture, one that is always aware of the possibility of a gap between reality and the perception of reality and therefore always looks for signals from reality and does not ignore them."
The hackathon is supported by Apple, Mobileye, KLA, the Israel Electric Corporation, the Technion Social Incubator, the Tech AI Center at the Technion, and the Israeli Internet Association.
Photos from the event at the link
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