vali.now

Veritas: Camera Fingerprint Analysis as a Path to Stronger Research Image Integrity

A prac­ti­cal path from visu­al sus­pi­cion to device-level evi­dence Sci­en­tif­ic pub­lish­ing faces a grow­ing cri­sis of image manip­u­la­tion and ques­tion­able fig­ures. Paper mills, dupli­cat­ed or altered pan­els, and post-publication con­cerns have made image integri­ty cases more com­mon. Tra­di­tion­al spot-checking of pub­lished fig­ures is no longer enough. Labs, jour­nals, research integri­ty offices, and uni­ver­si­ty coun­sel need some­thing more con­crete than visu­al inspec­tion alone: evi­dence that ties a fig­ure back to a real lab­o­ra­to­ry camera.

August 11, 2026

Why I’m Convinced Institutional Device Enrollment with PRNU Can Become the Gold Standard for Scientific Integrity

Sci­en­tif­ic pub­lish­ing has a quiet but grow­ing prob­lem. Image manip­u­la­tion, dupli­cat­ed fig­ures, and industrial-scale paper mills are erod­ing trust in the lit­er­a­ture. Analy­ses of mil­lions of can­cer research papers have flagged near­ly 10% as shar­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics with known paper-mill out­put — some­times climb­ing toward 15% in more recent datasets. Retrac­tion rates are ris­ing, yet the true scale of the issue is almost cer­tain­ly larg­er than what we cur­rent­ly catch. Tra­di­tion­al peer review

July 27, 2026

A Picture Lies More Than a Thousand Words

The Threat of Fake Images and Videos in Our Dig­i­tal World In an era where visu­al media is omnipresent, the old proverb “A pic­ture is worth a thou­sand words” reminds us of the once-powerful impact of pho­tog­ra­phy and film. In the past, a pic­ture was con­sid­ered an unshak­able proof of reality—a moment cap­tured and immutably pre­served. In the pre-digital manip­u­la­tion era, images sym­bol­ized authen­tic­i­ty: They con­veyed emo­tions, con­texts, and events with a directness

March 7, 2026

Navigating the Risks of AI Agents: A Matter of Use and Awareness

AI agents — intel­li­gent sys­tems that can think, learn, and act autonomous­ly — are becom­ing a sig­nif­i­cant part of our daily lives. They’re built on pow­er­ful lan­guage mod­els and often inte­grate with the Model Con­text Pro­to­col (MCP), which enables them to inter­act with data, tools, and even the real world. But as excit­ing as this sounds, there’s a grow­ing con­ver­sa­tion about the risks involved. Draw­ing from insights in a recent post on vali.now, I want

Feb­ru­ary 6, 2026

Why Investors Can’t Afford to Ignore Cybersecurity: A Wake-Up Call

In today’s hyper-connected world, where data is the new oil and dig­i­tal infra­struc­ture under­pins near­ly every busi­ness, cyber­se­cu­ri­ty isn’t just an IT check­box — it’s a cor­ner­stone of sus­tain­able value cre­ation. Yet, investors often over­look it, treat­ing it as a periph­er­al con­cern rather than a core eco­nom­ic dri­ver. Draw­ing from insights on the per­sis­tent under­es­ti­ma­tion of cyber risks, this post explores why cyber­se­cu­ri­ty demands a seat at the invest­ment table. I’ll break down the

Jan­u­ary 20, 2026

Whom Do Humans Trust? An Interdisciplinary Dive into Trust Through Time and AI Challenges

In a world brim­ming with con­nec­tions — both real and vir­tu­al — trust remains the invis­i­ble glue hold­ing soci­eties togeth­er. From ancient tribes to mod­ern dig­i­tal net­works, humans have always nav­i­gat­ed the del­i­cate bal­ance of whom to rely on. But what shapes this trust? Draw­ing from phi­los­o­phy, soci­ol­o­gy, anthro­pol­o­gy, his­to­ry, and psy­chol­o­gy, this post explores the essence of human trust, how it has evolved, and the pro­found chal­lenges posed by the

Jan­u­ary 13, 2026

The Attention Economy: When Influence Becomes Currency and Truth a Casualty

In an era where scrolling through social media feeds has become as habit­u­al as breath­ing, atten­tion has emerged as the ulti­mate com­mod­i­ty. Coined by econ­o­mist Her­bert Simon in the 1970s, the “atten­tion econ­o­my” describes a world where human focus is scarce, and plat­forms, influ­encers, and politi­cians com­pete fierce­ly to cap­ture it. What began as a frame­work for under­stand­ing infor­ma­tion over­load has evolved into a sys­tem where ordi­nary peo­ple trans­form into influ­encers, ped­dling con­tent on

Jan­u­ary 12, 2026

Navigating Truth in the Age of AI: The Fragile Credibility of Photos and Content

In a recent post on vali.now titled “Assess the Verac­i­ty of Pho­tos”, Rebec­ca John­son delves into the chal­lenges faced by even sea­soned jour­nal­ists, like those at The New York Times, when ver­i­fy­ing images amid a flood of syn­thet­ic media. The piece recounts how, fol­low­ing U.S. mil­i­tary strikes in Venezuela, Pres­i­dent Trump’s social media post of Nicolás Maduro in cus­tody sparked a wave of ques­tion­able pho­tos. It high­lights the steps pro­fes­sion­als take—from acknowl­edg­ing uncertainty

Jan­u­ary 9, 2026

The Human Element: Why Social Engineering Wins in the Age of Machines

After decades spent build­ing dig­i­tal prod­ucts for clients and part­ners, I found­ed vali.now with a sim­ple, frus­trat­ing real­iza­tion: the most sophis­ti­cat­ed secu­ri­ty sys­tems in the world were con­sis­tent­ly being undone not by code, but by con­ver­sa­tion. With Datarel­la, we have watched as orga­ni­za­tions poured for­tunes into tech­nol­o­gy that cre­at­ed impen­e­tra­ble dig­i­tal walls, only to have their own employ­ees polite­ly open the front door for any­one with a con­vinc­ing story. This para­dox — that

Decem­ber 17, 2025

GOOD READS

The Mind­ful Rev­o­lu­tion, Michael Reuter

Die Acht­same Rev­o­lu­tion, Michael Reuter

What‘s our prob­lem?, Tim Urban

Rebel Ideas — The Power of Diverse Think­ing, Matthew Syed

Die Macht unser­er Gene, Daniel Wallerstorfer

Jel­ly­fish Age Back­wards, Nick­las Brendborg

The Expec­ta­tion Effect, David Robson

Breathe, James Nestor

The Idea of the Brain, Matthew Cobb

The Great Men­tal Mod­els I, Shane Parrish

Sim­ple Rules, Don­ald Sull, Kath­leen M. Eisenhardt

Mit Igno­ran­ten sprechen, Peter Modler

The Secret Lan­guage of Cells, Jon Lieff

Evo­lu­tion of Desire: A Life of René Girard, Cyn­thia L. Haven

Grasp: The Sci­ence Trans­form­ing How We Learn, San­jay Sara

Rewire Your Brain , John B. Arden

The Wim Hof Method, Wim Hof

The Way of the Ice­man, Koen de Jong

Soft Wired — How The New Sci­ence of Brain Plas­tic­i­ty Can Change Your Life, Michael Merzenich

The Brain That Changes Itself, Nor­man Doidge

Lifes­pan, David Sinclair

Out­live — The Sci­ence and Art of Longevi­ty, Peter Attia

Younger You — Reduce Your Bioage And Live Longer, Kara N. Fitzgerald

What Does­n’t Kill Us, Scott Carney

Suc­cess­ful Aging, Daniel Levithin

Der Ernährungskom­pass, Bas Kast

The Way We Eat Now, Bee Wilson

Dein Gehirn weiss mehr als Du denkst, Niels Birbaumer

Denken: Wie das Gehirn Bewusst­sein schafft, Stanis­las Dehaene

Mind­ful­ness, Ellen J. Langer

100 Plus: How The Com­ing Age of Longevi­ty Will Change Every­thing, Sonia Arrison

Think­ing Like A Plant, Craig Holdredge

Das Geheime Wis­sen unser­er Zellen, Son­dra Barret

The Code of the Extra­or­di­nary Mind, Vishen Lakhiani

Altered Traits, Daniel Cole­man, Richard Davidson

The Brain’s Way Of Heal­ing, Nor­man Doidge

The Last Best Cure, Donna Jack­son Nakazawa

The Inner Game of Ten­nis, W. Tim­o­thy Gallway

Run­ning Lean, Ash Maurya

Sleep — Schlafen wie die Profis, Nick Littlehales

© 2026 MICHAEL REUTER