The rise of synthetic media has blurred the boundary between reality and fabrication under the evolving power of artificial intelligence, fueling an infodemic that erodes public trust in cyberspace. For digital imagery, a multitude of editing applications further complicates the forensic analysis, including semantic edits that alter content, photometric adjustments that recalibrate colour characteristics, and geometric projections that reshape viewpoints. Collectively, these transformations manipulate and control perceptual interpretation of digital imagery. This susceptibility calls for forensic enquiry into reconstructing the chain of events, thereby revealing deeper evidential insight into the presence or absence of criminal intent. This study seeks to address an inverse problem of tracing the underlying generation chain that gives rise to the observed synthetic media. A tell-tale watermarking system is developed for explanatory reasoning over the nature and extent of transformations across the lifecycle of synthetic media. Tell-tale watermarks are tailored to different classes of transformations, responding in a manner that is neither strictly robust nor fragile but instead interpretable. These watermarks function as reference clues that evolve under the same transformation dynamics as the carrier media, leaving interpretable traces when subjected to transformations. Explanatory reasoning is then performed to infer the most plausible account across the combinatorial parameter space of composite transformations. Experimental evaluations demonstrate the validity of tell-tale watermarking with respect to fidelity, synchronicity and traceability.

翻译：合成媒体的兴起，在人工智能日益强大的力量下模糊了现实与虚构的界限，加剧了信息疫情，侵蚀着公众对网络空间的信任。对于数字图像而言，众多编辑应用进一步增加了取证分析的复杂性，包括改变内容的语义编辑、重新校准色彩特征的光度调整以及重塑视角的几何投影。这些变换共同操纵并控制着数字图像的感知解读。这种易感性要求进行法证调查，以重建事件链，从而揭示是否存在犯罪意图的更深层证据线索。本研究旨在解决一个逆问题，即追溯导致观察到的合成媒体的底层生成链。我们开发了一种告密水印系统，用于对合成媒体生命周期中变换的性质和程度进行解释性推理。告密水印针对不同类别的变换量身定制，其响应方式既非严格稳健也非脆弱，而是可解释的。这些水印作为参考线索，在与载体媒体相同的变换动力学作用下演变，并在遭受变换时留下可解释的痕迹。随后进行解释性推理，以推断复合变换组合参数空间中最可能的解释。实验评估证明了告密水印在保真度、同步性和可追溯性方面的有效性。