It took from the 'official' IUCR recommendation in 2000 Guss M (2000) Guidelines for the deposition and release of macromolecular coordinate and experimental data. Acta Crystallogr. D56(1), 2.
until Feb 2008 for structure factor amplitude deposition to the PDB to become mandatory. Nature started to provide coordinates and SFs to reviewers already around 2006 So, with luck, mandatory image deposition will happen in less than a decade. By then we'll have dirt cheap solid state disks which we stick into a port labeled 'solve structure' on our 0.5 lb Windux handheld which then wirelessly transmits the model and data to the repository, automatically linking to your auto-generated paper's identifier, while an artificial intelligence pre-editing tool rejects your manuscript for political incorrectness. Mark my words. BR -----Original Message----- From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:ccp...@jiscmail.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Eric Bennett Sent: Friday, March 20, 2009 4:10 PM To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] fake images Bernhard Rupp wrote: >I only scratched the surface and I think it would be hard work to fake >the images in a way that later expert forensics would >not readily provide evidence. Also, there are 'watermarks' available from >cryptographic methods that are even 'post-processing' resistant. A practical question is, even if it could be detected in theory, is anyone looking for it in practice? How many journal reviewers are going to audit this information? Today some structures still don't get deposited with structure factors. Not all journals enforce deposition policies well. Even if some future image repository can do automated image auditing, people who want to commit overt fraud will pick a journal that doesn't enforce deposition requirements, and decline to provide their images. A watermark or statistical analysis won't help you if you don't have access to the image. This discussion started regarding a place for people who _want_ to deposit images; unfortunately some people aren't going to do it voluntarily. -Eric --