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Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot

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Re: Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot

#61
post #41
post #38

As other has pointed out, this is extremely creepy. The easiest solution would have been this one: - The user uses a JS solution to hash the images on the client, without the image being uploaded - She compiles a form with additional information (e.g: capture her account, reasons for uploading, suspect person sharing the picture) - The picture is saved in the DB as un-verified revenge porn. - The first time someone u…

Now figure out a way to do step #1 (user does a hash client-side) without making it trivial for someone else to create a filter that adds enough noise to invalidate step #4 (uploaded pics that match a hash are quarantined.)

How does giving Facebook the image solve that problem, in a way that can't be done client side?

Re: Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot

#62

> To establish which image is of concern, people will be asked to send the image to themselves on Messenger. > Once we receive this notification, a specially trained representative from our Community Operations team reviews and hashes the image, which creates a human-unreadable, numerical fingerprint of it. This clearly implicates that Facebook has, almost without reserve, the ability to read messages from user to us…

I really don't understand why anyone uses Facebook. You have a phone, which can communicate with your friends. It's only remotely useful for its near-monopoly on event planning, and imo that's a job for the trustbusters.

Compared to a phone (SMS) and other messaging apps (whatsapp, email, signal), fb messenger has two big benefits for me:

* Cross platform: I don't have to type on a tiny screen when I'm in front of a computer, and won't lose my account or my messages if I lose my phone or phone number.

* Discoverability: most people who I meet are on it, so I can reach out to people I meet at events as well as friends of friends.

I don't love messenger. I use Messenger Lite on my phone to avoid most of the snapchat/gif/events/birthdays features. But I'm not aware of any other cross-platform messaging app with that discoverability, let alone one free of privacy issues.

Re: Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot

#63
This is dumb. A hash? That's only going to deter the most incompetent internet users when it comes to a file type that is subject to alteration without losing it's information value (pictures, video, music, etc.).

All someone has to do is change a single bit/pixel in the image and the hash will be different. No one will notice that and it defeats the hash. Hell, you don't even have to do that. You can just rotate the image, save it, then rotate it back, and re-save it. The odds are that program that you used will most certainly not write the image data in the same exact way.

Hashes would be better for files that cannot be altered without breaking the contents. Although, these could be subject to compression, which would create a new hash.

Either way, I think they need to use something similar to Google's image search that actually examines the photo contents for similarity.

Re: Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot

#64
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a way for me to audit that the image is never stored? (No) It seems like that's a huge honeypot; someone compromises the "upload your naughty photos here" endpoint and has an endless supply of "non-consensual intimate images". Edit: Thinking about it a bit, I'd be way more comfortable with the idea of the image hashes being computed on-device and only the hashes being sent to the server. This opens a differe…

While this (client-side hashing) would be better in terms of privacy protection for this specific case it is not going to happen because Facebook is not allowed to perform the specific photo hashing client-side as this would expose the hashing mechanism to analysis.

  > this would expose the hashing mechanism to analysis
Security through obscurity. Works every time (tm)

Re: Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot

#65

So they basically openly admit that a human will review nudes? How is this in any way a sane idea? If you were already scarred (for life, likely) by said revenge porn existing and leaking out somewhere non-facebook, likely the last thing you want is to be forced, YOURSELF, to send it to someone (facebook)

From the article: "people can already report if their intimate images have been shared on our platform without their consent".

If it already happened, they don't need to upload it again. Presumably this new process is for prevention when it didn't happen yet but they have good reason to suspect that it will.

Re: Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot

#66

This is dumb. A hash? That's only going to deter the most incompetent internet users when it comes to a file type that is subject to alteration without losing it's information value (pictures, video, music, etc.). All someone has to do is change a single bit/pixel in the image and the hash will be different. No one will notice that and it defeats the hash. Hell, you don't even have to do that. You can just rotate the…

In this case, 'hash' doesn't necessarily mean 'a cryptographic hash of the raw file contents'.

There are perceptual hash techniques which still match after changes to the file, and are tuned in a similar manner to lossy compression algorithms to prioritize comparing information relevant to human perceptions.

https://www.phash.org/ is one open-source example.

Re: Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot

#67

This is dumb. A hash? That's only going to deter the most incompetent internet users when it comes to a file type that is subject to alteration without losing it's information value (pictures, video, music, etc.). All someone has to do is change a single bit/pixel in the image and the hash will be different. No one will notice that and it defeats the hash. Hell, you don't even have to do that. You can just rotate the…

It's not a technical article. I think it's safe to assume that 1) The people implementing this aren't idiots, and 2) The "hash" is probably referring to a "perceptual hash", where very-similar images would show up as the same.

Re: Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot

#68

This is dumb. A hash? That's only going to deter the most incompetent internet users when it comes to a file type that is subject to alteration without losing it's information value (pictures, video, music, etc.). All someone has to do is change a single bit/pixel in the image and the hash will be different. No one will notice that and it defeats the hash. Hell, you don't even have to do that. You can just rotate the…

There are hashes that represent the content of photos, the Microsoft’s PhotoDNA and Cloudinary’s pHash. I’m pretty sure Facebook’s engineers are smart enough to that they can’t just run photos through MD5 and have everything work.

Re: Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot

#69
post #38

As other has pointed out, this is extremely creepy. The easiest solution would have been this one: - The user uses a JS solution to hash the images on the client, without the image being uploaded - She compiles a form with additional information (e.g: capture her account, reasons for uploading, suspect person sharing the picture) - The picture is saved in the DB as un-verified revenge porn. - The first time someone u…

> - The user uses a JS solution to hash the images on the client, without the image being uploaded

You have to trust facebook in either case, each time you do it. Either to handle your nude pics properly or to serve you javascript that does what they claim it does, every single time.

On the other hand an open source desktop application only needs to be audited once and then can be validated based on a hash.

In browser crypto is not a solution if you want to minimize the needed trust.

Re: Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot

#70
> Once we receive this notification, a specially trained representative from our Community Operations team reviews and hashes the image, which creates a human-unreadable, numerical fingerprint of it.

I'm wondering how long it will be before we start seeing cell phone pics of screens with peoples intimate images on them.

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