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Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot

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Re: Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot

#91
post #13

To everyone asking why they need a human to review to image before hashing it: it's currently the only way to prevent abuse of this system -- Without this, everyone would upload random images that would get taken down, effectively mass-trolling

The actual reason is probably more technical:

https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/928646228472078336

(You'd reverse engineer the algorithm and permanently defeat it - rendering all fingerprints stored useless)

Re: Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot

#92

The better solution is to have the image hashed and NOT sent to facebook. If the hash matches an existing image [A]. If the hash isn't found [B]. [A]: human can review the image they already have [B]: Facebook waits until someone uploads an image that matches and then reviews the image (as normal) but with a marker alerting the problem. The benefit is that people NOT affected won't have to upload lots of images of th…

The obvious reason why Facebook didn't go down this path is one of scale - It's easy (and altogether likely) for an attacker to pollute the hashes with innocuous pictures. But, even more importantly, once you reveal your hashing system, it's relatively trivial for people to work around them and modify the pictures in such a way as to render the hashing system useless. Has to be done server side for these reasons.

Re: Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot

#93
post #79
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

maybe they shouldn't ask for nudes until they have designed an open source algorithm?

How would an open source fingerprinting algorithm work in this case?

There would be a browser extension to "refingerprint" images within 24 hours of release.

Re: Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot

#94
post #89

The discussion surrounding this made me think of a feature I'd love to have along these lines. I'd like to be able to blacklist people / certain people from uploading pictures that facebook detects my face in. Fb as a platform must already have this functionality, what with the auto face identification and privacy / review post settings. I can imagine images of people that aren't "non-consensual intimate images" that…

> I can imagine images of people that aren't "non-consensual intimate images" that they'd reasonably still like to be able to block being posted. If I take a photo of a public landscape and you happen to be there, do you have the right to prevent me from publishing it unaltered? Keep in mind: you're not the primary subject (and no reasonable person would believe that you were) nor owner of the photo. Your likeness is…

Excellent! Then it should be short work for you to photoshop my face out so it won't be blocked. Everybody wins.

Re: Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot

#95
post #78
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PhotoDNA would be an option, I imagine. Or at least something similar! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhotoDNA

Honestly, I doubt that most of these sorts of algorithms would survive concerted attacks – that's why they tend to be closely guarded. Alex Stamos (Facebook's CISO) implies this is why they can't do it client-side: https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/928646228472078336

From when security through obscurity is a good idea?

Re: Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot

#96
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This clearly implicates that Facebook has, almost without reserve, the ability to read messages from user to user (even though it might limited to messages to oneself), and exposes that ability to its employees. You can view and search your message history on Facebook, so there is not really any question that they have and can read all messages. I never explicitly checked it but at least I never noticed any gaps, i.e…

Using Messenger you can start a secret conversation with someone which is encrypted end-to-end. Those conversations only exist in the current device. But regular conversations are not encrypted in any way.

They are sent over an encrypted transport which means law enforcement must subpoena them from Facebook, and cannot monitor them with a telephone intercept like calls and SMSes.

Re: Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot

#97
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can imagine images of people that aren't "non-consensual intimate images" that they'd reasonably still like to be able to block being posted. If I take a photo of a public landscape and you happen to be there, do you have the right to prevent me from publishing it unaltered? Keep in mind: you're not the primary subject (and no reasonable person would believe that you were) nor owner of the photo. Your likeness is…

Excellent! Then it should be short work for you to photoshop my face out so it won't be blocked. Everybody wins.

Why is Facebook obligated to fulfill your desires for privacy by censoring content you have no legal claim to?

Re: Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot

#98
post #74

It’s interesting that the general consensus is strangers seeing your nudes is creepy (referring to the manual processing aspect.) I understand it on a fundamentally emotional level: I want absolute control of my private life / photos / etc. I am embarrassed at the idea of being seen naked without my active participation. On a logical level, though, what difference does it make if every person you will never meet has…

What's really bizarre to me is that people here don't think using facebook in general is creepy...

I think it's the same deal: your data is being seen / used by algorithms, your information is just a bunch of 1s and 0s being copied and processed and re-copied and re-processed. It's all very impersonal, so it's easy to abstract it away.

Re: Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot

#99
post #93
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe they shouldn't ask for nudes until they have designed an open source algorithm?

How would an open source fingerprinting algorithm work in this case? There would be a browser extension to "refingerprint" images within 24 hours of release.

Make the algorithms public, let them be broken, refine them etc. until the margin between identification and refingerprinting becomes so small that refingerprinting involves such significant changes that we are reasonably confident that we are no longer dealing with theseus' ship.

That's how we got good crypto. By not keeping it proprietary.

And a side benefit that we would get some amazingly alteration-resistant perceptual image hashes out of that.

Re: Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot

#100

The better solution is to have the image hashed and NOT sent to facebook. If the hash matches an existing image [A]. If the hash isn't found [B]. [A]: human can review the image they already have [B]: Facebook waits until someone uploads an image that matches and then reviews the image (as normal) but with a marker alerting the problem. The benefit is that people NOT affected won't have to upload lots of images of th…

Kind of weird that they didn't do things this way as they supposedly already use hashing to flag child porn cf. http://www.wired.co.uk/article/iwf-hash-lists-child-abuse-im...
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