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Hash collision in Apple NeuralHash model

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Re: Hash collision in Apple NeuralHash model

#471

Post by fsflover »

Grustaf wrote: post #233
sandworm101 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an Apple current policy, not any sort of law. If the FBI wants to know if there are any collisions on a particular phone, that will be shared. If the FBI wants to know of all single collisions, that too must be shared. A corporation's internal policy decisions are nothing when faced with a government official carrying a warrant. If they have data indicating possible crimes, no matter how small, they can be fo…

Well of course if you believe that FBI can ask Apple to share anything and they will agree, and not tell us, then what is even the point of this discussion? Then they already have access to every photo, every email, every text. Because Apple controls those apps on your phone.

The difference is that now they confirmed that they do search your private images.

Re: Hash collision in Apple NeuralHash model

#472

Post by dannyw »

robertoandred wrote: post #461
jug wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, that’s the scary abuse scenario where people could send a whole load of this stuff to e.g a political enemy.

What? Why do you think gray blobs would hurt anyone?

No one is going to send gray blobs, they will be finding legal porn (like pussy close ups, tongue pics, whatever) and then disturbing it to trigger a CSAM hit.

The low res derivative will match, perhaps even closely, because pussy closeups look similar to an apple employee when its grayscale 64 by 64 pixels (remember: it's illegal for Apple to transmit CSAM, so it must be so visually degraded to the point where it's arguably not visual).

The victim will get raided, be considered a paedophile by their workplace, media, and family, and perhaps even go into jail.

The attacker in this case can be users of Pegasus unhappy with a journalist.

Re: Hash collision in Apple NeuralHash model

#473

Post by dmix »

floatingatoll wrote: post #405
ksec wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually want Apple to stand ground and implement this feature. Like you said the double down on PR and marketing was enough for me. I may not be dumping all iOS and Mac for now. But it was " the " definite signal and evidence this is no longer the old Steve Jobs's Apple. It is like watching Mark Zuckerberg talking about privacy when he doesn't understand anything about it. ( Or more like he has a different underst…

Steve Jobs would have implemented this in secret and never told us at all, same as they already did for iCloud photos so many years ago. That would have been a far better approach than today’s Apple is taking. Oh well.

There’s a significant leap from implementing something server side to on the consumer handheld devices themselves. Even if it’s just similar software it is regardless much more serious.

I personally thought the unencrypted backups was enough of a death-knell as it provides everything on your phone but anything with real-time on device access is always a gold mine for surveillance hawks.

Re: Hash collision in Apple NeuralHash model

#475

Post by jasamer »

sandworm101 wrote: post #363
JKCalhoun wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since, as I have read, Microsoft and Google already do this, where are all the illicit cop take-downs? I have not heard of any.

They are scanning images on online accounts, stuff that is stored on their systems and system files on machines (files they own). They are not, from what I have read, scanning customer-owned images stored on customer-owned devices.

Apples solution only scans photos that will be uploaded, and the results of the scan require a server side to be evaluated. The client does not know whether a match occurred.

Re: Hash collision in Apple NeuralHash model

#476

Post by dannyw »

bitneuker wrote: post #190
magpi3 wrote: post #159

Can someone ELI5? I understand that a person can now generate an image with the same hash as an illegal image (such as child porn), but I don't understand how they can get it on someone's phone and I don't understand why someone would get in trouble for an image, when finally examined, that is clearly not child pornography.

A vulnerability by itself is not that dangerous, but in combination with a sophisticated attack, or another vulnerability can be disastrous. State actors have the resources to exploit a number of unknown bugs in combination with this collision to have Apple's systems flag persons of interest. This, combined with human error during the manual review process might result in someone getting reported. Seeing as twitter (…

No one is going to send gray blobs, they will be finding legal porn (like pussy close ups, tongue pics, whatever) and then disturbing it to trigger a CSAM hit.

The low res derivative will match, perhaps even closely, because pussy closeups look similar to an apple employee when its grayscale 64 by 64 pixels (remember: it's illegal for Apple to transmit CSAM, so it must be so visually degraded to the point where it's arguably not visual).

The victim will get raided, be considered a paedophile by their workplace, media, and family, and perhaps even go into jail.

The attacker in this case can be users of Pegasus unhappy with a journalist.

Re: Hash collision in Apple NeuralHash model

#477

Post by treis »

brandon272 wrote: post #417
treis wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Warrants are only part of the issue. The bigger issue is civil and criminal liability. If someone uploads child porn to iCloud and then shares it with someone else Apple is possessing and distributing child porn. Today they aren't liable because there is a law that shields them. But that law comes with strings attached around assisting law enforcement. By doing an end run around those strings Apple is not holding up…

> If someone uploads child porn to iCloud and then shares it with someone else Apple is possessing and distributing child porn. If someone sends CSAM using Federal Express, is FedEx legally liable for "possessing and distributing" that material? Does FedEx need to start opening up packages and scanning hard drives, DVDs, USB sticks, etc. to ensure that they don't contain any CSAM or other illegal data? I really strug…

>If someone sends CSAM using Federal Express, is FedEx legally liable for "possessing and distributing" that material?

Yes:

https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2014/07/18/fedex-indicted...

That was for drugs but conceptually the same for CSAM.

Re: Hash collision in Apple NeuralHash model

#478

Post by dannyw »

floatingatoll wrote: post #336
bitneuker wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A vulnerability by itself is not that dangerous, but in combination with a sophisticated attack, or another vulnerability can be disastrous. State actors have the resources to exploit a number of unknown bugs in combination with this collision to have Apple's systems flag persons of interest. This, combined with human error during the manual review process might result in someone getting reported. Seeing as twitter (…

State actors will just Gitmo you, without all this wasteful effort on hashes. This system offers no benefit sufficient to make it worth their time if they want to cull you from the population somehow.

No, China can't just Gitmo an American journalist on American soil.

But now China can send some legal pornography (eg closeup pussy pictures), disturbed to match a CSAM hit, to a journalist they don't like and get them in jail.

Why can't China do this before? Because previously, they'd still need to tip off authorities, which has an attribution trail and credibility barrier. Now, they can just use Pegasus to plant these images and then watch as Apple turns them into the Feds. Zero links to the attacker.

Re: Hash collision in Apple NeuralHash model

#479

Post by bengale »

teitoklien wrote: post #470
bengale wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So someone might forward you your personal pics from your meeting with them and its pixels might get edited by the messenger app you use to save the picture into your photos to specifically collide its hash with a csam image, while to you the image will look perfectly normal Ok, but then that image is already not private, if I've been sending it to someone that could do that. > This is one example , lets say you 10…

Great on you , But i dont see my parents disabling the auto feature , nor do my friends. Youre right indeed , you can protect yourself from this , but all the measures you mentioned are settings which are non-default, A lot of apps annoyingly turn it on by default , while HN users can turn it off , I doubt my grandparents will go through the same effort or understand it. Question is , why should they ? Their phone wa…

Ok so your fear is someone will target your grandparents with child porn?

If this was such a major problem why has no-one been targeted like this in the last decade when everyone else was scanning for it?

Re: Hash collision in Apple NeuralHash model

#480

Post by dannyw »

rootusrootus wrote: post #333
bitneuker wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A vulnerability by itself is not that dangerous, but in combination with a sophisticated attack, or another vulnerability can be disastrous. State actors have the resources to exploit a number of unknown bugs in combination with this collision to have Apple's systems flag persons of interest. This, combined with human error during the manual review process might result in someone getting reported. Seeing as twitter (…

> State actors have the resources You can end the conversation right there. If you are up against a state actor, you have already lost.

Incorrect. A Chinese state actor can't just go around imprisoning journalists they don't like in America, but they can now do this through planting child porngoraphy via remote malware (Pegasus) and watch their enemies get arrested by the US Feds.
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