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MS Paint and Photos inivisibly watermark even locally generated output with GUID

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Re: MS Paint and Photos inivisibly watermark even locally generated output with GUID

#181

Post by autoexec »

londons_explore wrote: post #88
Someone1234 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does kind of say: The GUID is coming from the moderation endpoint, which is hit when you generate a local or cloud AI image based on your prompt. If there is no prompt, there is no endpoint, and likely no GUID. Obviously Paint could have been watermarking prior to AI though, but this specific AI watermarking appears to be only that.

The fact that local ai image generation uses an online moderation API is a bit worrying too.... Why not just mod the app to not call this API?

Probably both so they can change what they censor without waiting for you to run windows update and also so they can collect your information (IP, timestamp, etc) to associate with whatever you did

Re: MS Paint and Photos inivisibly watermark even locally generated output with GUID

#182

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

nekusar wrote: post #103
qurren wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any of a number of virtual mailbox services which can receive mail for you, e.g. anytimemailbox.com but there are several. You can either pick up in person, or they offer services like mail forwarding, opening and scanning, etc. Besides privacy against leaking your sleeping-address to businesses, they're also convenient for avoiding package theft if that's a problem in your area, and receiving/forwarding mail if you…

Or.....Install Linux and bypass all this stupidity. They will move faster to track each and every one of you, all the while shoving ads and garbage down each of your respective machines... and you all pay for it?!

Surely I am safe running VSCode on my Linux machine. No chance it would upload a bunch of personal telemetry without my say so.

Re: MS Paint and Photos inivisibly watermark even locally generated output with GUID

#183

Post by tavavex »

red_admiral wrote: post #100
weberer wrote: post #24

The AI aspect of this is a red herring. The real problem is that they're secretly adding in a unique identifier into every image you create. If somebody does not like your meme, they can just send a copyright subpoena to Microsoft to instantly get your full name, address, email, phone number, and any other data associated with your Microsoft account. Just like age verification, this is another weapon in the war again…

> every image you create *with the help of AI*. Does in fact make a difference.

While it does make a difference, their willingness to quietly integrate watermarking features into what people saw as simple apps for doing simple tasks is unnerving. It only takes a small change for them to start baking your identifiable information into all images they edit, or some government politely asking them to do that.

I wonder if in ten years we'll have a horrifying world where everything that leaves a machine is imprinted with its permanent identifier. Every file comes with a verifiable history of who created it, what computers it passed through, who made edits. We're closer to that world than we think.

Re: MS Paint and Photos inivisibly watermark even locally generated output with GUID

#184

Post by rnd0 »

Ya know, this would probably be pointless but if I were a programmer (I'm not -and refuse to be a vibe coder) I'd probably just grab appropriate libraries and make my own replacements for this shit. GLTK+ (?) is an obvious choice to use for recreating mspaint, and to replace notepad -I was told making a simple editor was an excercise they have you do when you learn programming to begin with?

I already replaced the 'solitaire' games suite with pysol running on WSL2 and it's a vast improvement!

tldr -if MS is going to screw us, why don't we mitigate it by using replacements?

Re: MS Paint and Photos inivisibly watermark even locally generated output with GUID

#185

Post by SideQuark »

clickety_clack wrote: post #179

I admit it’s a while since I’ve used windows, but it’s such a shock to hear that MS Paint isn’t just a point and click pixel coloring app anymore. It seems like they could have left it as a pure “paint” app and added the fancy stuff to some new image editor or something. I guess they’ve optimized their workforce to just keep making changes so they get promoted rather than just creating really good software.

If you read the article instead of the headline…….. it’s adding a fairly standard mark to AI generated images to let’s others know, in the same manner a giant swath of the GebAI industry has agreed to.

Re: MS Paint and Photos inivisibly watermark even locally generated output with GUID

#186

Post by autoexec »

qurren wrote: post #59
rexpop wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is broadly impractical for the average citizen. A scalable solution would be to make this sort of thing illegal.

> This is broadly impractical for the average citizen. No it's not. Sign up for a virtual mailbox for $15-$25/month. > A scalable solution would be to make this sort of thing illegal. I'm posting this in the genuine interest of people being able to maintain anonymity from data leaks, privacy leaks, and in general not needing to tell businesses more personal information than is necessary to render services. This is in…

> Sign up for a virtual mailbox for $15-$25/month.

That isn't going to stop Microsoft from collecting your address by collecting your wifi info, or from the data you enter into websites or documents. When the maker of your OS is the enemy you will always lose.

Re: MS Paint and Photos inivisibly watermark even locally generated output with GUID

#187

Post by trickypr »

SideQuark wrote: post #185
clickety_clack wrote: post #179

I admit it’s a while since I’ve used windows, but it’s such a shock to hear that MS Paint isn’t just a point and click pixel coloring app anymore. It seems like they could have left it as a pure “paint” app and added the fancy stuff to some new image editor or something. I guess they’ve optimized their workforce to just keep making changes so they get promoted rather than just creating really good software.

If you read the article instead of the headline…….. it’s adding a fairly standard mark to AI generated images to let’s others know, in the same manner a giant swath of the GebAI industry has agreed to.

I think their point is that paint shouldn’t have any GenAI features (or any new features other than compatibility)

Re: MS Paint and Photos inivisibly watermark even locally generated output with GUID

#189

Post by SilasX »

clickety_clack wrote: post #179

I admit it’s a while since I’ve used windows, but it’s such a shock to hear that MS Paint isn’t just a point and click pixel coloring app anymore. It seems like they could have left it as a pure “paint” app and added the fancy stuff to some new image editor or something. I guess they’ve optimized their workforce to just keep making changes so they get promoted rather than just creating really good software.

Even Notepad isn’t a dumb app anymore! They made breaking changes after 40 years so it has autocorrect, rich text, and Copilot.

If I wanted all of that, I would have used a different app!

Re: MS Paint and Photos inivisibly watermark even locally generated output with GUID

#190

Post by nekusar »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #182
nekusar wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or.....Install Linux and bypass all this stupidity. They will move faster to track each and every one of you, all the while shoving ads and garbage down each of your respective machines... and you all pay for it?!

Surely I am safe running VSCode on my Linux machine. No chance it would upload a bunch of personal telemetry without my say so.

Use VSCodium. It's the FLOSS branch with Microsoft tracking shit removed.

https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium

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