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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

#231

Post by pxoe »

cj wrote: post #226
pxoe wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been a "bug" for several decades now. Not everything was of shitty jagged quality in either 90s or 00s. Particularly when using some more capable image editors.

If you’re actually intended to Paint in MS Paint, as in create things from scratch, you need to limit the upper end of quality for it to be usable. Otherwise you might as well use photoshop. (But no I’m not kidding myself, I realize the days of using Paint to actually Paint are over)

There's a bunch of smaller editors that don't have such problems, like paint.net for example. It's an arbitrary "limit" (accidental even) stemming purely from bad quality implementation of basic features, not from how basic that feature set is.

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

#233

Post by pbhjpbhj »

varispeed wrote: post #161
Terr_ wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a unique identifier into every image you create Printing (even text) is also a risk: It's very likely your printer is secretly adding marks to the page that contain its serial number and the current timestamp. [0] Meanwhile Microsoft (and Apple) have "telemetry" harvesting those serial numbers of all internal and external devices you've ever had connected or reachable. Then they link them to your MS/Apple account,…

and then in few years a new mono-mustachioed or mono-browed leader will emerge who declares memes a blasphemy punishable by death and will call up all the telemetry gathered to punish all involved.

You know a certain dictator denies access to the country they control based on whether visitors "like" them? They use a private militia, funded by stealing from taxpayers, in contravention to that country's laws, to target citizens who are not supporters of them. Some of those citizens get shipped abroad to foreign prisons by these militia. Others get shot in summary executions in the streets - the controlling regime covers it up with false media reports, and uses corrupt judges to evade scrutiny ... a certain software company support that regime, even acting against foreign scrutiny on their behalf.

Essentially all of that country's businesses that are close to the regime need to be considered hostile.

We don't need to wait a few years, the revolution already happened; the insurrectionists were freed. These companies paid their tributes, in dollars, to the regime.

Maybe next ML will be integrated into software suites to enforce that regime's lies? Most Western governments use such software, the distributers of which have already shown they'll act in the regimes interests against supposed allies...

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

#234

Post by cj »

pxoe wrote: post #231
cj wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re actually intended to Paint in MS Paint, as in create things from scratch, you need to limit the upper end of quality for it to be usable. Otherwise you might as well use photoshop. (But no I’m not kidding myself, I realize the days of using Paint to actually Paint are over)

There's a bunch of smaller editors that don't have such problems, like paint.net for example. It's an arbitrary "limit" (accidental even) stemming purely from bad quality implementation of basic features, not from how basic that feature set is.

I like the original commenter’s compromise.

> 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.

Apple Text Edit vs Pages.

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

#235

Post by alterom »

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.

JSPaint to the rescue:

https://jspaint.app/

It's a pixel-perfect modern clone (with some actually useful extras that won't get in the way unless you look for them), and yes, you can clone the repo and run it locally.

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

#236

Post by [deleted] »

Terr_ wrote: post #129
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…

> a unique identifier into every image you create Printing (even text) is also a risk: It's very likely your printer is secretly adding marks to the page that contain its serial number and the current timestamp. [0] Meanwhile Microsoft (and Apple) have "telemetry" harvesting those serial numbers of all internal and external devices you've ever had connected or reachable. Then they link them to your MS/Apple account,…

[deleted]

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

#237

Post by phendrenad2 »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #114
red_admiral wrote: post #98

Misleading title: the watermark applies to AI generated/edited images. That includes local models. Whether it applies to non-AI generated images is a question for the reverse engineers (or ironically, a suitable AI). My bet is on "no". Of course, the pre-AI versions of paint and notepad can still be installed with a bit of trickery, and it's worth it just for the UX.

Don’t care. There is no reason to assign a GGUID except to identify the person, not that the photo is generated. This is nothing more than surveillance.

Don't care that you don't care. This distinction does matter to a lot of people, because to many people there's a huge difference.

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

#238

Post by phendrenad2 »

red_admiral wrote: post #119
phendrenad2 wrote: post #71

This muddle of an article makes it totally unclear to me if this GUID is attached by the AI generation call or every image I edit in MS Paint. I'm going to assume the former unless they release a clarification. Edit: Actually trivial to test, just save an image of all black and see if it suddenly has other values on save.

Assuming the watermark works like the upcoming AI watermark for text, then it uses the content's entropy to embed the information. An all-black image doesn't have much entropy, so it's unlikely you'd find anything.

I guess that makes sense. So import an image of the mandelbrot set you generated and save it, and see if any pixels change.

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

#239

Post by travoc »

SilasX wrote: post #189
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!

It automatically saves and reopens whatever you previously pasted in there. Quite a shock the first few times it happens. It's not a safe temporary holding area anymore.

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

#240

Post by userbinator »

after a local Stable Diffusion image generation

The request is JSON and contains at least these fields:..."prompt": "..."

Local SD (especially the earlier versions) is already uncensored, so they're effectively crippling it with additional spyware that phones home to tell Microsoft what you're doing and asking whether they approve of it. IMHO the invisible watermark isn't the worst part, but rather the fact that MS is logging every interaction you have with the model, which doesn't ever need to leave your machine.

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