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

xusheng.dev

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

#2

Post by ComputerGuru »

AI-generated text warning (I submitted - but did not author - the piece), but it seems MS Paint and MS Photos add both a visible (can be turned off) and invisible (cannot be disabled and happens silently in the background with no user notice) watermarks to photos that have been AI-manipulated, even when using a local model to perform the action. It's not clear if this applies to even things like using AI-enhanced background delete/remove, but the invisible watermark is embedded in both the image pixels and the image metadata, both containing a GUID that can be linked to the exact prompt that was used and the originating device/user (on Microsoft's end).

Obvious next step is to explore if you can replace watermarker.dll with a (signed) no-op shim or MITM the API call to at least use your own (nil?) GUID that isn't linked to your device/account.

In case it's not obvious, my bigger concern isn't "this image can be identified to have been generated with/by AI" so much as it is "digital yellow printer dots have been forced upon us, except they can identify and retrieve the exact user/device/time/place/document/etc", completely destroying any and all illusions of privacy left.

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

#3

Post by NuclearPM »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #2

AI-generated text warning (I submitted - but did not author - the piece), but it seems MS Paint and MS Photos add both a visible (can be turned off) and invisible (cannot be disabled and happens silently in the background with no user notice) watermarks to photos that have been AI-manipulated, even when using a local model to perform the action. It's not clear if this applies to even things like using AI-enhanced bac…

I don’t understand the warning.

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

#4

Post by like_any_other »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #2

AI-generated text warning (I submitted - but did not author - the piece), but it seems MS Paint and MS Photos add both a visible (can be turned off) and invisible (cannot be disabled and happens silently in the background with no user notice) watermarks to photos that have been AI-manipulated, even when using a local model to perform the action. It's not clear if this applies to even things like using AI-enhanced bac…

[dead]

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

#8

Post by nemomarx »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #2

AI-generated text warning (I submitted - but did not author - the piece), but it seems MS Paint and MS Photos add both a visible (can be turned off) and invisible (cannot be disabled and happens silently in the background with no user notice) watermarks to photos that have been AI-manipulated, even when using a local model to perform the action. It's not clear if this applies to even things like using AI-enhanced bac…

I'd like to know more about the GUID part and how easy is it so deanonymize yeah.

But if it's only on ai generation and not on all images it seems easy enough to work around that part? Still better than printers doing it no matter what you're printing.

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

#10

Post by 615341652341 »

sixothree wrote: post #6

I think it would be nice if all cameras digitally signed pictures. You could prove the photo was real.

The hard part is deciding how much post processing is acceptable with these images. Feels like a lot of phone cameras optimize images and curious how much of it is considered “AI”
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