Xiaomi Camera censoring German postal voting documents • Hacker News Board

Re: Xiaomi Camera censoring German postal voting documents

#11

Post by soco » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

captainmuon wrote: post #8

perihelions wrote: post #3

Is there perhaps an invisible anti-counterfeiting constellation [0] on the ballot? Have digital cameras started enforcing that type of optical DRM? It's true the envelope's closed, but part of the ballot paper is visible through the transparent window. Should the poster be worried about their smartphone reporting them to law enforcement? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation

Oh god, I am waiting for law enforcement to print this on their uniforms so they can't be photographed.

If it was so efficient people marching at rallies would have used it already (on themselves I mean).

Re: Xiaomi Camera censoring German postal voting documents

#12

Post by jodrellblank » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 4:57 PM UTC

randomhodler84 wrote: post #5

perihelions wrote: post #3

Is there perhaps an invisible anti-counterfeiting constellation [0] on the ballot? Have digital cameras started enforcing that type of optical DRM? It's true the envelope's closed, but part of the ballot paper is visible through the transparent window. Should the poster be worried about their smartphone reporting them to law enforcement? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation

Now that Apple has changed the rules, everyone should be under their impression that their phone is a cop and will snitch them out to the re-education board for punishment. This is reality.

> "This is reality."

No, it isn't. Go learn about the system they built instead of posting fearmongering lies about it.

Re: Xiaomi Camera censoring German postal voting documents

#13

Post by input_sh » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 4:58 PM UTC

aysfrm11 wrote: post #2

Does anyone know what is going on here? Is Xiaomi stock camera known for censoring certain documents?

I'd say something like this is more likely: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation

Re: Xiaomi Camera censoring German postal voting documents

#14

Post by marcinzm » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

jodrellblank wrote: post #12

randomhodler84 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that Apple has changed the rules, everyone should be under their impression that their phone is a cop and will snitch them out to the re-education board for punishment. This is reality.

> " This is reality. " No, it isn't. Go learn about the system they built instead of posting fearmongering lies about it.

What they built is a way of scanning things on your phone and reporting that to Apple. The chance of multiple governments not passing laws eventually to force this into scanning for whatever they wish is low. Previously to this Apple could have fought back on privacy terms but now its argument will be much weaker.

edit: It's also a model based scanner so they scan for types of things and similar things instead of explicit copies of things. Which makes it an even more powerful tool for governments than a simple direct scanner.

Re: Xiaomi Camera censoring German postal voting documents

#15

Post by bellyfullofbac » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

q-rews wrote: post #9

bellyfullofbac wrote: post #4

The title assumes, with "censoring". A more appropriate title would be "Strange quirk when photographing German postal voting documents with the Xiaomi Camera". But what a quirk, a real life object causing issues in software.

This is not a quirk. It may be targeting the wrong document, but it’s a feature. Somebody spent time on making this behavior happen.

People and their conspiracy theories... Cell phone cameras do a lot of post-processing, like skin smoothing, color enhancing and edge sharpening. Before jumping to this censorship conspiracy without evidence, I would investigate if one of those algorithms are buggy, and somewhere on the photo there is a combination of pixels that trigger the bug. Or sure, I'd investigate if there's censorship code, but I'm not going to assume there's some evil stuff going on before I see the code.

Maybe it's as simple as flash memory corruption on the guy's phone, the photo of mostly table and just the edge of the envelope is "simpler" (lots of the table which is just white), so maybe it takes less space. The more complicated photo would take more storage space, what if it's hitting a bad block or a period of bad blocks because of the physical memory layout (e.g. a sequence of bytes every 4MB is bad).

Re: Xiaomi Camera censoring German postal voting documents

#16

Post by detritus » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

myself248 wrote: post #7

perihelions wrote: post #3

Is there perhaps an invisible anti-counterfeiting constellation [0] on the ballot? Have digital cameras started enforcing that type of optical DRM? It's true the envelope's closed, but part of the ballot paper is visible through the transparent window. Should the poster be worried about their smartphone reporting them to law enforcement? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation

Looking at OP's photos, I can't discern any such markings.

I think you'd be surprised at how light and subtle these things can be. I remember seeing some on something printed back in early 2000s and they were yellow dots barely registerable under a magnifying loupe, never mind by eye up close.

Which, if the same sort of case here, makes the CCD(s) on the phone here particularly impressive.

Re: Xiaomi Camera censoring German postal voting documents

#17

Post by solarkraft » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

bellyfullofbac wrote: post #15

q-rews wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a quirk. It may be targeting the wrong document, but it’s a feature. Somebody spent time on making this behavior happen.

People and their conspiracy theories... Cell phone cameras do a lot of post-processing, like skin smoothing, color enhancing and edge sharpening. Before jumping to this censorship conspiracy without evidence, I would investigate if one of those algorithms are buggy, and somewhere on the photo there is a combination of pixels that trigger the bug. Or sure, I'd investigate if there's censorship code, but I'm not going…

It’s probably unintended, but intentional censoring methods exist, as documented elsewhere in this thread. The most likely explanation seems to be this being a side-effect of those.

Your explanations appear less likely, as I’d expect those types of bugs to show differently.

Re: Xiaomi Camera censoring German postal voting documents

#18

Post by bellyfullofbac » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

solarkraft wrote: post #17

bellyfullofbac wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People and their conspiracy theories... Cell phone cameras do a lot of post-processing, like skin smoothing, color enhancing and edge sharpening. Before jumping to this censorship conspiracy without evidence, I would investigate if one of those algorithms are buggy, and somewhere on the photo there is a combination of pixels that trigger the bug. Or sure, I'd investigate if there's censorship code, but I'm not going…

It’s probably unintended, but intentional censoring methods exist, as documented elsewhere in this thread. The most likely explanation seems to be this being a side-effect of those. Your explanations appear less likely, as I’d expect those types of bugs to show differently.

You believe what you want man, I personally don't buy it yet, and I'm not going to waste my brain power trying to convince people who are already convinced "It's the man! It must be the evil man!" and see any thing as proof of their evilness.

"Most likely".. we live in different realities.

Re: Xiaomi Camera censoring German postal voting documents

#19

Post by petepete » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

perihelions wrote: post #10

captainmuon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh god, I am waiting for law enforcement to print this on their uniforms so they can't be photographed.

Richard Stallman coined the term "treacherous computing" to describe things like this. Pity it hasn't caught on -- I think it should! https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.en.html [2002]

He's always right in the long run.

Re: Xiaomi Camera censoring German postal voting documents

#20

Post by monkeybutton » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

captainmuon wrote: post #8

perihelions wrote: post #3

Is there perhaps an invisible anti-counterfeiting constellation [0] on the ballot? Have digital cameras started enforcing that type of optical DRM? It's true the envelope's closed, but part of the ballot paper is visible through the transparent window. Should the poster be worried about their smartphone reporting them to law enforcement? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation

Oh god, I am waiting for law enforcement to print this on their uniforms so they can't be photographed.

Should pair well with playing copyrighted audio.