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A catalog of naturally occurring images whose Apple NeuralHash is identical

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Re: A catalog of naturally occurring images whose Apple NeuralHash is identical

#211

Post by rowanG077 »

user-the-name wrote: post #179
foxfluff wrote: post #123

My take on this is that the system is by and large useless. It won't catch anything but the dumbest of dumb criminals, because those who care about CSAM can surely figure out a better way to share images, or find a way to obfuscate their images enough to bypass the system (the lower the false positive rate, the easier it must be to trick the system). So what's left when all the criminals this is supposed to catch hav…

> It won't catch anything but the dumbest of dumb criminals This includes the vast majority of pedophiles.

Do you have any source that pedophilia correlates very strongly with low intelligence?

Re: A catalog of naturally occurring images whose Apple NeuralHash is identical

#212

Post by wpietri »

foxfluff wrote: post #123

My take on this is that the system is by and large useless. It won't catch anything but the dumbest of dumb criminals, because those who care about CSAM can surely figure out a better way to share images, or find a way to obfuscate their images enough to bypass the system (the lower the false positive rate, the easier it must be to trick the system). So what's left when all the criminals this is supposed to catch hav…

I knew a probation officer for sex offenders. They told me that most of them were quite dumb. What the repeat offenders were, though, is dedicated. They had all day to try to avoid getting caught, and the PO had a few minutes per week per offender.

It's true that in any arms race, a given advance gets adapted to. This will surely catch a bunch of people up front and then a pretty small number thereafter as the remainder learn to avoid iPhones. But that's how arms races work. You could say that about almost any advance in fighting CSAM.

Re: A catalog of naturally occurring images whose Apple NeuralHash is identical

#213

Post by wyager »

zepto wrote: post #169
wyager wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is already a warrantless search that’s effectively controlled by the government. Obviously there’s enough chaff in the air to prevent that from being legally useful in any way.

Nope. It’s not controlled by the government, and it’s not warrantless, since it is opt-in.

The database of hashes is controlled by the government. They can put whatever they want in there.

Re: A catalog of naturally occurring images whose Apple NeuralHash is identical

#214

Post by KingOfCoders »

monkeynotes wrote: post #109
ajb wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can get exact collisions, this can be gamed. For example, suppose there are two rival gangsters. One wants to set the police on his rival. He knows that a certain (innocuous) image is on his rival's phone. So he pays someone to generate a fake child-porn image with the same neuralhash, and ensure that it gets into the child porn DB. Then, apple reports the rival to the police, and they come and investigate him…

I think before a criminal investigation, or any investigation at all is pursued, a human verifying the images would dismiss the false positive. I would think surreptitiously placing actual child porn on a rival's phone/computer would be much, much more effective. Cybercriminals could likely do all this remotely. Phish for apple account login, upload images. Done.

So you think an underpaid worker in India is interested in the upkeeping of innocence of a person they don't know in the US? They'll just flag the images as fast as possible, they are probably paid by pictures-reviewed.

"Amazon has people transcribing audio in Costa Rica, India and Romania." according to Engadget. So it would be safe to assume Apple does something along those lines, I can't remember where Siri transcripts have been sent when there was the Alexa controversy.

From there it's an entry with law enforcement and you need to find a way to convince them that the images are your children.

And if data isn't cleared correctly and you have another run in with law enforcement, there will always be this picture-stuff.

Re: A catalog of naturally occurring images whose Apple NeuralHash is identical

#215

Post by woofie11 »

wpietri wrote: post #212
foxfluff wrote: post #123

My take on this is that the system is by and large useless. It won't catch anything but the dumbest of dumb criminals, because those who care about CSAM can surely figure out a better way to share images, or find a way to obfuscate their images enough to bypass the system (the lower the false positive rate, the easier it must be to trick the system). So what's left when all the criminals this is supposed to catch hav…

I knew a probation officer for sex offenders. They told me that most of them were quite dumb. What the repeat offenders were, though, is dedicated. They had all day to try to avoid getting caught, and the PO had a few minutes per week per offender. It's true that in any arms race, a given advance gets adapted to. This will surely catch a bunch of people up front and then a pretty small number thereafter as the remain…

I think it's only the dumb ones who get caught.

Source: I've met a few white collar criminals.

Re: A catalog of naturally occurring images whose Apple NeuralHash is identical

#216

Post by woofie11 »

Retric wrote: post #124
foxfluff wrote: post #123

My take on this is that the system is by and large useless. It won't catch anything but the dumbest of dumb criminals, because those who care about CSAM can surely figure out a better way to share images, or find a way to obfuscate their images enough to bypass the system (the lower the false positive rate, the easier it must be to trick the system). So what's left when all the criminals this is supposed to catch hav…

Perceptual hashes are only used to reduce the search space for human review. Apple doesn’t have images in the CSAM database to do a comparison, but if it’s just a picture of a door their going to reject it. Also, because human review is an expense Apple’s incentives are to minimize the number of times it happens, thus the requirement for multiple collisions.

I don't really want my family photos reviewed by strangers. "Reducing the search space" of photos on my phone isn't an outcome I want to live with. At the time someone is looking at photos of my, my wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend, and my kids, they'd better have a darned good reason (e.g. a search warrant).

I'd also appreciate if Apple let me know if my false positives were reviewed and found to not be CASM.

Re: A catalog of naturally occurring images whose Apple NeuralHash is identical

#217

Post by woofie11 »

foxfluff wrote: post #123

My take on this is that the system is by and large useless. It won't catch anything but the dumbest of dumb criminals, because those who care about CSAM can surely figure out a better way to share images, or find a way to obfuscate their images enough to bypass the system (the lower the false positive rate, the easier it must be to trick the system). So what's left when all the criminals this is supposed to catch hav…

> False positives. Only false positives.

I really doubt this. In the long term, a few people Apple wants to frame will surely slip into the mix. If Apple didn't want Trump to win, a CASM flag a week before the election might do it.

Re: A catalog of naturally occurring images whose Apple NeuralHash is identical

#218

Post by [deleted] »

Tagbert wrote: post #198
jdavis703 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple’s incentives are to minimize the number of times it happens, thus the requirement for multiple collisions. How can we be sure they won’t cut costs by increasing worker load? I could see them giving each reviewer less time to review individual pictures before passing it on to law enforcement.

If they pass false positives to authorities that will open them up to legal action.

[deleted]

Re: A catalog of naturally occurring images whose Apple NeuralHash is identical

#219

Post by sroussey »

woofie11 wrote: post #216
Retric wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perceptual hashes are only used to reduce the search space for human review. Apple doesn’t have images in the CSAM database to do a comparison, but if it’s just a picture of a door their going to reject it. Also, because human review is an expense Apple’s incentives are to minimize the number of times it happens, thus the requirement for multiple collisions.

I don't really want my family photos reviewed by strangers. "Reducing the search space" of photos on my phone isn't an outcome I want to live with. At the time someone is looking at photos of my, my wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend, and my kids, they'd better have a darned good reason (e.g. a search warrant). I'd also appreciate if Apple let me know if my false positives were reviewed and found to not be CASM.

Don’t upload an image anywhere, else it can be reviewed.

Re: A catalog of naturally occurring images whose Apple NeuralHash is identical

#220

Post by foxfluff »

mayoff wrote: post #200
foxfluff wrote: post #123

My take on this is that the system is by and large useless. It won't catch anything but the dumbest of dumb criminals, because those who care about CSAM can surely figure out a better way to share images, or find a way to obfuscate their images enough to bypass the system (the lower the false positive rate, the easier it must be to trick the system). So what's left when all the criminals this is supposed to catch hav…

> It won't catch anything but the dumbest of dumb criminals, because those who care about CSAM can surely figure out a better way to share images Apparently that better way is by using Facebook. Facebook made 20.3 million reports to NCMEC in 2020. https://www.missingkids.org/content/dam/missingkids/gethelp/...

Yeah, Facebook's blog post makes me wonder what all the stuff they report actually is. When people say CSAM, I think "kids getting raped" but apparently there's stuff that people find humorous or outrageous and spread it like a meme (and not like pornography).

"We found that more than 90% of this content was the same as or visually similar to previously reported content. And copies of just six videos were responsible for more than half of the child exploitative content we reported in that time period."

"we evaluated 150 accounts that we reported to NCMEC for uploading child exploitative content in July and August of 2020 and January 2021, and we estimate that more than 75% of these people did not exhibit malicious intent (i.e. did not intend to harm a child). Instead, they appeared to share for other reasons, such as outrage or in poor humor (i.e. a child’s genitals being bitten by an animal)."

Based on this, I wouldn't conclude that FB is the platform where people pedos go share their stash of child porn.

Their numbers also include Instagram, which I believe is quite popular among teenagers? I wonder how likely it is for teens' own selfies and group pics get flagged and reported to NCMEC.

(https://about.fb.com/news/2021/02/preventing-child-exploitat...)

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