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Email immutability matters more in a world with AI

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Re: Email immutability matters more in a world with AI

#61

Post by skybrian »

vlovich123 wrote: post #44
gmueckl wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, this requires locked down devices running trusted apps. Otherwise, such a badge won't have any meaning.

I think it’s already irrelevant: cryptographic proofs of video evidence is difficult to communicate to audiences while watermarks will be learned by AI as trusted and injected into AI videos anyway. Also, in between the lens and your eyeball is usually a pipeline of editing applied anyway so either the cryptographic signature ends up with every layer signing the modifications applied + the previous layer or you stack…

Most users don't care, but in theory a newspaper could use this tech to verify certain camera images and their readers could just trust that they've vetted things.

In practice, ordinary users don't care much about mainstream media anymore.

Re: Email immutability matters more in a world with AI

#62

Post by instagraham »

toasterlovin wrote: post #48
instagraham wrote: post #37

The immutability of documentation tech matters more in a world with AI. The cameras used to document "news" will need to be watermarked, fingerprinted and authenticated, like what Canon and Nikon are already doing (and which AFP has already adopted). It may have seemed gimmicky at first, but in a year or two, you'll probably only be able to trust visuals from companies that do this (wire agencies like AFP, AP and Reu…

Interestingly, I think Apple has inadvertently positioned themselves very well to be able to authenticate various activity as being done by an actual human. What if anything they decide to do with that capability remains to be seen.

The LIDAR sensor could be quite useful in authentication.

A lot depends on watermarking at source and the social media platform using that to make a clickable/hard watermark

Re: Email immutability matters more in a world with AI

#63

Post by thewebguyd »

matsemann wrote: post #42
Night_Thastus wrote: post #7

"An email is your copy, and the sender can’t revise it later." Sort of. They can't change plain text, but modern emails often include vast swaths of remote content. When you open the message, it retrieves the relevant assets directly from whoever sent the email. That remote content is not permanently stored . It's cached for a bit and will not be re-used if the email is opened months or years later. If those assets d…

Gmail keeps editing mails. They have a concept of "dynamic emails" people can send now. Like if you get a mail notification about something in Docs, they will keep updating the mail in your inbox together with modified / added comments in the document. Absolutely bonkers. "Because of the dynamic nature of AMP messages, the content displayed in Gmail messages can change as time passes." https://support.google.com/a/an…

Microsoft has this now too with Loop components. If you put any text content around it that doesn't change, but the "Loop" component is a live doc and will update on the email client's end of the remote doc changes.

Re: Email immutability matters more in a world with AI

#64

Post by instagraham »

cm2187 wrote: post #57
instagraham wrote: post #37

The immutability of documentation tech matters more in a world with AI. The cameras used to document "news" will need to be watermarked, fingerprinted and authenticated, like what Canon and Nikon are already doing (and which AFP has already adopted). It may have seemed gimmicky at first, but in a year or two, you'll probably only be able to trust visuals from companies that do this (wire agencies like AFP, AP and Reu…

By the time the video reaches the end user (i.e. on tiktok and the likes), it will have been re-compressed, edited, meme-ed, voiced over a dozen time. So not sure how you preserve trust in that chain.

I imagine a new type of bluetick would emerge. There will always be those who can't distinguish between a tick emoji next to a username and the actual thing, but that's a UX problem. Something shot and verified on-app could get a special, clickable tick on it when it's shared.

This removes the possibilities for bad actors to just one - the platform itself.

In any case, the audience will have to learn new ways to "trust" and tech alone won't be the solution. But I've less hope in people and more hope in new social contracts

I think LIDAR sensors would be useful to verify depth information in an image, on a side note.

Re: Email immutability matters more in a world with AI

#65

Post by istrice »

cm2187 wrote: post #57
instagraham wrote: post #37

The immutability of documentation tech matters more in a world with AI. The cameras used to document "news" will need to be watermarked, fingerprinted and authenticated, like what Canon and Nikon are already doing (and which AFP has already adopted). It may have seemed gimmicky at first, but in a year or two, you'll probably only be able to trust visuals from companies that do this (wire agencies like AFP, AP and Reu…

By the time the video reaches the end user (i.e. on tiktok and the likes), it will have been re-compressed, edited, meme-ed, voiced over a dozen time. So not sure how you preserve trust in that chain.

You don't, the only reliable source will be the source that has signed the content. It basically takes us back to the times when the only footage available was curated and broadcast by TV.

Re: Email immutability matters more in a world with AI

#66

Post by hombre_fatal »

cm2187 wrote: post #57
instagraham wrote: post #37

The immutability of documentation tech matters more in a world with AI. The cameras used to document "news" will need to be watermarked, fingerprinted and authenticated, like what Canon and Nikon are already doing (and which AFP has already adopted). It may have seemed gimmicky at first, but in a year or two, you'll probably only be able to trust visuals from companies that do this (wire agencies like AFP, AP and Reu…

By the time the video reaches the end user (i.e. on tiktok and the likes), it will have been re-compressed, edited, meme-ed, voiced over a dozen time. So not sure how you preserve trust in that chain.

Also, one thing HNers get fundamentally wrong is that anybody cares about trust/authenticity. And I don't see what's so special about photo/video.

One of the most common forms of submissions on Reddit/Twitter is an image with text, or a screenshot of a tweet, or a screenshot of a headline that makes a claim, and everyone takes it dead seriously.

Almost nobody is going "hmm let me look this up first to see if it even exists or accurately represents the facts".

So if all you need is an image of text for people to believe it, what does it even matter if you have this sophisticated system where you require photos to be signed by camera hardware or whatever? You aren't even putting a dent in how bullshit spreads.

Re: Email immutability matters more in a world with AI

#67

Post by et1337 »

instagraham wrote: post #37

The immutability of documentation tech matters more in a world with AI. The cameras used to document "news" will need to be watermarked, fingerprinted and authenticated, like what Canon and Nikon are already doing (and which AFP has already adopted). It may have seemed gimmicky at first, but in a year or two, you'll probably only be able to trust visuals from companies that do this (wire agencies like AFP, AP and Reu…

New startup idea: point a C2PA camera at a screen and launder videos through it at $1 per minute.

Re: Email immutability matters more in a world with AI

#68

Post by bippihippi1 »

aerostable_slug wrote: post #58
drnick1 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> locked down devices running trusted apps This is a bigger threat than phony AI videos.

To whom? I can imagine starting wars with fake videos. It's hard to imagine someone kvetching about not being able to sideload apps to their phone reaching that point of significance. I don't mean to completely dismiss very real concerns about what people can and can't do with their purchases, but OTOH war involves actual people actually dying, and manipulating media is a fantastic way to get one.

removing methods to circumvent monitoring and control of information makes it easier for a bad actor to take advantave of these tools. Yes it's nice for the good guys to be able to keep their code secure, but do you want a dictator to be able to do that?

Re: Email immutability matters more in a world with AI

#69

Post by abdullahkhalids »

Cu3PO42 wrote: post #60
drnick1 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a myth. I self-host email and don't have deliverability issues. What matters is domain age, IP, and compliance with DKIM/DMARC.

Is it? Last time I tried to self-host my email I did. I had DKIM, DMARC and SPF set up correctly as verified by multiple sites, but I couldnt't get reliable delivery to any Microsoft-hopsted mailboxes. Every other provider I tested was perfectly happy with my mail, unfortunately MS is too big a provider to ignore them. > What matters is domain age, IP, and compliance with DKIM/DMARC. Maybe it was my IP, but I cycled…

There are tools that can check if your IP is on a blacklist [1].

Also, my experience with self-hosting email is that if you get people to email you first from their domain, and you reply to them, then you are not going to be blocked. Of course, this won't work if you send a lot of cold emails.

[1] https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx

Re: Email immutability matters more in a world with AI

#70

Post by mikepurvis »

IanCal wrote: post #14
mikepurvis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's really the case, is it? At least, not in any formally-specified way. Modern email clients will extract metadata for things like airline reservations, shipping trackers, ICS calendar invites, etc, and give you live tiles specific to that time-sensitive info, but it's very clearly supplementary and at least in GMail none of it is pretending to be part of the message itself.

Images are the clear thing that is typically remote - sometimes to the point of an email that’s entirely just an image, or rather a link to an image.

Doesn't GMail pre-fetch those images and then cache them for the duration of the email being in your inbox, so as to defeat tracker dots, read receipts, etc?
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