Re:ImageNet contains naturally occurring Apple NeuralHash co...
by saithound on Friday August 20, 2021 @03:12AM
(#28243483)
Sure, your proposed attack, that requires the victim to have a 15 year old girlfriend, to break an (admittedly silly) law by having nude photos on their phone, for you to call the cops, and for them to take such a call seriously is clearly comparable to a vector that can be used to target innocents, groups of individuals, etc. who did not break the law in any way, and that do not require the attacker to handle prohibitex material at all, and requires Apple to keep a ton of information completely obscure to even provide a weak semblance of security (it was shown to be completely broken except possibly for one unknown hash, in two weeks). Clearly comparable. Sure. Clearly.
For one last time, the NeuralHash collisions make this tool perfectly unusable for catching pedos: all of the next generation of CSAM content will collide with hashes of popular, innocent images. Two weeks after it was deployed, Apple's CSAM scanning is now _only_ an attack vector and a privacy risk. It's completely useless for its nominal function. This would be a massive, hilarious own goal from Apple even if the public reaction was over the top (although it isn't). They just reduced the privacy and security of nearly all their customers, further exposed themselves to the whims of governments, and for no gain whatsoever.
An attacker can embed a matching image inside of a PowerPoint zip file, and email it to any corporate employee using O365.
Or, an angry parent can call the police and let them know that a 16 year old possesses nose pictures of their 15 year old girlfriend.
The over top response to this controversy is really disappointing.