4 ms·
>Fourth, this kind of voluntary search by the likes of Google is not unprecedented. Google scans outgoing Gmail messages to see if there are attachments whose h
by Amorymeltzer 11y ago
>Fourth, this kind of voluntary search by the likes of Google is not unprecedented. Google scans outgoing Gmail messages to see if there are attachments whose hashes — that is, digital fingerprints — match those of known images of child pornography. When this first became widely known to the public, the company explained: “Sadly all Internet companies have to deal with child sexual abuse … It’s why Google actively removes illegal imagery from our services—including search and Gmail—and immediately reports abuse … This evidence is regularly used to convict criminals.”
>To be sure, child pornography filtering — and reporting — may be a place to draw a clear line. Not only is child pornography near-universally reviled and banned, but the matching algorithm for previously-identified images boasts no false positives, and, perhaps most important, possession of the file is not only clear evidence of the crime, but quite typically the crime itself.
I had no idea Gmail did this.
- ikeboy 11y ago>matching algorithm for previously-identified images boasts no false positives Hm. Wonder what algorithm they use, and if it's one that has collisions, and if so, can someone distribute images that alert Google's system but have no illegal content.
- duskwuff 11y agoIt's called PhotoDNA, and is proprietary to Microsoft. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/photodna https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/photodna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhotoDNA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhotoDNA
- ikeboy 11y agoHm, so attempting to break it would require direct access to tests, which means you'd need to be a "qualified organization". Don't see any way of doing this that doesn't end in jail time.
- userbinator 11y agoI accidentally stumbled across this while searching for some obscure IC part numbers. The wording is something like "we have removed results of suspected child abuse" (emphasis mine --- I remember that part the clearest), and that scared me for several reasons; the implication that just being "suspected" is enough to censor, whether this was logged and now my searches are being scrutinised even more, and the reminder of effectively how much power they have over what people can find on the Internet. I'd use DuckDuckGo if it weren't for the fact that its index is far smaller than Google's, although with the latter's increasingly aggressive pruning of results, maybe that won't remain the case for long...
- ikeboy 11y agoUse https://startpage.com/ https://startpage.com/ It uses Google, but Google won't get your ip.
- zmanian 11y agoHere is a good article on the technical details. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/11/how-dropbox-found-a-child-porn-collector-and-a-chess-club-stopped-his-rampage/2/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/11/how-dropbox-found...
- otakucode 11y agoGroups in Europe a few years ago were trying to push for video card manufacturers to build the hash database into their drivers, so that no image could be displayed which was not first checked. Never underestimate the amount of resources people are willing to dedicate to "stopping child abuse" as long as it doesn't require doing things actually shown to stop child abuse - like education, empowerment, and providing resources for the relocation of children leaving dangerous environments. None of that stuff gets headlines, or makes it look like a cop is doing a good job like going online, or opens the door to later extension to whatever sort of content groups feel like controlling.