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The “actual argument” against the system that this provides is that Apple lied about the likelihood of hash collisions. Therefore, why trust any of their other

The “actual argument” against the system that this provides is that Apple lied about the likelihood of hash collisions. Therefore, why trust any of their other claims?

simondotau 5y ago
Apple's claims are based on the statistical likelihood that there would be 30 collisions with CSAM hashes within one user account. Just because someone has found an image of a nearly featureless diagonal thing which collides with another image of a nearly featureless diagonal thing, that doesn't disprove Apple's claims.
- BeefWellington 5y ago
  > Apple's claims are based on the statistical likelihood that there would be 30 collisions with CSAM hashes within one user account. Given people can now generate images that collide, it seems like the statistical likelihood has drastically changed since it was originally announced.
toxik 5y ago
I find this an unconvincing argument as well, you're saying that because Apple made a false claim, any claim may be valid. This is obviously not the case, what they did was to, albeit likely knowingly, calculate the hash collision probability /if each bit is a coin flip/, which comes out to pow(2, -k) for k bits. It's tiny. Of course, each bit is /not/ an independent coin flip under the NeuralHash function. So again the actual argument becomes: what is that distribution like?
- read_if_gay_ 5y ago
  Fine, let’s say they didn’t lie, they made misleading claims. Still. Why trust them after that? If a company can make my own smartphone report me to the police, and they want my business, they better prove I can trust them. Apple has plainly done the opposite. The whole ordeal is just utterly 1984.
- FabHK 5y ago
  > what they did was to, albeit likely knowingly, calculate the hash collision probability /if each bit is a coin flip/, which comes out to pow(2, -k) for k bits. It's tiny. I doubt that's what they did. I think they ran tests on huge numbers of pictures, got an estimate, put in a safety factor, and determined the threshold to hit their target (and put in another safety buffer then). Naturally occurring collisions are not going to be an issue, and adversarial ones neither, I predict. Just as with current cloud providers.
- zepto 5y ago
  > that because Apple made a false claim Apple never made a false claim. They have never anywhere stated that neuralhash makes false positives at 1 in a trillion. Only that that is the rate for the system as a whole to flag accounts for review. The explicitly mention that they will vary the number of matches needed to maintain this if it turns out to be higher or lower based on images in the wild. There are good arguments against this system but most of the technical debate seems to have devolved into amplifying lies now.

The “actual argument” against the system that this provides is that Apple lied about the likelihood of hash collisions. Therefore, why trust any of their other claims?

simondotau 5y ago

Apple's claims are based on the statistical likelihood that there would be 30 collisions with CSAM hashes within one user account. Just because someone has found an image of a nearly featureless diagonal thing which collides with another image of a nearly featureless diagonal thing, that doesn't disprove Apple's claims.

BeefWellington 5y ago
> Apple's claims are based on the statistical likelihood that there would be 30 collisions with CSAM hashes within one user account. Given people can now generate images that collide, it seems like the statistical likelihood has drastically changed since it was originally announced.

toxik 5y ago

I find this an unconvincing argument as well, you're saying that because Apple made a false claim, any claim may be valid. This is obviously not the case, what they did was to, albeit likely knowingly, calculate the hash collision probability /if each bit is a coin flip/, which comes out to pow(2, -k) for k bits. It's tiny. Of course, each bit is /not/ an independent coin flip under the NeuralHash function. So again the actual argument becomes: what is that distribution like?

read_if_gay_ 5y ago
Fine, let’s say they didn’t lie, they made misleading claims. Still. Why trust them after that? If a company can make my own smartphone report me to the police, and they want my business, they better prove I can trust them. Apple has plainly done the opposite. The whole ordeal is just utterly 1984.
FabHK 5y ago
> what they did was to, albeit likely knowingly, calculate the hash collision probability /if each bit is a coin flip/, which comes out to pow(2, -k) for k bits. It's tiny. I doubt that's what they did. I think they ran tests on huge numbers of pictures, got an estimate, put in a safety factor, and determined the threshold to hit their target (and put in another safety buffer then). Naturally occurring collisions are not going to be an issue, and adversarial ones neither, I predict. Just as with current cloud providers.
zepto 5y ago
> that because Apple made a false claim Apple never made a false claim. They have never anywhere stated that neuralhash makes false positives at 1 in a trillion. Only that that is the rate for the system as a whole to flag accounts for review. The explicitly mention that they will vary the number of matches needed to maintain this if it turns out to be higher or lower based on images in the wild. There are good arguments against this system but most of the technical debate seems to have devolved into amplifying lies now.