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Tell HN: Zelensky is blurring -not blanking- sensitive info in a video with Musk
According to this video shared by Zelensky Facebook page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HucqNfL1oYA (YouTube link for those who don’t use FB).
Surely the documents in the video and his phone aren’t decisive for the war, but since a text inside an image can be easily deblurred using -lots of- ML tools available, it isn’t a bit unsafe to share video like this?
Maybe for a video is different but, if deblurring an image is not trouble for me, I don’t think it’s a hard trouble for the Russian IT guys to deblur a video.
Someone should alert the Zelensky’s social staff it, or I’m missing something?
- Proven 5y ago
- yoyopa 5y agoif you think someting is unsafe why would try to call more attention to it?
- giuliomagnifico 5y agoTo prevent it from happening again!
- throwaway290 5y agoThis site can be read by people who support the aggressor. I know it is more work, but just in case there are some some less open channels that could be used instead (for example, emailing or calling trusted Ukrainian representatives/embassies, just as long as you don't occupy the life and death helplines).
- zaptheimpaler 5y agoSee the contact info here: https://ssu.gov.ua/en https://ssu.gov.ua/en If this is a real threat, you should contact them directly and delete this post. Why would you post it publicly?
- Doxin 5y agoSo it can be fixed? The chance that evildoers have not already noticed this is pretty slim.
- 0atman 5y agoAh, secrecy through obscurity XD
- Koshkin 5y agoIt does not matter - the serious actors are already on it anyway.
- hutrdvnj 5y agoHow can we reach out to Zelensky and tell him?
- throwaway290 5y agoEmail, call your Ukrainian embassy. DM them on Twitter. Tons of options.
- medstrom 5y agoIn this case calling the embassy looks reliable (if you can stand the probably long queues), because the middlemen on the way will recognize that this matters. But most of the time, I'm skeptical the famous person you're trying to reach will ever see your email or tweet, nor will your call be promoted.
- giuliomagnifico 5y agoI have no idea sincerely. I think by writing to the ministry of IT, but I doubt it will reply…
- 5350-uiop-1130 5y agohave you tried contacting one of his partners mentioned in the panama papers :D
- irthomasthomas 5y agoProbably easiest through his IMDB page https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305952/ https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305952/
- aaron695 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jokethrowaway 5y agoI'll be impressed if you can get anything out of that video If so, which tools would you recommend? I can't even get decent OCR
- giuliomagnifico 5y agoI will not tell you how to do anything that can harm Ukrainian people.
- Etherlord87 5y agoBut you just did as you're the OP?
- jokethrowaway 5y agoAny other blurred video is fine too. I've actually experimented with a couple of solutions but nothing really works. You can remove motion blur at best, certainly not reading blurred text. [Not] asking for a comrade
- giuliomagnifico 5y agoThanks, good to know that the text can't be easily deblurred!
- deepsun 5y agoBy the time they unblur it, all the info in there becomes stale.
- allie1 5y agoIt's more than enough to infect him with 0days on imessage/whatsapp etc. That's how Bezos got hacked. All they needed was his phone number and using NSO's Pegasus they got full control over his phone. In the case of Zelensky it's even worse, he probably discusses war tactics all day every day. An adversary having that information is equivalent to breaking the Enigma in WW2.
- epberry 5y agoBezos didn't get hacked. His girlfriend's brother leaked the texts.
- allie1 5y agohttps://www.wired.com/story/bezos-phone-hack-mbs-saudi-arabia/ https://www.wired.com/story/bezos-phone-hack-mbs-saudi-arabi...
- epberry 5y ago> An April 2021 Bloomberg investigation found that AMI's Chief Content Officer Dylan Howard, National Enquirer editor James Robertson, and Andrea Simpson, an L.A.-based reporter for AMI all stated in federal court that Michael Sanchez was the sole source of all the information and compromising material they received during the investigation and that Saudi Arabia was not involved. I guess it's up for debate and both things may be true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos_phone_hacking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos_phone_hacking
- tragictrash 5y agoThink about what you are saying. Do you really think a threat actor with those resources needs a blurred image to get his phone number?
- leoff 5y agoI can barely count how many lines the text message has, and you think a ML tool would be able to decipher it? This is an impossible task, the text information is completely lost on the blur
- 0xfaded 5y agoA gaussian blur is a point-wise multiplication in Fourier space. If you know the filter, you can technically reverse it with a point-wise division. Even noise can be controlled for by using optimization techniques to recover the correct divisor. It doesn't at all surprise me that you could train up an ML model to recover the original.
- Etherlord87 5y agoI'm not saying it's impossible, but remember that information is lost in the blur. It's as if you posterized an image to two colors - just because you know the algorithm doesn't mean you can revert the process.
- aliswe 5y agoThis is an induction based argument though. Because information is lost (is it?), it's probably impossible to reverse. Look at this example image,do you think it would be possible to restore? https://kbpdfstudio.qoppa.com/wp-content/uploads/sample-text-deblur.jpg https://kbpdfstudio.qoppa.com/wp-content/uploads/sample-text... Also this depixelated text: https://www.hackread.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/new-underactor-tool-reveal-pixelated-text-expose-sensitive-data.jpg https://www.hackread.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/new-unde...
- Etherlord87 5y agoI think I made a mistake by saying "information is lost", rather than "some information is lost" - clearly, some information remains, and as I started my comment, I'm not saying it's impossible. In fact I share the sentiment that seemingly irreversible things can often be reversed, we just don't have the technology to do so. However my enthusiasm took a huge hit once I learned how the technology we have usually operates: for example the photo sharpeners enhance photos by creating faces different than the actual original pre-blur faces. Just got an idea I have to test eventually, how close would those "recovered" images be to the algorithm input, if the blur was reapplied... Your first example (recovering text from photo) is impressive, but the blur is clearly one that blurs as little as possible to make the text unreadable. I think if you increased the blur just slightly, too much information would get lost. I also wonder what was the resolution of the image and what was the color depth (was that a JPEG or RAW format?) Without the ability to inspect and repeat the process I'll remain skeptical about de-blurring.
- axg11 5y agoI don't think there's any cause for concern. Zelensky is likely receiving real-time intelligence and advice from NSA, CIA, GCHQ, and much more. If there was any issue with this video, they would have already taken steps to ensure the information is stale and this doesn't happen again.
- Mandatum 5y agoSmart Deblur[1] is probably one of the best publicly available tools for debluring images like this. It supports a wide array of blur algorithms. I've used it to reverse passwords and identifying details released by security researchers. I was unable to retrieve anything of value from the blurred areas of this image. [1] http://smartdeblur.net/ http://smartdeblur.net/
- 2rsf 5y agoOr maybe it is a trap? expecting the Russians to un blur it and see the secret plans which are actually a trap for their forces. It's not unheard of.