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AI-generated text warning (I submitted - but did not author - the piece), but it seems MS Paint and MS Photos add both a visible (can be turned off) and invisib
by ComputerGuru 1mo ago
AI-generated text warning (I submitted - but did not author - the piece), but it seems MS Paint and MS Photos add both a visible (can be turned off) and invisible (cannot be disabled and happens silently in the background with no user notice) watermarks to photos that have been AI-manipulated, even when using a local model to perform the action. It's not clear if this applies to even things like using AI-enhanced background delete/remove, but the invisible watermark is embedded in both the image pixels and the image metadata, both containing a GUID that can be linked to the exact prompt that was used and the originating device/user (on Microsoft's end).
Obvious next step is to explore if you can replace watermarker.dll with a (signed) no-op shim or MITM the API call to at least use your own (nil?) GUID that isn't linked to your device/account.
In case it's not obvious, my bigger concern isn't "this image can be identified to have been generated with/by AI" so much as it is "digital yellow printer dots have been forced upon us, except they can identify and retrieve the exact user/device/time/place/document/etc", completely destroying any and all illusions of privacy left.
- like_any_other 1mo ago[dead]
- NuclearPM 1mo agoI don’t understand the warning.
- phainopepla2 1mo agoThey're saying that the blogpost is at least partially AI-generated.
- nemomarx 1mo agoI'd like to know more about the GUID part and how easy is it so deanonymize yeah. But if it's only on ai generation and not on all images it seems easy enough to work around that part? Still better than printers doing it no matter what you're printing.
- jijji 1mo agoThe article says that once converted to BMP all the metadata gets removed....so on linux: convert file.jpg file.bmp; convert file.bmp file.jpg
- jkaplowitz 1mo agoIt says that about the C2PA content credentials metadata, but not about the modified image pixels.
- kbelder 1mo agoConversion from jpg to bmp to jpg is a lossy process, so it may obscure the watermarked pixels.
- setopt 1mo agoSounds better to do postprocess filtering explicitly? For example, adding random noise with amplitude 1/255 (which should be as invisible as the watermark), followed by a smart blur that blurs more in directions where the colors are more similar (making the blur less obvious to humans). But this is all moot really, if MS Paint is watermarking shit, it’s better to just use something else. Nothing from Microsoft is trustworthy.
- StingyJelly 1mo agoor maybe add 3 lsb noise, then let local diffusion model denoise the image. (is there something like convolutional diffusion denoiser?)
- Ohentis 1mo agoIf it works anything like synthid, it is more resilient than that.
- stronglikedan 1mo ago> AI-generated text warning This seems incorrect to me. Are you basing that on the use of bullet points?
- buzer 1mo agoThere are several paragraphs where output looks very AI-like (and Claude flavored one at that), e.g. > In other words, “generated locally” does not mean that the complete operation is local. Microsoft receives and moderates the prompt, then issues the unique GUID that Paint embeds into the locally generated image. Paint also sends the previous promptGenerationId as lastPromptGenerationId with its next moderation request, allowing successive requests to be linked explicitly. > That relationship is important. C2PA calls this a soft binding: a value derived from, or embedded into, the content so that the content can still be matched with its provenance record after the file-level manifest has been removed. For a watermark soft binding, the value is the watermark’s content identifier. Microsoft cryptographically signed this assertion. > After an AI result is applied to the Paint canvas, the available formats are still restricted to PNG, JPEG, GIF, and Paint’s own .paint format. BMP—the classic Paint format—is conspicuously absent. Personally it didn't bother me too much.
- Noaidi 1mo agoI have some better options. Stop using computers, or if you use a computer, use Linux. Everything is spying on us now. Literally everything. I recently downgraded my MacBook M1 to Sonoma to avoid all this AI privacy invading BS.
- furyofantares 1mo ago> AI-generated text warning (I submitted - but did not author - the piece) Took me a moment to realize you're saying someone else generated it, rather than you did.
- frig57 1mo agoHow do they add a watermark to local llm content?