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Injecting hidden GUIDs into local files without explicit user consent is a massive privacy overreach. It makes you wonder what other local tools are silently ta

Injecting hidden GUIDs into local files without explicit user consent is a massive privacy overreach. It makes you wonder what other local tools are silently tagging user generated content.

soupspaces 1mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Awareness_Office https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Awareness_Office
nojs 1mo ago
The question is whether LLM providers are going to do this. Anthropic currently says they don’t, but it’s impossible to verify: > Watermarking carries no identifying information and can’t be traced to a specific person, organization, or chat; https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-text-watermark https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-text-watermark
- trollbridge 1mo ago
  Probably just means they haven't (yet) figured out how to do the watermarking carrying enough bits of data to encode a GUID.
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 1mo ago
    It could also mean they are lying. It could be they are being forced to downplay how good the watermarking is because gov agencies want that tool available to them without people knowing about it. We'll have to wait for the next Snowden to find out.
    - trollbridge 1mo ago
      In other words, plausible deniability. “We aren’t watermarking your text.” (Today, and we’ll start tomorrow.)
    - martin_a 1mo ago
      I still don't see how this is supposed to work for text content that I copy and paste somewhere else. And with models getting better and better to "human language", wouldn't the false positives also rise as "real text" is flagged to be AI generated?
      - Eddy_Viscosity2 1mo ago
        I don't know either, and maybe it doesn't or can't work. But also maybe it does and can. I do not have any where near the expertise to know which is the case.
- mg794613 1mo ago
  At least, according to the very trustworthy Claude.
- ozereray1 1mo ago
  [flagged]
deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]
stingraycharles 1mo ago
Haven’t printers done the same thing for decades?
- jamesnorden 1mo ago
  Oh that makes it totally ok then...
  - stingraycharles 1mo ago
    Not saying that, but at least that there must have been ample legal precedent that this is probably allowed.
    - ozereray1 1mo ago
      [flagged]
  - kmacdough 1mo ago
    No it's not ok, and most people are horrified when they learn. It's just a reality check that we've lived in a surveillance state for quite a while and it's time we take a stand. And a reminder that the government has done a good job of suppressing these realities from public awareness.
    - hulitu 1mo ago
      > and it's time we take a stand I'm afraid it is too late.
- MisterTea 1mo ago
  And? Where are we going with this whataboutism?
  - kmacdough 1mo ago
    And it's a reality check that we live in a surveillance state. To a degree that most people find appalling, but the government is good enough at suppressing public awareness enough to cause an outcry. It's also not whataboutism, the comment specifically wondered how else were being surrupticously tracked without our knowledge. This is a concrete example and I think many would be surprised such tracking also exists outside the digital realm.
bdavbdav 1mo ago
Windows GUIDs....
rietta 1mo ago
I am doing metadata auditing for government documents these days and there are UUIDs in lots of files going back a very long time. I have certainly seen them in PDFs and Word and Excel documents that long predated the current AI integrations. Edit to add: I just tested LibreOffice/26.2.5.2 and it is not injecting a UUID into the metadata either for a ODT or a DOCx (2007) file. I do not have native MS Office available on hand to test at the moment. I do see these UUIDs in published government documents but cannot swear to exactly what step of the pipeline is stamping them. Definitely on files that predate the AI integration push by Microsoft.
- vorpalhex 1mo ago
  Do you keep a list you can share? I'd love if there was a semi-authoritative list.
kmacdough 1mo ago
Your printer has been doing this for decades. There's an invisible-to-human dot matrix pattern that encodes things like model, serial number and i don't remember what else.
- bigodbiel 1mo ago
  iirc only color printer/xerox

Injecting hidden GUIDs into local files without explicit user consent is a massive privacy overreach. It makes you wonder what other local tools are silently tagging user generated content.

soupspaces 1mo ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Awareness_Office https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Awareness_Office

nojs 1mo ago

The question is whether LLM providers are going to do this. Anthropic currently says they don’t, but it’s impossible to verify: > Watermarking carries no identifying information and can’t be traced to a specific person, organization, or chat; https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-text-watermark https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-text-watermark

trollbridge 1mo ago
Probably just means they haven't (yet) figured out how to do the watermarking carrying enough bits of data to encode a GUID.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 1mo ago
  It could also mean they are lying. It could be they are being forced to downplay how good the watermarking is because gov agencies want that tool available to them without people knowing about it. We'll have to wait for the next Snowden to find out.
  - trollbridge 1mo ago
    In other words, plausible deniability. “We aren’t watermarking your text.” (Today, and we’ll start tomorrow.)
  - martin_a 1mo ago
    I still don't see how this is supposed to work for text content that I copy and paste somewhere else. And with models getting better and better to "human language", wouldn't the false positives also rise as "real text" is flagged to be AI generated?
    - Eddy_Viscosity2 1mo ago
      I don't know either, and maybe it doesn't or can't work. But also maybe it does and can. I do not have any where near the expertise to know which is the case.
mg794613 1mo ago
At least, according to the very trustworthy Claude.
ozereray1 1mo ago
[flagged]

deleted 1mo ago

[deleted]

stingraycharles 1mo ago

Haven’t printers done the same thing for decades?

jamesnorden 1mo ago
Oh that makes it totally ok then...
- stingraycharles 1mo ago
  Not saying that, but at least that there must have been ample legal precedent that this is probably allowed.
  - ozereray1 1mo ago
    [flagged]
- kmacdough 1mo ago
  No it's not ok, and most people are horrified when they learn. It's just a reality check that we've lived in a surveillance state for quite a while and it's time we take a stand. And a reminder that the government has done a good job of suppressing these realities from public awareness.
  - hulitu 1mo ago
    > and it's time we take a stand I'm afraid it is too late.
MisterTea 1mo ago
And? Where are we going with this whataboutism?
- kmacdough 1mo ago
  And it's a reality check that we live in a surveillance state. To a degree that most people find appalling, but the government is good enough at suppressing public awareness enough to cause an outcry. It's also not whataboutism, the comment specifically wondered how else were being surrupticously tracked without our knowledge. This is a concrete example and I think many would be surprised such tracking also exists outside the digital realm.

bdavbdav 1mo ago

Windows GUIDs....

rietta 1mo ago

I am doing metadata auditing for government documents these days and there are UUIDs in lots of files going back a very long time. I have certainly seen them in PDFs and Word and Excel documents that long predated the current AI integrations. Edit to add: I just tested LibreOffice/26.2.5.2 and it is not injecting a UUID into the metadata either for a ODT or a DOCx (2007) file. I do not have native MS Office available on hand to test at the moment. I do see these UUIDs in published government documents but cannot swear to exactly what step of the pipeline is stamping them. Definitely on files that predate the AI integration push by Microsoft.

vorpalhex 1mo ago
Do you keep a list you can share? I'd love if there was a semi-authoritative list.

kmacdough 1mo ago

Your printer has been doing this for decades. There's an invisible-to-human dot matrix pattern that encodes things like model, serial number and i don't remember what else.

bigodbiel 1mo ago
iirc only color printer/xerox