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Facebook to Fight Revenge Porn by Letting Potential Victims Upload Nudes in Advance
Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
This new protection system works similar to the anti-child-porn detection systems in use at Facebook, and other social media giants like Google, Twitter, Instagram, and others.
It works on a database of file hashes, a cryptographic signature computed for each file.
Facebook says that once an abuser tries to upload an image marked as "revenge porn" in its database, its system will block the upload process. This will work for images shared on the main Facebook service, but also for images shared privately via Messenger, Facebook's IM app. Potential victims will need to upload nude photos of themselves
The weird thing is that in order to build a database of "revenge porn" file hashes, Facebook will rely on potential victims uploading a copy of the nude photo in advance.
This process involves the victim sending a copy of the nude photo to his own account, via Facebook Messenger. This implies uploading a copy of the nude photo on Facebook Messenger, the very same act the victim is trying to prevent.
The victim can then report the photo to Facebook, which will create a hash of the image that the social network will use to block further uploads of the same photo.
This is possible because in April this year, Facebook modified its image reporting process to take into account images showing "revenge porn" acts.
Facebook says it's not storing a copy of the photo, but only computing the file's hash and adding it to its database of revenge porn imagery.
Victims who fear that former or current partners may upload a nude photo online can pro-actively take this step to block the image from ever being uploaded on Facebook and shared among friends.
We won't be doing this. I don't even want to see hashes of you folks naked.
Facebook asks Australians to send nude photos, for safety
"Worried that an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend might post your intimate photos on the internet? Facebook says it has a solution – as long as you'll hand over the photos first.
The social media giant recently announced its new plan to combat "revenge porn," when individuals post nude photos online without the consent of the subject." http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2017/11/08/facebook-says-it-needs-your-explicit-photos-to-combat-revenge-porn.html
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 10 2017, @05:34PM (4 children)
Yep. That's the downside of client-side computing. You can't trust the data processing. Done server-side you could just let anything with a fleshtones:non-fleshtones ratio above N through to the hashing function and feel relatively certain it's worth blocking that hash.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Friday November 10 2017, @05:40PM (2 children)
Monochrome revenge porn?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 10 2017, @06:09PM (1 child)
Yeah. It'd be much more difficult than text filters for certain. Low hanging fruit would be possible for a bit at least though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 10 2017, @10:24PM
but only for the old and the well-endowed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 10 2017, @06:28PM
It's not just that. There's also the issue of due diligence. If FB doesn't have a copy, the original could be anything at all. They also wouldn't have any way of training an AI to verify that the things being uploaded are likely to be illegal or harassment rather than just images that somebody is trolling with to get people locked out.
I get the impetus for this, but the technical and legal challenges in doing this are probably a lot more complicated than it might seem.