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Google’s ‘Secret’ Update Scans All Your Photos (www.forbes.com)
submitted 5 days ago by ad_on_is@lemm.ee to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Per one tech forum this week: “Google has quietly installed an app on all Android devices called ‘Android System SafetyCore’. It claims to be a ‘security’ application, but whilst running in the background, it collects call logs, contacts, location, your microphone, and much more making this application ‘spyware’ and a HUGE privacy concern. It is strongly advised to uninstall this program if you can. To do this, navigate to 'Settings’ > 'Apps’, then delete the application.”

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[-] lepinkainen@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

They were not “suspected” they had to be matches to actual CSAM.

And after that a reduced quality copy was shown to an actual human, not an AI like in Googles case.

So the false positive would slightly inconvenience a human checker for 15 seconds, not get you Swatted or your account closed

[-] Natanael@infosec.pub 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Yeah so here's the next problem - downscaling attacks exists against those algorithms too.

https://scaling-attacks.net/

Also, even if those attacks were prevented they're still going to look through basically your whole album if you trigger the alert

[-] lepinkainen@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

And you’ll again inconvenience a human slightly as they look at a pixelated copy of a picture of a cat or some noise.

No cops are called, no accounts closed

[-] Natanael@infosec.pub 2 points 3 days ago

The scaling attack specifically can make a photo sent to you look innocent to you and malicious to the reviewer, see the link above

this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
1017 points (100.0% liked)

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