upvote
The problem is that if defeating it is trivial, then it _authenticates_ fake images.

The problem is that it makes it easier to fool people and provide "cryptographic" evidence of validity, backed by big tech.

It's purpose is to stop bad actors from passing of fake as real just as much as it is to prevent real images being dismissed as fake.

reply
> It’s almost certainly possible to fool v1 of this system, for some images, in some contexts. It would be shocking if the first implementation was completely perfect.

Knowing Apple, they've been working on and testing Apple Reference Image for years.

It being perfect isn't the issue; it's that random people on the internet who are just learning about this assume Apple's engineers haven't already thought about everything (and more) mentioned in this thread.

reply
> It being perfect isn't the issue; it's that random people on the internet who are just learning about this assume Apple's engineers haven't already thought about everything (and more) mentioned in this thread.

Given how many bugs there are in macOS and how long they have remained there, I (who have been writing iOS apps from the release of the first retina iPod touch until AI got good) functionally agree with such people; at best, I think Apple's engineers haven't actually solved everything (and more) mentioned in this thread, even if every one of these things may have come up in discussions and even reached an official backlog or task list or similar.

reply
If they thought about it, then why isn't this very obvious failure point even mentioned in the technical breakdown?
reply
> But maybe it’s better than nothing?

I think this will depend on how it gets used. I can imagine numerous outcomes where it's in fact worse than nothing (significantly more effective blackmail, for instance).

reply
> maybe it’s better than nothing?

While that is not quite my bar of confidence when implementing wide-reaching technologies that have numerous unexplored knock-on effects, I guess the calculus must have been different on Infinite Loop recently.

reply
I like that seatbelt argument example.

I’ve seen that type of argument a million times, and I’ll certainly reuse that.

reply