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I just developed and published a script to clear your pict-rs object storage from potential CSAM. (github.com)
submitted 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) by to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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I noticed a bit of panic around here lately and as I have had to continuously fight against pedos for the past year, I have developed tools to help me detect and prevent this content.

As luck would have it, we recently published one of our anti-csam checker tool as a python library that anyone can use. So I thought I could use this to help lemmy admins feel a bit more safe.

The tool can either go through all your images via your object storage and delete all CSAM, or it canrun continuously and scan and delete all new images as well. Suggested option is to run it using --all once, and then run it as a daemon and leave it running.

Better options would be to be able to retrieve exact images uploaded via lemmy/pict-rs api but we're not there quite yet.

Let me know if you have any issue or improvements.

EDIT: Just to clarify, you should run this on your desktop PC with a GPU, not on your lemmy server!

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[–] 18 points 3 years ago (15 children)

The problem is you aren't warning people that deleting CSAM without following your applicable laws can potentially get people that use your tool thrown in jail. You went ahead and built the tool without detailing any of the applicable laws around it. Cloudflare explicitly calls out that in their documentation because it's very important. I really like the stuff you put out, but this is not the way to do it. I know lots of people on Lemmy hate CF and any sort of large company, but running this stuff yourself without understanding the law is sure to get someone in trouble.

I don't even know why you think I was recommending for your system to forward the reports to the authorities. I didn't sleep very much last night, so I must have glazed over it, but I see nowhere where I said that.

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  • [–] [S] 11 points 3 years ago (14 children)

    Honestly, I thinking you're grossly overstating the legal danger a random small lemmy sysadmin is going to get into for running an automated tool like this.

    In any case, you've made your point, people can now make their own decisions on whether it's better to pretend nothing is wrong on their instance, or if they want at least this sort of blanket cleanup. Far be it from me to tell anyone what to do.

    I don't even know why you think I was recommending for your system to forward the reports to the authorities

    You may not have meant it, but you strongly implied something of the sort. But since this is not what you're suggesting I'm curious to hear what your optimal approach to those problem would be here.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago (13 children)

    You may not have meant it, but you strongly implied something of the sort. But since this is not what you’re suggesting I’m curious to hear what your optimal approach to those problem would be here.

    Optimal approach is to use the existing systems that are used by massive corporations to solve this problem already. I know everyone on lemmy hates that, but this isn't something to mess around with. The reason this is optimal is because NCMEC provides the hashes only to these companies. You're not going to be able to get the hashes (this is a good thing... imagine some child abuser getting access to these hashes and then using them to evade detection). So if you can't get these hashes (and you shouldn't want them either) then you should use a service that has them. It is by far the best way to filter and has been proven time and time again to be successful.

    The easiest is CloudFlare's, and yes, you will have to use them as your DNS which I also understand a vast majority of admins hate. But there are other options as well

    • PhotoDNA
    • Safer
    • Facebook PDQ

    Because access to the original hash databases is considered sensitive, NCMEC will not provide these to smaller platforms. Neither will Microsoft provide the source code of its PhotoDNA algorithm except to its most trusted partners, because if the algorithm became widely known, it is thought that this might enable abusers to bypass it.

    In that article, it actually points out that a solution called Safer that uses machine learning and image recognition has very flawed results and is incredibly biased. So if these massive platforms can't get this kind of image recognition right then it's probably best to not waste money and time on it. The article even points out that for smaller platforms it's not worth it.

    We also know in general terms that machine learning algorithms for image recognition tend to be both flawed overall, and biased against minorities specifically. In October 2020, it was reported that Facebook’s nudity-detection AI reported a picture of onions for takedown. It may be that for largest platforms, AI algorithms can assist human moderators to triage likely-infringing images. But they should never be relied upon without human review, and for smaller platforms they are likely to be more trouble than they are worth

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 3 years ago (12 children)

    I look forward to see your success with that approach. Godspeed

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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago (11 children)

    I don’t know why you say that like it’s not already successful.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (10 children)

    Have you already registered for this services and using them on your lemmy? If so the success is something displayed in time.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago (9 children)

    They have been used on millions of websites already. It’s pretty clear that it works. It doesn’t need to be used on lemmy to prove it works. And my application is currently in review so no I haven’t used it. But that really doesn’t matter. Especially if you’re comparing it to a tool written by one person that has been out for a few days.

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  • [–] [S] 0 points 3 years ago (8 children)

    The situation Has dramatically changed in the the past year. I am telling you but you seem to be in denial. Likewise currently you're unprotected. As such my previous statement applies: good luck!

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (6 children)

    The situation Has dramatically changed in the the past year. I am telling you but you seem to be in denial.

    What situation? You haven’t told me anything about anything changing in the last year.

    Likewise currently you're unprotected. As such my previous statement applies: good luck!

    Huh? What previous statement? You’re not protected. You just think you are! You literally claimed that your product has lots of false positives. It most definitely has false negatives too.

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  • [–] [S] 0 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    The situation is that anyone can ai generate any amount of novel csam now.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    …. That’s not what CSAM is. It’s literally in the name. abuse. CSAM requires abuse of a child. Just like pictures of your kids in the bath isn’t illegal, AI generated content is going to need to be provably linked to abuse in order to meet the definition. I seriously doubt it ever will be. You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the entire situation, overreacted so much so that you might have gotten people in serious legal trouble, and are now trying to justify it because you think that the current solutions aren’t going to protect against CSAM.

    I literally linked a software that does what yours does, but is already used, already proven to work, and also has the benefit of being the backup to the hash based mechanism instead of being the primary mode of filtering.

    Dude, I was trying to be nice how I approached you earlier, but you clearly are unwilling to accept that you have made a massive mistake here, not only by not reading up on the laws, but not even fundamentally understanding the problem space. This is not good software engineering.

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  • [–] [S] 0 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    Omg! If someones starts posting photorealistic generated csam to your instance, is this what you're going to tells to your userbase when you refuse to delete it? Are you for real? In that case, good fucking luck!

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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    removing inappropriate sexual content is completely different than CSAM... a point you seem to be trying INCREDIBLY hard to not understand. Dude, just quit. Please please stop with this nonsense. You are unable to let it go. Every one of us builds bad software at some point. For you this is it. Just let it go, go build something else.

    Sheesh.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 3 years ago* (1 child)

    Lol, I really pity your users if that's what you're like talking to other admins.

    Look, maybe I can make it very plain for you to finally get. You will not be able to recognise it's not ai generated and your "proper solution" won't catch it. Your users will freak the fuck out.

    Use your brain. I'm out

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    Honestly dude, you do whatever you want. I didn’t want to have this conversation in the first place because I knew you would argue. You wouldn’t build the software in the first place if you thought that the other solutions worked so clearly you hadn’t done your research, including into applicable laws. At this point you’re just fighting to justify having built a pointless tool that can get you in legal trouble. I guarantee that if you talked to a lawyer they would tell you to stop using your own software for this, but clearly you don’t care about that. You built something and you want to justify its existence, so you keep arguing for it and against proven legal solutions.

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