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submitted 11 months ago by floofloof@lemmy.ca to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[-] BitSound@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

That doesn't really work. If the private key is leaked, you're left in a quandary of "Well who knew the private key at this timestamp?" and it becomes a guessing game.

Especially in the scenario you posit. Nation-state actors with deep pockets in the middle of a war will find ways to bend hardware to their will. Blindly trusting a record just because it's timestamped is foolish.

[-] 4am@lemm.ee 8 points 11 months ago

You’re right, it isn’t perfect so we shouldn’t bother trying. 🙄

[-] BitSound@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

In this case yes, because if it's not perfect, then it's perfectly useless

[-] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 2 points 11 months ago

Couldn’t I just change the camera date?

[-] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 3 points 11 months ago

We're talking about a signature that's published in a public database. The camera's timestamp doesn't matter, just the database's.

[-] FaceDeer@kbin.social 4 points 11 months ago

If all that you're interested in is the timestamp then you don't even really need to have a signature at all - just the hash of the image is sufficient to prove when it was taken. The signature is only important if you care about trying to establish who took the picture, which in the case of this hospital explosion is not as important.

[-] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 1 points 11 months ago

How is a hash of the image supposed to prove anything about when it was created?

[-] FaceDeer@kbin.social 3 points 11 months ago

You post it publicly somewhere that has a timestamp. A blockchain would be best because it can't be tampered with.

[-] lemming741@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

That proves it existed at a specific time in the past, not that it didn't exist before that. What's stopping a hash of the Mona Lisa on a block chain with today's date?

[-] FaceDeer@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago

It also doesn't materialize ponies out of nothing. It can't do everything, but surely you can see that there are a lot of situations where being able to say with confidence that "this picture existed in exactly this form at exactly this date" is a super useful thing?

[-] lemming741@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

It doesn't prove when it was created, only that it existed. Previous poster /u/lolcatnip is talking about creation date

[-] FaceDeer@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago

And that's all I'm saying that it does.

As I said, it's not perfection for every possible application. But it is still highly useful in many applications.

[-] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 1 points 11 months ago

Ah, I thought you were saying the hash proved something on its own. Lots of weird ideas about crypto in this thread.

[-] floofloof@lemmy.ca 2 points 11 months ago

Maybe each camera has a different public/private key?

[-] BitSound@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

They would, but each camera's private key can be extracted from the hardware if you're motivated enough.

If Alice's fancy new camera has the private key extracted by Eve without Alice's knowledge, Eve can send Bob pictures that Bob would then believe are from Alice. If Bob finds out that Alice's key was compromised, then he has to guess as to whether any photo he got from Alice was actually from Eve. Having a public timestamp for the picture doesn't help Bob know anything, since Eve might've gone and created the timestamp herself without Alice's knowledge.

[-] floofloof@lemmy.ca 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Still, unique keys for each camera would lessen the risk of someone leaking a single code that undermines the whole system, as happened with DVDs.

And if an interested party wanted to steal a camera's private key to fake an image's provenance they'd need to get physical access to that very camera. Perhaps a state-sponsored group could contrive this (or intervene during manufacturing), but it is a challenge and an even bigger challenge for everyone else.

[-] BitSound@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

Physical access means all bets are off, but it's not required for these attacks. If it's got a way to communicate with the outside world, it can get hacked remotely. For example here's an attack that silently took over iphones without the user doing anything. That was used for real to spy on many people, and Apple is pretty good at security. Most devices you own such as cameras with wifi will likely be far worse security-wise.

this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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