Privacy

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Blur tools for Signal (signal.org)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

19 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Blur tools for Signal: if you take or edit photos of crowds or strangers with Signal, you can use our face blur tool to quickly hide people's biometric face data.

You can then export the photo from Signal if you want to post it publicly.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Always heard blurring was ineffective and that solid colored boxes should be used instead

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I recall a story of a pedophile being caught because they posted pictures using a radial warp on the face. It wasn't too hard for enforcement to code a filter that undoes the radial warp, and instantly saw the original photo to identify and lock away the creep.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 11 months ago (2 children)

A warp doesn't technically lose the information, it merely displaces it. A good blur algorithm on the other hand will lead to loss of information.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

This would demonstrate it well with physical concepts

https://youtu.be/UpJ-kGII074?si=EoQQeplKXYj5kMT0

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://piped.video/UpJ-kGII074?si=EoQQeplKXYj5kMT0

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

For those who are interested, here is a 20 minute mini-documentary about this individual that goes by the name of Mr. Swirl.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

Mr. Swirl

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I trust that Signal wouldn't implement something if it was even questionably proven insecure

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago

i think that is only valid for text, the method to restore blurred text is to draw and blur a lot of combinations and compare them to the blurred image. that's probably not a thing with faces i guess...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

That does sound more effective. You really have to trust that the blur algorithm cannot be reverse engineered if you use that. Removing the data seems more certain than transforming it somehow.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

The blur seems pretty good to me, doesn’t seem like you could do any reverse processing to identify the face post blur.