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Let's talk about AI and end-to-end encryption

(blog.cryptographyengineering.com)
269 points chmaynard | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.469s | source
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klik99 ◴[] No.42744066[source]
> You might even convince yourself that these questions are “privacy preserving,” since no human police officer would ever rummage through your papers, and law enforcement would only learn the answer if you were (probably) doing something illegal.

Something I've started to see happen but never mentioned is the effect automated detection has on systems: As detection becomes more automated (previously authored algorithms, now with large AI models), there's less cash available for individual case workers, and more trust at the managerial level on automatic detection. This leads to false positives turning into major frustrations since it's hard to get in touch with a person to resolve the issue. When dealing with businesses it's frustrating, but as these get more used in law enforcement, this could be life ruining.

For instance - I got flagged as illegal reviews on Amazon years ago and spent months trying to make my case to a human. Every year or so I try to raise the issue again to leave reviews, but it gets nowhere. Imagine this happening for a serious criminal issue, with the years long back log on some courts, this could ruin someones life.

More automatic detection can work (and honestly, it's inevitable) but it's got to acknowledge that false positives will happen and allocate enough people to resolve those issues. As it stands right now, these detection systems get built and immediately human case workers get laid off, there's this assumption that detection systems REPLACE humans, but it should be that they augment and focus human case workers so you can do more with less - the human aspect needs to be included in the budgeting.

But the incentives aren't there, and the people making the decisions aren't the ones working the actual cases so they aren't confronted with the problem. For them, the question is why save $1m when you could save $2m? With large AI models making it easier and more effective to build automated detection I expect this problem to get significantly worse over the next years.

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drysine ◴[] No.42746590[source]
>Imagine this happening for a serious criminal issue, with the years long back log on some courts, this could ruin someones life.

It can be much scarier.

There was a case in Russia when a scientist was accused in a murder that happened 20 years ago based on 70% face recognition match and fake identification as an accomplice by a criminal. [0] He spent 10 months in jail during "investigation" despite being incredibly lucky to have an alibi -- archival records of the institute where he worked, proving he was in an expedition far away from Moscow at that time. He was eventually freed but I'm afraid that police investigators that used very weak face recognition match as a way to improve their work performance stats are still working in the police.

[0] https://lenta.ru/articles/2024/04/03/scientist/

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bflesch[dead post] ◴[] No.42748018[source]
[flagged]
asddubs ◴[] No.42748619[source]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/fbi-overstated-fo...

The notion that this kind of thing couldn't happen in the west is laughable

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1. drysine ◴[] No.42748719[source]
Or this: "A former forensic scientist intentionally manipulated DNA evidence during her 29-year career at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, casting doubt on at least 652 criminal cases she handled, including some of the most high-profile trials, according to investigation findings released by the agency Friday." [0]

[0] https://coloradosun.com/2024/03/08/yvonne-missy-woods-cbi-in...

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2. bflesch ◴[] No.42748824[source]
You chime in to showcase another thing where the USA is wrong, but you oversee the point that in no way russia is comparable to this.

In the article you linked, there is a criminal investigation, an audit and a re-test of evidence in order “to ensure the accuracy and completeness of its entire catalog of records because someone manipulated DNA evidence.

In russia, there is no investigation, because they make up evidence against their political enemies all the time. It feels like you have some incentive to miss the elephant in the room.