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

(blog.cryptographyengineering.com)
269 points chmaynard | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | 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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ithkuil ◴[] No.42746952[source]
And probably there are other people in jail convicted using the same method that just were unlucky enough to not have a bulletproof alibi?
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drysine ◴[] No.42748024[source]
I don't know, but it seems quite likely, unfortunately. There were quite a few other cases when fake evidence was planted by police.

It's not the only problem with technology -- it's claimed that there has been over hundred cases of false DNA matches not caused by malice or processing errors.[0] In theory, DNA match must not be considered by courts as 100% accurate, but in fact it is.

On the other hand, there were cases when human rights advocates or journalists were claiming that innocent people were jailed but that turned out to be false, like people getting caught on camera doing the same kind of crime again after they served their sentence.

[0] https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5825384

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asddubs ◴[] No.42748587[source]
same with stenographs. We keep inventing new methods for the police to make up evidence.
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drysine ◴[] No.42749388[source]
I don't understand, could you elaborate on that?
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asddubs ◴[] No.42749525{3}[source]
I apologize, I got the terms mixed up, I meant a polygraph
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1. drysine ◴[] No.42751624{4}[source]
Yep, I got the impression that courts consider polygraph only when the results implicate the accused. Good thing that by law they cannot force you to get questioned with polygraph attached.