Thread

Apple Reference Image: A New Approach for Verified Photography

539 points · 352 comments · imwally

tgsovlerkhgsel · 1789535685 · focus · HN ↗
This is really clever from Apple. The journalist use case is just the PR story. This will be really useful for identity verification and insurance apps, and has the potential to shift from "you need a smartphone to be able to live normally" to "you need an iPhone to be able to live normally".
There are already plenty of insurances that require you to submit claims through a smartphone app that tries to essentially do this by capturing sensor metadata etc. - those don't need to be nation-state resilient, just Joe the Crackhead Insurance Scammer resilient, so this works. Likewise, more and more things online require identity verification (either officially or disguised as age verification).
Edit: And while "a nation state actor can spoof this" is a problem for the journalism use case, the insurance/ID verification use cases are perfectly fine with anything that raises the bar but could be bypassed with enough effort. Also, the journalism use case suffers from the same fundamental issue all of these use cases suffer from: People will "verify" the picture by looking at the repost of a screenshot of the verification UI, not by verifying the original themselves.
1. doctorpangloss · 1789537382 · focus · HN ↗
  > People will "verify" the picture by looking at the repost of a screenshot of the verification UI, not by verifying the original themselves.
  True.
  > raises the bar but could be bypassed with enough effort.
  Anyone can spoof this.
  Apple cannot stop spam iMessages. They can't stop someone from rendering their privileged UI inside a browser viewport. People copy and paste remote script executions from convincing captchas.
  This whole provenance thing is a red herring. You agree with me, but there's truly not a single application for this that won't be exploited.
2. itake · 1789537587 · focus · HN ↗
  I don’t understand what this brings to the table beyond what we’re currently doing.
  Insurance companies can have a native app and require the device’s camera. Companies already have tools to combat a liveliness check. Even if you’re using a modified app that pulls from the photo album instead of the camera? A video recording with the appropriate liveness verification easily avoids that mess.
  1. ben_w · 1789541382 · focus · HN ↗
    As per opening paragraph of link, AI fakes are a thing.
    It's been possible to do a live video deepfake for a long time now, but as with all new tech, law and society are taking their sweet time to understand the risks; IMO this is the other side of the same coin as some infamous tech comments on consumer products: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 and <a href="https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rob_Malda" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rob_Malda
    NVIDIA suggested AI fakes controlled with face tracking input as a compression technique just for reducing video call bandwidth requirements (to ~117 bytes per frame). They did that six years ago: <a href="https://www.dpreview.com/news/5756257699/nvidia-research-develops-a-neural-network-to-replace-traditional-video-compression/" rel="nofollow">https://www.dpreview.com/news/5756257699/nvidia-research-dev...
    As we're now in an AI race, even NVIDIA's specific technique has flaws which all the current tools can detect, there's never any guarantee of this continuing to be the case.
    That said, in the case of Apple, they're historically followers not leaders despite the public image they like to present about innovation, and I'd expect this method to be flawed from day one even if we weren't reading a corporate blog post written in a self-congratulatory tone I find almost as off-putting as when AI write.
    itake · 1789542734 · focus · HN ↗
    You don’t even need an AI deepfake to edit a video.
    AI deepfake or edit video doesn’t pass liveliness checks without all the c2pa or reference image song and pony show.
    Insurance companies can monitor the light reflections from the flash that they control or monitor the accelerometer and compare the accelerometer values with the video that they receive.
    They could also just update their app to stop accepting photos from the album.
    lxgr · 1789578540 · focus · HN ↗
    > Insurance companies can monitor the light reflections from the flash that they control or monitor the accelerometer and compare the accelerometer values with the video that they receive.
    All of this data can be spoofed if it's not somehow authenticated.
    > They could also just update their app to stop accepting photos from the album.
    Doesn't help at all if the spoofed data is arriving via spoofed hardware.
    alwillis · 1789546416 · focus · HN ↗
    > That said, in the case of Apple, they're historically followers not leaders despite the public image they like to present about innovation
    While its true Apple usually isn't the first in a product category--not the first mp3 player, not the first smartphone, not the first tablet) but once they get there, they're quite innovative.
    When the iPhone 5s was released in 2013, it was the first smartphone with a 64-bit processor, which caught Qualcomm off guard. Even when Qualcomm released a 64-bit processor the following year, it kinda didn’t matter because Android was still 32-bit.
    mitxela · 1789552837 · focus · HN ↗
    nobody actually needed that though
    mitxela · 1789552816 · focus · HN ↗
    Twitter now flashes your screen different colors while watching the camera pointed at your face when you sign up, you know, to "make sure you're a real person"
3. bawolff · 1789540298 · focus · HN ↗
  The main way we combat insurance fraud is by throwing people in jail who do it. I dont think AI faked photos is a major cause of fraud.
  1. tempay · 1789541890 · focus · HN ↗
    At least in the UK this seems to be a growing problem and jail isn't a scalable solution. See for example: <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2rr9pg4jzo" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2rr9pg4jzo
    gambiting · 1789546616 · focus · HN ↗
    Like a lot of things in the UK, the problem isn't the harshness of the law, it's the lack of prosecution. It doesn't matter what the punishment is when criminals know that the crime is extremely unlikely to be investigated or make it to trial.
    RobotToaster · 1789554565 · focus · HN ↗
    > it's the lack of prosecution.
    The UK allows private prosecution, if it was a real problem the insurance companies would be using it, instead of attempting to make the state pay for it.
    tempay · 1789560216 · focus · HN ↗
    You still need to be able to realise something is fraudulent and pursuing prosecution has a significant cost to the insurer that is likely to be a net-loss financially. Not to mention the reputational risk of the public believing you prosecuted someone wrongly.
4. Telemakhos · 1789542992 · focus · HN ↗
  Insurance agencies worried about fraud could just do what they did prior to smartphones: have you bring the car to a claims adjuster at your local office. I’ve brought cars to be inspected, because I got T-boned at an intersection by a careless driver before smartphones existed; it was reasonably quick and hassle-free.
5. Topfi · 1789543520 · focus · HN ↗
  > […] the potential to shift from "you need a smartphone to be able to live normally" to "you need an iPhone to be able to live normally".
  Why do you believe Android manufacturers and SOC makers like Qualcomm won’t be able to offer a similar solution?
  1. rickdeckard · 1789544175 · focus · HN ↗
    Not the OP, but yes, other vendors will be able to support that as well. But a camera sensor that has
    1. a public/private key exchanged during device-production (production-cost),
    2. the capability to reboot in a cryptographic mode (R&D / component cost) and
    3. a cloud-service which then processes the raw data to create a JPG (operational cost)
    comes at a premium. Why should this premium be applied on a 99 USD Smartphone?
    Which is my whole puzzle on this vector: If the big benefit is for insurance/ID-verification, which apply cost-saving by offloading their process to the untrusted customer, how much they can offload this by requiring their customer to own a 1000+ USD smartphone to provide THEIR service...?
    The most I can imagine is insurances offloading their work to OTHER companies, NOT trusting them and therefore requiring them to own a 1000+ USD Smartphone. But even then, why not use a third party app that also runs on a 3y old iPhone and a 99 USD Android device...?
    Topfi · 1789544919 · focus · HN ↗
    We have 99USD smartphones with 1080p+ AMOLEDs, massive 5k amp batteries and very performant SOCs (e.g. Galaxy A16) among other costly, but not vital niceties. I struggle to see how cost could be a factor here.
    rickdeckard · 1789547510 · focus · HN ↗
    > I struggle to see how cost could be a factor here.
    Okay. In good faith, I'll go with you:
    If COST is not a factor, why does the Galaxy A16 still have no OIS (Optical Image Stabilization)?
    Unlike this trusted-imaging service, OIS would be a feature for increased user-experience which is highly-matured and exists in Smartphones since 2013.
    The answer is COST: A camera-module with OIS is a more-expensive component than a module without it.
    And that's ONLY the component-cost: A OIS-camera doesn't come with increased cost in device-production (it's just another component to place and assemble), no increased cost in R&D (the tech is very mature, all the SW is there) and no running costs (there are no cloud-services required to operate OIS)
    socalgal2 · 1789547857 · focus · HN ↗
    How many smartphones have no camera? Zero? Bluetooth? Zero? But they could save cost by not having those. I think they are basically table stakes. If this type of thing becomes required for more and more things then no one will buy a phone that doesn't have them.
    rickdeckard · 1789550200 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes, the whole insurance self-service is built on smartphones having a camera.
    But the assumption that smartphone cameras, including those used in 99USD smartphones, will become 100% cryptographic cameras in a few years is highly unlikely, considering that those cameras didn't even gain OIS in the last 13 years despite the feature being highly matured and widely available.
    Changing the topic to other features won't change that.
    You seem to lack the understanding how this industry works, and assume that every development naturally just trickles down and becomes a commodity. This is not the case.
    This cryptographic feature will definitely become available from camera sensor suppliers, first of all likely from Sony. But it will be a feature of premium sensors and will remain a differentiation factor.
    Sony will not support cryptography to its sensors without additional cost. Device-vendors integrating those sensors then have additional cost in R&D, production AND operations. All this will not be waived and put in a 99USD device.
    For the other assumption, that "If this type of thing becomes required", I fail to see how this should happen for a mass-market consumer: This feature doesn't authenticate the content of an image, it just authenticates the RAW data of the image sensor. It won't (and shouldn't!) make the user more trusted towards another entity (like Apple mentions themselves in the link)
    coldtea · 1789559972 · focus · HN ↗
    >But the assumption that smartphone cameras, including those used in 99USD smartphones, will become 100% cryptographic cameras in a few years is highly unlikely, considering that those cameras didn't even gain OIS in the last 13 years despite the feature being highly matured and widely available.
    Them becoming 70% cryptographic is enough. The people who need the feature, can get a compatible model. Nobody argued that smartphones sold for kids to game on for example should have it.
    Topfi · 1789549194 · focus · HN ↗
    Doesn't OIS increase the size of a sensor by roughly half and thus take some significant engineering and design cost to accommodate? At least it seems that way in the phones I've taken apart and looked at.
    Also, OIS is a major mechanical add on (a literal motor) and even 1500usd smartphones lack it on some of their sensors, mainly because while it can have an advantage on an ultrawide, that tends to be more limited. Incidentally, most 99usd phones have one (actually usable) sensor which thus tends to have a larger width to compensate. I hope, in good faith, you see the difference, to something like ARI.
    AMOLED, etc. are also a bit more expensive then OIS, but we get those into a sub 100usd BOM easily somehow. More so for 5g, certain features just become expected/required.
    Your logic would lead to OEMs making SOCs without things like TEE and other things which started in the high-end but quickly became required and essentially free to implement.
    Not saying it is free now, but that the upcoming gen of chips from Sony, Samsung, etc. will have it build in for such a minimal BOM impact, this will be an expected, common place feature across all prices.
    To have a more serious, honest and accurate comparison than OIS, why do most new smartphone at 99usd include some form of an NPU? Or the trusted modules for biometrics, etc.?
    rickdeckard · 1789552872 · focus · HN ↗
    >Doesn't OIS increase the size of a sensor by roughly half
    No, you can apply smartphone OIS-tech on any sensor, stabilization is achieved via the lens-array, not the sensor. The size of the module slightly increases but that's not a hindering factor. Cost/Benefit of OIS on ultra-wide lenses is not there, so it's usually not applied.
    >Your logic would lead to OEMs making SOCs without things like TEE and other things which started in the highend but quickly became required for one and basically free to implement for two.
    TEE became a mandatory requirement of the media industry for Smartphones in ~2010, as they announced plans to restrict media-playback on a device without measures to secure the DRM-keys. Google made it mandatory shortly after, because the entire ecosystem was built on media-consumption.
    It didn't come for free to the players in the industry, it became a very expensive task to develop, support and maintain it, but that's another story.
    Drawing a parallel here, I fail to see who should require cryptographic authentication of a taken image from end-user devices, to the point that no consumer devices without it will be built anymore.
    >Not saying it is free now, but that the upcoming gen of chips from Sony, Samsung, etc. will have it build in for such a minimal BOM impact, this will be an expected, common place feature across all prices.
    It will be supported in sensors for sure, but those will be premium-tier sensors, as a differentiation factor. Until today there was no premium sensor used in mass-tier devices.
    Of course, again, if there is demand in the market or a regulation requiring it, it will create an incentive for the industry to follow, but I fail to see why either of this should happen in the coming years.
    >To have a more serious, honest and accurate comparison than OIS, why can you not buy a single new smartphone at any price without some NPU?
    I don't know why OIS is not a "serious, honest and accurate" comparison, can you elaborate?
    As stated, it's a highly mature technology available for over a decade already, providing critical-mass observable end-user value, yet it didn't just naturally "trickle down" to every smartphone price-segment, simply because it comes with additional cost no matter which scale (and the Galaxy A1x tier has massive scale).
    A NPU is just the evolution of a DSP, which exists in Smartphone SoC's for more than a decade now and is required for Audio and Image processing. DSP's used to run pre-calculated inference models for lens-correction, exposure, white-balance, etc., now these processes can run as models on an NPU.
    ---
    You are trying to argue why that feature won't naturally become a commodity at basically no cost. I'm trying to answer why I don't see this happen, because I worked in this industry for more than 20 years.
    The market doesn't get features as a default "easily somehow", features reach this commodity stage because of significant end-user demand (like Camera, Display, Battery), business-value (for the vendor, like Apple Pay) or industry-requirements (like TEE, Widevine example above).
    I don't see this happen for this feature, because there is
    1. no significant end-user value (unless the public narrative is massively skewed towards "everything is true when the image was signed"),
    2. the business-value applies only for Apple's service-proposition for now (which will likely make this feature expand to the non-Pro iPhone tier), and for
    3. the industry-requirement I don't see WHO would actually be able to enforce this, for WHICH actual benefit.
    Topfi · 1789553728 · focus · HN ↗
    > I'm trying to answer why I don't see this happen, because I worked in this industry for more than 20 years.
    And despite that experience, you do not see the universal value in reliable, verifiable image attestation for any user? You cannot imagine why that may not just be very useful, but quickly become required, what the "end-user demand", "business-value" or "industry-requirements" could be?
    rickdeckard · 1789554641 · focus · HN ↗
    This is not what I wrote and a very bad-faith statement of yours.
    There is universal value in many features, yet they didn't become a commodity in all smartphone-tiers.
    I don't see how and why this feature should become a default in all smartphones, which you keep insisting on without apparently comprehending the industry and market aspects I am trying to explain.
    Peace.
    [deleted] · 1789554713 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
    Topfi · 1789554933 · focus · HN ↗
    What? Those three sentences are not really compatible with each other?! Like, they are mutually exclusive and each appears to hold a different position.
    How is what I wrote (that you seem to not see universal benefit) in bad-faith/not what you wrote (honestly trying to understand what you mean) if you then add:
    > I don't see how and why this feature should become a default in all smartphones [...]
    So, do you see universal value or not? Cause you again said you do not and that was precisely what I wrote, that you do not seem to despite it being obvious to anyone who thinks about why phones of any price have cameras.
    Should I honestly start writing a list why private as well as business users of smartphones may want, even need this? Is that really required? Consider every use case of a camera on a phone, please, before I feel the need to do that.
    rickdeckard · 1789557607 · focus · HN ↗
    You fail to understand the difference between a feature having perceived "universal value" and that same feature being applied universally in all price-segments of a device. These are, and I cannot overemphasize this, two different things!
    You stated that you "struggle to see how cost could be a factor here", so in good faith I was trying to give you an insight.
    There is universal value in OIS, as everyone takes pictures while holding the device in his hands, yet OIS is not applied universally in all price-tiers of devices. The reason is COST.
    So you wanted to shift the conversation, claiming that it's not a "serious, honest and accurate" comparison, without providing any reasons for that.
    Again, I walk with you, I respond to what you're stating.
    Now it ends with you starting the straw-man argument of how obviously great this feature is and asking how despite all experience I am not capable to see that.
    See, it doesn't matter if _I_ see universal value in this feature or not, the topic was why I consider it unlikely to become a commodity.
    You tried to move the conversation to this straw-man argument, and doing so in bad-faith. That's why our talk ends here. I give you my side of this conversation so you may read and grow from it, but this is entirely up to you.
    P.S.: You also seem to misunderstand what this feature is. It's NOT picture attestation as you put it.
    Picture attestation means an entity confirms the connection of a picture to something else (some "metadata"), e.g. a picture of a person to an identity (Name, ID,...) or a place. This attestation party can either be a person (self-attested) or an official entity (e.g. a government).
    Nothing in this process changes with this Apple feature, because all it can do is confirm that the picture was taken by the camera as-is, but the attestation to the external metadata (WHO this is, WHAT this is, WHERE this is) still needs to be done by someone else. A party trusted enough to vouch for this.
    But let's end this here. Have a good day.
    Topfi · 1789558444 · focus · HN ↗
    > See, it doesn't matter if _I_ see universal value in this feature or not, the topic was why I consider it unlikely to become a commodity.
    > You tried to move the conversation to this straw-man argument, and doing so in bad-faith [...]
    What? This entire conversation started with the assumption being made that this was going to be iPhone exclusive. I stated doubt and then you (re-read to verify cause you seem to have forgotten that) out of left field and for no discernible reason felt the need to move the conversation to the only massive straw man in this interaction, the 99usd phone market.
    I personally still believe that this is going to be a universal feature soon enough (wait to hear from Omnivision, etc.) and stand by that. This is my personal assessment due to the objective need for such features in the world we live in today. I may be wrong on this, we will see. Maybe it will be restricted to the higher end Android phones, but that would still be compatible with what I started out saying.
    I shouldn't have engaged with someone so serious that they must drag "why couldn't Android OEMs in general do the same" (a purely technical question) down to "99 USD Smartphone" and "premium" on those (an odd and empty pivot). Anyone who does such a shift, well, they must have a well founded, serious point to make.
    coldtea · 1789559773 · focus · HN ↗
    >There is universal value in OIS, as everyone takes pictures while holding the device in his hands, yet OIS is not applied universally in all price-tiers of devices. The reason is COST.
    The reason is digital stabilization is a good enough alternative to not bother, and the lens/sensor modules they use in bulk just didn't come with "analog" stabilization. And OIS is way less important than a future digitally verified photos feature could be (which could be mandated by corporations, banks, governments, insurance companies, for several uses when it becomes widespread), so they didn't bother to add it.
    All kinds of cheapo smartphones still manage to have OIS, just because some Samsung models don't doesn't mean it's a universal argument for cheap phones in general.
    >Nothing in this process changes with this Apple feature, because all it can do is confirm that the picture was taken by the camera as-is, but the attestation to the external metadata (WHO this is, WHAT this is, WHERE this is) still needs to be done by someone else. A party trusted enough to vouch for this.
    Moot point, since the entity (e.g. gov) asking for an untampered photo (which this can do), can combine the photo with the metadata from the upload, like your gov mobile app account.
    [deleted] · 1789559454 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
    coldtea · 1789559345 · focus · HN ↗
    >If COST is not a factor, why does the Galaxy A16 still have no OIS (Optical Image Stabilization)?
    Because it's just not that important, phones and cameras have also used digital stabilization via cropping since forever.
    rickdeckard · 1789566255 · focus · HN ↗
    Those are two fundamentally different things:
    1. OIS (optical stabilization) ensures that the light photons consistently hit the same pixel, removing the blur caused by camera-shake during exposure.
    2. EIS (electrical stabilization) via cropping compensates camera-shake on video(!) recording by applying the same shake to the crop-canvas within the frame.
    --> EIS can fix a shaky video but not a blurry photo.
    coldtea · 1789571047 · focus · HN ↗
    It's 2026, with cleaner high ISOs even in phone sized sensors giving the ability to raise the shutter speed as needed, we hadn't had much of an issue with blurry photos for a decade now, with or without OIS. There have been several expensive cameras with no OIS, like Ricoh GR and (and v2), or ZVE10 (and v2).
    It's video where people care about these days. Does anybody complain about blurry S12 photos?
    rickdeckard · 1789578160 · focus · HN ↗
    Might be boring, but in 2026 "clean high ISOs" in phone-sized sensors mainly comes from image post-processing (stuff like multi-frame merging is done even when shooting "RAW"). Post-processing requires a stable (albeit noisy) image, otherwise it'll be garbage-in/garbage-out.
    --> OIS actually became MORE important for Smartphones in the past years, because while post-processing produces better and better results, it massively depends on usable input data. OIS is one of the very few methods to improve the INPUT-quality for post-processing.
    >"There have been several expensive cameras with no OIS, like Ricoh GR and (and v2), or ZVE10 (and v2)."
    That's a apples and oranges comparison. A quick Google search tells me the size of a pixel on the Ricoh GR sensor is 4.81 µm, which is ~8 times larger than the pixel in recent smartphones (~0,6µm). It is not only physically capable to capture 8x more light, it is also much less affected by minor shaking than sensors with smaller pixel-sizes.
    >"Does anybody complain about blurry S12 photos?"
    Not sure what's a "S12", but:
    - On flagship phones with OIS: Not so much. Maybe in low-light scenarios, because, you know, not much light...
    - On cheaper devices without OIS: Yes! Oh yes, constantly.
    People assume that the picture-quality of a e.g. 2026 Galaxy A16 must be comparable or better than the picture of a 8-year old Galaxy S9. It's not, the S9 is still better in everyday shooting.
    Just check user-reviews of mass-tier smartphones without OIS, like Samsung Galaxy A series...
    fg137 · 1789559078 · focus · HN ↗
    Well, that's kind of like DRM and Widevine, which exists on every consumer device.
    rickdeckard · 1789562910 · focus · HN ↗
    Well, that happened because in ~2011 the entire media industry announced that they will stop media playback on devices which didn't secure the DRM-keys. As media consumption was fundamental to the Smartphone ecosystem, Google made secure-boot and widevine mandatory.
    Sure, the same could happen here, but I don't know which industry (or other body) would demand that and have sufficient justification for it.
    After all, the feature doesn't really change that much for a consumer, the trust-chain is largely unchanged: If I send you a picture and tell you that's my dog, you still have to take my word for it, regardless whether Apple signed the picture or not.
    lotsofpulp · 1789571399 · focus · HN ↗
    Not if Apple can identify the dog as belonging to someone else.
    rickdeckard · 1789579529 · focus · HN ↗
    Apple doesn't validate the content of the image, you will have to trust that it's my dog.
    You wanna buy it now or not? /s
    PunchyHamster · 1789567037 · focus · HN ↗
    > comes at a premium. Why should this premium be applied on a 99 USD Smartphone?
    It's entirely software. It's R&D cost, with basically none of it in hardware (you technically just need the private key store which even very cheap devices have)
  2. jeroenhd · 1789545265 · focus · HN ↗
    A bunch of them already offer one. Have been a while, actually; the S25 and Pixel 10 came with exactly this.
    The timestamping server is the hard part, especially with the verified compute component. It's just not something I see Samsung doing.
    I expect Google to show up with a blog post titled "extending C2PA with timestamps for industry-leading authenticity confirmation" any time.
    Topfi · 1789552632 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't think that's quite the same, though still valuable. Don't those still depend on the OS being trusted?
6. rickdeckard · 1789543712 · focus · HN ↗
  I don't understand the vector of this:
  An insurance would either assign #1 an insurance agent or mechanic to initially assess the damage (trusted) or #2 ask the customer to send pictures (untrusted).
  Tendency is #2 for cost-saving of the insurance, and 3rd party apps are used to execute this.
  Now the idea is that the insurance company discontinues the App and the (untrusted) customer must have an iPhone 18 Pro to make an insurance claim?
  Or is the insurance agent / mechanic an untrusted entity who will now be required to have an iPhone 18 Pro?
  What is the fraud vector here, and how can the insurance service provider continue cost-saving on damage-assessment by offloading to the customer, if the customer is required to own a specific device?
  1. yreg · 1789544751 · focus · HN ↗
    > Now the idea is that the insurance company discontinues the App and the (untrusted) customer must have an iPhone 18 Pro to make an insurance claim?
    In a couple of years it will be almost any iPhone instead of 18 Pro. And if it catches on, other phone vendors will provide a similar service.
    rickdeckard · 1789548531 · focus · HN ↗
    So the insurance would then, instead of contracting the current service-provider for the 3rd party app, contract also with Apple and, let's say Samsung?
    And then stop the 3rd party app which is vendor-agnostic and works on all devices?
    I'd say that's unlikely.
    IF that's an industry this Apple-feature will disrupt, it seems it will barely have an impact on the process of insurance companies themselves, but will actually disrupt the service-provider industry FOR insurances:
    The insurance won't be able to stop their existing 3rd party cost-saving, as it provides the largest device-coverage for offloading to the customer.
    Instead, either the insurance or the 3rd party service-provider will have to pay Apple in addition to make use of this feature, with the hopes that the provided data will reduce fraud.
    Which brings me back to my actual question: What is the fraud-vector here?
    Topfi · 1789551968 · focus · HN ↗
    > So the insurance would then, instead of contracting the current service-provider for the 3rd party app, contract also with Apple and, let's say Samsung?
    The industry has some extensive experience in independently verifying signatures, I don't see how the manufacturers factor in here. And for app features, just ask banks how integrating biometrics, payment services, etc. goes. Tends to be preferred, once Apple and Google Pay became fully available here in Austria, banks dropped their own NFC payment solutions in rapid succession.
    rickdeckard · 1789553163 · focus · HN ↗
    Me neither, so your reply should be on the parent, because it states "And if it catches on, other phone vendors will provide a similar service."
    PunchyHamster · 1789566953 · focus · HN ↗
    >So the insurance would then, instead of contracting the current service-provider for the 3rd party app, contract also with Apple and, let's say Samsung?
    There would be no contract, you just upload image from your phone and they verify signature in the file
  2. bayindirh · 1789544946 · focus · HN ↗
    Some banks needs photos of machine readable IDs to verify user details to fight fraud. These IDs can be passports or NFC enabled EU (and compatible) ID cards.
    This will allow banks to trust these cameras more on the long run, allowing higher security ID checks.
    rickdeckard · 1789546811 · focus · HN ↗
    Okay, this doesn't answer the question on the vector but is another interesting example. Let's expand on that one then:
    Banks are offloading the trusted process of ID verification to an untrusted entity (end-user, merchant,...) and compensate for the loss of security by using a trusted service-provider (now Apple AND an iPhone 18 Pro).
    This is already happening today in two scenarios:
    1. lower-risk scenarios (remotely) with trusted 3rd party service-providers and very low Hardware-requirements ("use this app on your phone to take a picture/video") and
    2. higher-risk scenarios (on-site) with trusted 3rd party service-providers ("use THIS expensive device to take a picture/video of the customer/citizen")
    Apple now potentially disrupts the service-provider industry of #2 (higher-risk scenarios) by
    #a grabbing a part of this hardware/service market that MAY allow the end-user to be in control of the device and
    #b replacing the on-site hardware/service with an iPhone "in a box".
    They can't disrupt #1 because their cost-saving can't mandate the end-user to buy a 1000+ USD device just for THEM to provide the contracted service. (They can add convenience if you have it, but they can't reject their service if you don't)
    Which means they disrupt mainly #2: The industry providing trusted imaging solutions for higher-risk scenarios.
    --> So it's the Watch Ultra game all over again.
    On Watch Ultra they disrupted the diving-watch market by the sheer scale of selling their development to everyone buying a Watch Ultra, driving down the cost so much that they can undercut every diving-watch company on the market.
    Now they use the sheer scale of iPhone 18 Pro sales to enter the trusted-imaging market-segment, undercutting every player there and take that market.
    bayindirh · 1789548655 · focus · HN ↗
    Don't forget law enforcement, customs or any high(ish) stakes sector which needs to be able to trust the images they show as evidence as well.
    Back in the day Canon and Nikon tried this with embedded private keys on their cameras, and with Sandisk's WORM SD cards. Then, somebody extracted the keys and it was game over.
    While my iPhone 17 can't match a full frame mirrorless camera, it can take pretty impressive photos, so they are already more than adequate in detail and clarity department. So making these images trusted is a huge win for them.
    lxgr · 1789578324 · focus · HN ↗
    ID document verification via NFC can't by itself replace also biometrically verifying the person purporting to be the one that the document belongs to.
    Without it, anyone with a stolen document can pass it. (I don't think there's a generally available database of stolen documents, so I suspect these usually remain valid until their regular date of epxiry.)
    bayindirh · 1789586354 · focus · HN ↗
    Generally, the information in our country is checked via multiple ways: NFC + Biometric data (checked against the data inside the ID card) (+ photo of the ID in some cases), or any combination of those.
    Before deepfakes were dime a dozen, I remember my bank starting a video-call with me and required me to show my ID to them via camera. This was after a multi-factor check that I passed.
    Making any of these factors more trustworthy is a win in my perspective, so having a trusted sensor is always better even if you do multi-factor authentication.
    Our ID cards have a private-public key pair inside them, and it allows us to sign things amongst other things. Renewing your ID card for any reason revokes the digital signature of the previous one, so scanning it via NFC probably enough to check whether it's revoked. Same with photo (since machine readable part contains serial and check digits and such).
  3. tgsovlerkhgsel · 1789592424 · focus · HN ↗
    Nowadays they do #3, demand that the customer takes pictures with a special app that claims to make the process nearly as trusted as #1 while being nearly as cheap as #2.
    The idea is indeed that instead or in addition to requiring an app, the insurance company would require the app to run on a phone that supports Reference Image to make sure the image wasn't tampered with. Not right now, when the phones are new, but in a while when 50% of Americans have a sufficiently new iPhone. The rest of the people gets told to either borrow one if they want to make a claim, or go through some other alternative process designed to be so annoying that most people give up.
7. devonsolomon · 1789546592 · focus · HN ↗
  I think you’re on the ball, but also all KYC flows, photo proof for shipping returns (Chinese platforms were getting destroyed on this) etc. etc. It’s a very very clever solution and a very opportune time.
8. intrasight · 1789549652 · focus · HN ↗
  > looking at the repost of a screenshot of the verification UI
  I don't follow. It's my user agent that's verifying the image, and my device will tell me that it's not verified.
9. alwillis · 1789551144 · focus · HN ↗
  > This is really clever from Apple. The journalist use case is just the PR story. This will be really useful for identity verification and insurance apps, and has the potential to shift from "you need a smartphone to be able to live normally" to "you need an iPhone to be able to live normally".
  You have it all wrong.
  Apple Reference Image is not an id system; it's primarily a way to attest that the pixels recorded by the camera sensor have not been altered in any way; the pixels, metadata and timestamp are all cryptographically signed.
  There's no way to link a reference image to a person; it's also not possible to determine if a pair of images came from the same device.
  > And while "a nation state actor can spoof this" is a problem for the journalism use case
  This is incorrect:
  When the image sensor is first initialized in the factory, it creates a cryptographic signing identity, sharing only the public key with the factory. The SEP similarly creates a separately-attested signing identity. These identities are bound together into the device manifest, allowing us to later check whether a particular sensor and SEP are from the same device. The final signature on a reference image is a composite post-quantum signature combining RSA-3072 and ML-DSA-87. To our knowledge, Apple Reference Image is the only image provenance system that provides quantum-secure defenses.
  So… a nation-state can't really do anything here unless they acquire alien technology. If something crazy happens (solar flare or EMP?), a fraudulent reference image can be revoked.
  > Also, the journalism use case suffers from the same fundamental issue all of these use cases suffer from: People will "verify" the picture by looking at the repost of a screenshot of the verification UI, not by verifying the original themselves.
  I would imagine there will be a way to confirm an Apple Reference Image on the web. Pretty soon, 3rd parties will be able to verify the image themselves:
  Reference images can be viewed in the Photos app alongside the main image, like a digital negative, to visually compare the two assets and determine if any edits were made. APIs are available in iOS, iPadOS, and macOS 27 for third-party apps to enable viewing of these reference images.
  1. Retr0id · 1789551957 · focus · HN ↗
    EMPs are not "alien technology", and you don't need to be a nation state either. That said, Apple's hardware security is generally very good.
    setopt · 1789553591 · focus · HN ↗
    > EMPs are not "alien technology"
    Yup, you don’t even need nukes: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_pumped_flux_compression_generator" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_pumped_flux_compre...
    Retr0id · 1789556291 · focus · HN ↗
    or a bic lighter <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezo_ignition" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezo_ignition
  2. iugtmkbdfil834 · 1789551990 · focus · HN ↗
    << Apple Reference Image is not an id system;
    I think you have a point. I would only note that just because it is not explicitly designed as one, does not mean it will not be effectively utilized in that manner.
  3. mitxela · 1789552719 · focus · HN ↗
    You'll still need an iPhone, the verification is linked to the specific iPhone, and the specific iPhone is linked to you.
    throw0101c · 1789558884 · focus · HN ↗
    > You'll still need an iPhone, the verification is linked to the specific iPhone, and the specific iPhone is linked to you.
    Unless you use a friend's iPhone, or an iPhone you 'rented' for 5 minutes for $20 from someone on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace to take a picture on and then Airdrop to you.
    mitxela · 1789559455 · focus · HN ↗
    Buying a new overpriced phone every time you want to take a picture is certainly a decision.
    autoexec · 1789576453 · focus · HN ↗
    If they airdrop it to you that typically requires you to have an iphone or a mac and airdrop users are able to be identified and tracked so the photo could still be linked to your device. The EU forced apple to use Wi-Fi Aware though, so unless that's similarly vulnerable people in the EU might be able to avoid those issues.
    propaganja · 1789577907 · focus · HN ↗
    What? Just send the photo using literally any other method. Am I missing something, or did everyone just waste two minutes of their lives reading this?
    tmp10423288442 · 1789578332 · focus · HN ↗
    Only wasted two minutes if you read really slowly
    lxgr · 1789579125 · focus · HN ↗
    Airdrop has been supported on many Android devices even outside the EU for a while now: <a href="https://www.android.com/quick-share/with-iphone/" rel="nofollow">https://www.android.com/quick-share/with-iphone/
    Or you could just email/WhatsApp/... it.
    throw0101c · 1789583328 · focus · HN ↗
    > If they airdrop it to you that typically requires you to have an iphone or a mac […]
    Perhaps do not be so literal: Airdrop, SMS/MMS/RCS, WhatsApp, Signal, etc:
    * <a href="https://github.com/localsend/localsend" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/localsend/localsend
    autoexec · 1789597941 · focus · HN ↗
    I agree, lots of alternatives to the specific one you suggested exist and would probably be better.
    alwillis · 1789581772 · focus · HN ↗
    The reference image isn't linked to any particular iPhone or person:
    We built Apple Reference Image to avoid using an explicit, public credential for photographers, and to avoid even implicit public association between different photos taken by the same sensor. The final reference image is instead signed by Apple’s signing service, after validation by PCC. That signature is backed by Apple’s strongest technical guarantees. Our implementation also protects the confidentiality of the image itself, including from Apple. Merely capturing a reference image should never expose the actual pixels to Apple or anyone else. We achieve this through the exceptional privacy properties of PCC — the nodes themselves are architected so that not even Apple can access image data, just as Apple cannot see the information processed for Apple Intelligence in PCC.
    microtonal · 1789631026 · focus · HN ↗
    The reference image isn't linked to any particular iPhone or person
    It is for Apple, to the extend that if there are backdoors and weaknesses in their PCC, they could register a device signing identity to Apple signature mapping.
    I think the line of reasoning is that you have to trust Apple anyway, since they could also roll out a malicious image to your particular phone, but I still feel like PCC is much harder to verify/audit than an iPhone already is.
  4. layer8 · 1789553732 · focus · HN ↗
    > it's also not possible to determine if a pair of images came from the same device.
    It’s possible for Apple, as stated in the blog post (e.g. “which lets the device later produce signatures that Apple can attribute to that specific phone”).
    sandy_ilands · 1789557337 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
    meindnoch · 1789562735 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
  5. RobotToaster · 1789554372 · focus · HN ↗
    > So… a nation-state can't really do anything here unless they acquire alien technology.
    At least for the image itself, using direct projection onto the sensor (in a way similar to a retinal projector or film recorder) would be difficult to detect I imagine?
    wildzzz · 1789579786 · focus · HN ↗
    They mention something about image heuristics typical of an iPhone image, that may mean that this reference mode takes a spatial image using dual sensors that help convince the PCC that it's an image of something real. Or perhaps it uses a lidar sensor, both lidar and reference mode are only offered on the Pro models. The whole camera system is one module so it could be using all of it. Regardless, you'd need a pretty complex setup and a deep understanding of the image sensors to project something that looks real. We really don't know what is in that first lump of signed sensor data.
    But at the end of the day, even if you manage to get a fake reference image, it's still on the person making the claim to show that the content of the image is real. A reference image of a document is useless, the physical document could be a forgery. A photo of people could be refuted with alibis during the timestamp window (max 15 minutes it sounds like?). A photo of property damage doesn't prove how or when it happened.
  6. coldtea · 1789559032 · focus · HN ↗
    >There's no way to link a reference image to a person; it's also not possible to determine if a pair of images came from the same device.
    Apple knows the iphone the reference image was uploaded from, so, yes, there is.
    jclardy · 1789561873 · focus · HN ↗
    It doesn't, as it is run through an Oblivious HTTP relay run by a third party before getting to Apple's servers. So it has no IP information, and the requests use anonymous access tokens.
    It is probably possible for an entity to break it, but it would require live access to both Apple and the third party (Likely Cloudflare) servers. And that is assuming there is only one third party routing OHTTP requests, otherwise you would need to monitor all of them, in real time, since the requests are transient.
    cobbzilla · 1789575786 · focus · HN ↗
    Apple gets the device-signed image and replaces with a PCC signature to preserve anonymity.
    > The final reference image is instead signed by Apple’s signing service, after validation by PCC.
    So, if compelled, Apple could theoretically tell someone if two images came from the same camera.
    lxgr · 1789579224 · focus · HN ↗
    I wonder why they're not doing something like DAA [1], which achieves the same privacy properties without a centralized server.
    [1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Anonymous_Attestation" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Anonymous_Attestation
    colejohnson66 · 1789579363 · focus · HN ↗
    Still, "the same camera" isn't "this person" without more information.
    cobbzilla · 1789581728 · focus · HN ↗
    sure but if you can tie “this person” to “this one photo”, then for any photo, Apple can (again, theoretically) identify all photos by that person.
    it’s one step removed from identity.
    fwiw i think this is an unambiguous improvement over current post-sensor attestations, it’s just good to explore the edges
    alwillis · 1789583350 · focus · HN ↗
    > So, if compelled, Apple could theoretically tell someone if two images came from the same camera.
    No they couldn't.
    If you generate two SSH key pairs on your laptop, there's no way to confirm they were created on the same machine.
    There's no device identifying data in a reference image, which is the point. The factory signature, the image sensor key, the Secure Enclave Processor key and all of the signing that takes place on PCC are all device-agnostic.
    The reference image is processed and eventually signed by Private Cloud Compute's post-quantum signature using a hybrid MLDSA87-RSA-3072-PSS-SHA512 scheme.
    So… it's not possible for Apple to know if two images came from the same iPhone.
    cobbzilla · 1789584186 · focus · HN ↗
    I stand corrected. If it’s truly only the signatures and zero other identifying info, then yes you’re as secure as the underlying algorithm. I think they implied there are multiple device-originated signatures for different parts of the data, this may open some possibilities for cryptanalysis
    microtonal · 1789630715 · focus · HN ↗
    I am not sure I follow. The private keys in the image sensor and the SEP are static, so you can see that two images are signed with the same private key. Apple 'decorrelates' this by letting PCC verify the signature and then replacing it by their own signature:
    When the user initiates developing a reference image, the device uploads the secure digital negative to Private Cloud Compute. PCC recomputes the digest embedded in the frame and verifies the sensor's signature over the pixels and that digest, verifying the certificate chain back to the sensor CA. PCC also verifies the SEP signature and chains it to the BAA CA, and it verifies the signature on the device manifest and chains it to the CA that signs device manifests at the factory. It then confirms that the sensor and SEP named in those chains belong to the same device. [...] If these checks pass, PCC then submits the commitment to our signing service, which signs it with a composite post-quantum signature using a hybrid MLDSA87-RSA-3072-PSS-SHA512 scheme. The signature is embedded in the JPEG, and the reference image is returned to the device, which associates it with the main photo from the original capture.
    After the secure digital negative is successfully developed, it's automatically moved to the deleted photos folder."
    So in the end it all depends on how much you trust Apple's cloud and PCC nodes. If there is a weakness in their services, Apple could record both the original signatures and their signature, and could prove whether two photos were made using the same lens/device and they could even trace it back to a specific device (by looking up the original signature + signing identity given their signature).
  7. monocasa · 1789561959 · focus · HN ↗
    Nation states almost certainly have the ability to extract the private keys out of an image sensor and SEP. Outside of superpowers even if you're willing to do it destructively.
    They can then sign their own fraudulent images.
    autoexec · 1789576782 · focus · HN ↗
    The NSA has probably already forced Apple to hand the keys over to them.
    propaganja · 1789581170 · focus · HN ↗
    Apple would be legally restricted from disclosing any government compromises, while still claiming their systems are secure and operating as intended in general.
    We already know it's happening right now, and they know we know, but we can't do shit about it.
    alwillis · 1789598242 · focus · HN ↗
    > Apple would be legally restricted from disclosing any government compromises, while still claiming their systems are secure and operating as intended in general.
    I'm aware. The point is they can't give the NSA something they don't have. The photo sensor generates its own ECDSA P-256 signing key pair and never releases the private half.
    Every device has a unique key pair and the private key is unavailable… there's not a way to give the NSA that would help them. The system is setup so that the image data, meta data, etc can't be accessed by anyone including Apple.
    microtonal · 1789629463 · focus · HN ↗
    I believe them, but the process is hard to check. How do we verify that they don’t have the sensor burn in a private key generated by them?
    (Similar to how many PGP hardware keys allow generating a private key on-device or writing your own provided key.)
    alwillis · 1789609023 · focus · HN ↗
    Here's a flow chart; tell us at what point there's something Apple can be compelled by a 3-letter organization to produce: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49735284">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49735284
    microtonal · 1789631346 · focus · HN ↗
    I think the chart exactly shows the weakness that some people have pointed out. Apple's PCC servers at some point in time know the signing identity for a photo and Apple's generated replacement signature. The relevant steps from your chart:
    - verifies each link and its certificate chain, sensor signature over pixels, SEP signature, device manifest signature
    - PCC Submits the commitment (the JPEG hash) to Apple's signing service.
    So, at some point in time, Apple's servers have both the original certificate chain and the new replacement signature. If this is recorded, Apple can deanonimize photos and check whether two photos were from the same device/sensor.
    Apple's system protects against most state actors, except Apple and the US, unless you fully trust that their PCC is watertight.
    (Remember that Apple was part of PRISM and probably also its successor.)
    I don't think law enforcement needs it, because when sending/posting a picture, people leak so much metadata anyway.
    But people outside the US should certainly distrust these systems.
    alwillis · 1789581423 · focus · HN ↗
    > The NSA has probably already forced Apple to hand the keys over to them.
    Again, that's not how it works.
    There's no set of keys and certificates they could give to the NSA. Every iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max has a unique set of cryptographic keys, most of which can't be accessed by Apple.
    The first thing that happens is when photo sensor is initialized at the factory, it creates its own ECDSA P-256 signing key pair; the private key is never disclosed. The public key is signed by the factory's certificate authority.
    This ain't X.509 where VeriSign's key pair is sitting in a HSM at their HQ and in theory could be forced to sign a fraudulent certificate or revoke someone's valid website certificate.
    microtonal · 1789629397 · focus · HN ↗
    They don’t need the signing keys though. Apple could roll out a separate version of sepOS to assist law enforcement that signs at they will.
    Also, while the unique device ID is supposed to be burned into fuses by the SE during production, it is kinda hard to prove for anyone that is not Apple that this indeed happens in the way they state.
    Personally I’m not a strong believer in such theories though. I think it’s more mundane and Apple helps law enforcement by having some weak defaults. Like how iMessage is end-to-end encrypted, but most chats are available to law enforcement because most people turn on iCloud Backups/Messages in iCloud and not ADP, resulting in chats only being encrypted at-rest in iCloud. This is only stated somewhere in a footnote in one of their security documents.
    There are more weak defaults like that in various crucial apps (e.g. WhatsApp) that makes most important stuff available to law enforcement when needed.
    alwillis · 1789579957 · focus · HN ↗
    > Nation states almost certainly have the ability to extract the private keys out of an image sensor and SEP. Outside of superpowers even if you're willing to do it destructively. They can then sign their own fraudulent images.
    That's not how this works.
    Let's pretend they're able to extract the sensor key and the SEP key. Then what?
    An attacker won't have the ECDSA P-256 over SHA-256 signed timestamp token from the Apple Push Notification Service.
    When Reference mode starts, the operating system supplies a SHA-256 digest to be embedded at a fixed location in the captured frame’s metadata. The digest is computed from the most recent secure timestamp, the device manifest, and the device's secure boot manifest.
    More encryption and checking happens until the secure digital negative is sent to Private Cloud Compute:
    PCC recomputes the digest embedded in the frame and verifies the sensor's signature over the pixels and that digest, verifying the certificate chain back to the sensor CA. PCC also verifies the SEP signature and chains it to the BAA CA, and it verifies the signature on the device manifest and chains it to the CA that signs device manifests at the factory. It then confirms that the sensor and SEP named in those chains belong to the same device. Only if all these checks pass does processing continue.
    Only PCC can create an Apple Reference Image; an attacker having the image and sensor private keys doesn't enable them to create a reference image.
    monocasa · 1789593035 · focus · HN ↗
    > An attacker won't have the ECDSA P-256 over SHA-256 signed timestamp token from the Apple Push Notification Service.
    Sure they can, they have everything needed to prove to Apple's servers that they're a real iPhone since pulling the keys means they have the cryptographic root of trust, and Apple's servers will happily be a signature oracle for them in that case.
    > When Reference mode starts, the operating system supplies a SHA-256 digest to be embedded at a fixed location in the captured frame’s metadata. The digest is computed from the most recent secure timestamp, the device manifest, and the device's secure boot manifest.
    And when you know what is measured into those manifests and the keys at the root of trust you can manufacture those too.
    The entire scheme is dependent on not being able to extract device specific keys. At the end of the day, those are almost certainly efuses burnt based on a on-chip HRNG as a manufacturing step which is intended to never leave the device, but instead only signatures and associated public keys.
    But when you have chip development hardware of the kind you'd have at a decent fabless semiconductor company, you can very clearly see burnt efuses.
    alwillis · 1789608827 · focus · HN ↗
    I made a flow chart of the Apple Reference Image process; hopefully it clears up some misconceptions [1].
    [1]: "How pixels become an Apple Reference Image" - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49735284">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49735284
    monocasa · 1789670359 · focus · HN ↗
    That matches what I said.
  8. walrus01 · 1789563329 · focus · HN ↗
    > Apple Reference Image is not an id system; it's primarily a way to attest that the pixels recorded by the camera sensor have not been altered in any way
    You think that this won't be used as additional data by the various competing companies who have implemented "take a live still or video selfie of yourself with your phone and show us your ID cards" for identity verification purposes?
  9. JW_00000 · 1789564559 · focus · HN ↗
    > Apple Reference Image is not an id system; it's primarily a way to attest that the pixels recorded by the camera sensor have not been altered in any way; the pixels, metadata and timestamp are all cryptographically signed.
    > There's no way to link a reference image to a person; it's also not possible to determine if a pair of images came from the same device.
    Some banking apps nowadays ask you to upload a photo of your ID and then use the webcam/selfie camera to confirm that's it's really you (sometimes asking you to move your head in a particular way). But how trustworthy is that process really? Apple Reference Image could be (part of) a solution, by certifying that both images were taken by the same device around the same time.
    CrazyStat · 1789565954 · focus · HN ↗
    > Apple Reference Image could be (part of) a solution, by certifying that both images were taken by the same device
    This is explicitly not possible, as the post you were replying to pointed out.
    [deleted] · 1789567432 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
  10. tencentshill · 1789564625 · focus · HN ↗
    I can tell its 'shopped because of the pixels
  11. PunchyHamster · 1789566845 · focus · HN ↗
    The described scheme links the image to the device's signing key
    > There's no way to link a reference image to a person; it's also not possible to determine if a pair of images came from the same device.
    How would they do that ? There is only one signed key of the device
  12. startup_zombie_ · 1789571248 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
  13. appletrotter · 1789572213 · focus · HN ↗
    Looks like you saw the word ID and went off. OP never called it an ID system
  14. cvoss · 1789574406 · focus · HN ↗
    > You have it all wrong.
    > Apple Reference Image is not an id system
    GP does not have it all wrong. A company desiring you to prove your identity often asks for a photograph of your government ID. Now that this is easily faked, it is reasonable to expect that the company will ask for a verifiably authentic photograph of your government ID.
    That the Apple Reference Image itself is not traceable to the device/user is beside the point in this use case.
    slester · 1789575806 · focus · HN ↗
    Why would anyone be using images of government IDs when modern documents have NFC chips with the data, signed and with anti-cloning mechanisms on them? If they can verify an Apple Reference Image they can verify an NFC document.
    JumpCrisscross · 1789577066 · focus · HN ↗
    > If they can verify an Apple Reference Image they can verify an NFC document
    Interfacing with images is easy. Interfacing with NFC takes work. I have experienced precisely zero identity-verification workflows which NFC'd anything, and that includes my banks, which could easily ask for my debit card's NFC but don't.
    inquirerGeneral · 1789578440 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
    lxgr · 1789578870 · focus · HN ↗
    ICAO doc 9303 validation is about 10 lines in Python (on top of importing the right packages) last time I did it around 2012. I doubt it has become harder since then.
    fweimer · 1789580028 · focus · HN ↗
    Was the public key directory even operational in 2012? What about revocation checking?
    I think processing that information is mandatory now, but probably was optional/largely unimplemented in 2012. But maybe I'm off by five years or so?
    lxgr · 1789592955 · focus · HN ↗
    Revocation checking seems like a big gap, yeah. I’m not aware of any public revocation lists (but I’m also not super familiar with the industry), so I can only assume (hope?) that there are some shadowy but highly accurate databases that KYC providers are tapping into.
    The CA public key I just got off my country’s website, they were kind enough to just publish it :)
    crote · 1789581278 · focus · HN ↗
    Counterpoint: all of the identity-verification flows I have experienced in the last few years used NFC to read the chip in my identity documents - from car rental apps to my bank doing KYC.
    If anything, verifying NFC is easier than images. Asking the chip in my identity card to provide a cryptographically-signed "This document belongs to Jane Doe" request is a handful of lines of code. Doing the same with images? Good luck coming up with an approach which isn't fooled by a photocopy!
    JumpCrisscross · 1789585070 · focus · HN ↗
    Cool! Where are you geographically? I’m mostly in North America, Europe and South Asia.
    microtonal · 1789628289 · focus · HN ↗
    My credit card company’s app (in Europe) reads my ID through NFC when logging in for the first time (besides requiring ID photos).
    Our national app for logging into government sites and confirming things also requires a step where the ID’s NFC is read to reach the highest trust level.
    So it’s definitely becoming more and more common here.
    tmp10423288442 · 1789578290 · focus · HN ↗
    There are tons of online services that require you to take pictures of your face, driver’s licenses, passports, etc.
    happyopossum · 1789578335 · focus · HN ↗
    How exactly am I expected to upload my nfc chip to my insurance company’s website?
    lxgr · 1789579027 · focus · HN ↗
    They just have you tap your identity document against your phone. Works pretty well in my experience.
    The phone is just a relay to a remote server here, as newer ICAO machine readable travel documents intentionally don't support signatures/non-repudiation anymore, so you have to run the entire exchange against a component you trust (i.e. your server, not so much your app on a rooted/manipulated phone).
    rickdeckard · 1789579396 · focus · HN ↗
    I agree, but for this to matter, a critical amount of fraud should be based on people uploading modified photos of ID's.
    If someone took a picture of a fake ID in the past, this method will bring no benefit, it will just add Apple as a paid service-provider.
    It also doesn't change the trust-relationship between the two parties: If I need to prove my identity by uploading a government ID, _I_ am doing the photo attestation that this is the ID matching the data I provided, with or without an Apple Reference image.
    alwillis · 1789583962 · focus · HN ↗
    > Now that this is easily faked, it is reasonable to expect that the company will ask for a verifiably authentic photograph of your government ID.
    The image will be authentic, but an authentic image of a fake id isn't useful to them.
    Also--only two iPhone models support this technology. It'll be years before the DMV or whoever could count on enough adoption before they could support it.
    vablings · 1789590042 · focus · HN ↗
    I think this is a good thing. Proof that an image is actually real is a valuable underpinning of society and being able to provide that is incredibly important.
  15. lxgr · 1789578684 · focus · HN ↗
    No, you just didn't understand GPs point, i.e. that an image provenance/authentication system (such as Apple Reference Image) can eventually become a load-bearing and by extension anticompetitive component in a larger authentication/identity verification scheme.
    > a nation-state can't really do anything here unless they acquire alien technology.
    Alien technology such as NSLs or supply chain attacks against Apple?
  16. solarkraft · 1789579265 · focus · HN ↗
    You seem to have it wrong. You don’t need an identification system for these use cases, you only need exactly what the tech does.
  17. illiac786 · 1789589117 · focus · HN ↗
    How is stealing/extracting a private key alien technology? Or even more simple, subpoena a private key to create fake authentic compromising pictures of pesky political opponents.
10. aacid · 1789551592 · focus · HN ↗
  Yrs; that is what world needs, complete dependency on one giga corporation... I cannot wait for it to happen!
  1. bluebarbet · 1789551742 · focus · HN ↗
    Empty snark adds nothing to the conversation.
11. layer8 · 1789553430 · focus · HN ↗
  The one issue I have it that it lets Apple determine if two reference images were taken by he same defice. In particular if one of the images is of an ID, or otherwise contains identifying information, that is a privacy downside, and authorities can subpoena Apple to check for and reveal this connection between multiple images.
12. megous · 1789557580 · focus · HN ↗
  Sadly, people will happily go with this crypto-lockdown until there's no personal computing whatsoever. Only way to fight is not to play, or hack this in some way.
13. FireBeyond · 1789568484 · focus · HN ↗
  > This is really clever from Apple. The journalist use case is just the PR story. This will be really useful for identity verification and insurance apps
  This is definitely not an Apple thing, though the use profile is more ubiquitous. Canon had, more than twenty years ago, when they first started making DSLRs, the question of "If we want law enforcement to use these, how do we handle the inevitable questions?" and as a result built out the option to digitally sign the raw sensor data in-camera so the raw file could be pointed to in court with an attestation of image integrity.
14. qurren · 1789573042 · focus · HN ↗
  I think the biggest downside here is we're moving toward a world in which only Apple and Google and a few other privileged manufacturers can make cameras.
  Related: It is also moving toward a world where the US effectively becomes the world judge of truth
15. dwaite · 1789582065 · focus · HN ↗
  Identity Verification is the realm of digital credentials. The goal isn't to make putting a driving license or passport on a desk and to verify the picture is of authentic pixels, but to move to mDL / EIDAS2 technology to have a digital representation of a driving license/passport.
  This tech would just indicate that they got authentic pixels capturing a potentially fake license.
  Likewise, this doesn't help as much as you'd like with most bespoke remote selfie verification systems, since this doesn't support video, doesn't protect against MITM and adds a remote processing delay that breaks any time-of-flight measurement. It shuffles the risks around.
  1. EmbarrassedHelp · 1789614137 · focus · HN ↗
    Nobody is worry about making the jobs of age verification companies trying to violate user privacy any easier. In fact we should be moving towards new ways of circumventing these attacks on privacy.
16. lr1970 · 1789585828 · focus · HN ↗
  And it also makes Apple's Private Compute to process all the pictures taken by all the iphones. Can we trust their privacy preservation against a court order?

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