Monday, July 25, 2016

Robust hashing?

Robust hashing?

Robust hashing could be new tech tool to fight terror online

From rabid terror propaganda to dangerous rumour-mongering, the internet is an archive of inflammatory material that governments as well as social media networks across the world have struggled to contain and cope with. Since mid-2015 to the beginning of this year, Twitter suspended over 1,25,000 accounts linked to Islamic State terror group. Yet organizations promoting terror continue to survive, if not thrive, online .

Now, a cutting-edge technology could emerge as the biggest tool to combat the menace. Hany Farid, senior advisor to the US-based Counter Extremism Project, has helped develop a technology called robust hashing which uses a software to identify images, videos, and audio clips by comparing them against a bank of stored content.

With robust hashing, content can be taken down as soon as it is identified. "It can be fully automated. The only manual step would be if a service provider wants to check if posted material is by media outlet," Farid told TOI over email, adding, "We can create a white-list of approved sites and ban all other users."

This is how it works: Machines see an image as a series of 1s and 0s. Images and its components are identified by a unique code, known as a hash. The hash remains the same even if you resize or crop an image. While filtering images, the software compares these hashes against those of a repository of images it already has. A hash match leads to flagging of content.

Farid had earlier developed a similar technology for identifying and taking down child pornography. The software, called PhotoDNA, was used by social networking giants like Facebook and Twitter. That was in 2013.


Regards

Pralhad Jadhav
Senior Manager @ Library
Khaitan & Co


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