Microsoft releases tool to spot abuse images
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
Also to be able to use the service you have to apply as a business and be approved manually.
This would have been more useful as a software that runs directly on your server and checks at the time of upload (or to run against existing local user-content) instead of requiring re-uploads of the content to their cloud, not to mention the privacy implications.
Another puzzling thing is that they say MS doesn't retain the images and that they're converting the content to hashes immediately and comparing against known abuse hashes. Wouldn't it be more efficient for everyone if the hash were generated locally and only the hash sent up to their cloud?
converts images into a common black-and-white format
and uniform size, then divides the image into squares
and assigns a numerical value that represents the
unique shading found within each square. Together,
those numerical values represent the "PhotoDNA
signature" or "hash" of an image
What I was suggesting was that the hash generation tool they use be distributed so the hash can be generated locally before sending to MS. This way MS can continue to keep all known hashes to themselves while making it easier for businesses to bulk check images without huge bandwidth charges or privacy issues.