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0 pointsKarunamon11y ago0 comments

That leaves a question of collisions open. The chances are really low, but not zero - does a hash match automatically generate events that lead to your front door being kicked open and your pets shot, or is there an actual human that needs to open the file and verify that yeah, it is a child abuse image?

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6 comments · 2 top-level

Paul-ish11y ago· 4 in thread

With any good hash function there is pretty much zero risk of this happening.

KarunamonOP11y ago

I'm not willing to ruin someone's life over the equivalent of winning a particularly bad lottery.

Retra11y ago

A hash collision is not proof of anything. You just look at the picture if the hash matches. It is not illegal to own an image that hashes to the same thing as an illegal image would.

Scaevolus11y ago

Your chances of having your life ruined by any other cause is at least 2^64 times more likely than because your uploaded cute_cat.jpg has the same hash as a flagged child_porn.jpg.

eli11y ago

Depending on the exact hash, the odds might be more like winning 10,000 lotteries.

sz4kerto11y ago

Hey, they _have_ that picture. If there is a hash collision, then a human will look at it. (Not that hash collisions are _that_ common.)

Why would they come to your door for the stuff you store at them? :)

Edit: you mentioned lottery below. Well, waiting for a collision in the case of a good hash function is a lottery where nobody's winning for a few billion years :).

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