What people said 24 voices · best of 89 · verbatim

• S

  Very excited about Apple Reference Image. An important and impressive bit of tech.

  sdw.bsky.socialBluesky14d ago41▲view on Bluesky ↗
• S

  > Also, I didn't know about C2PA before reading this, I'm guessing this is going to be an important piece of that chain of trust when editing is involved. C2PA is [kind of garbage](https://lobste.rs/s/4netv1/c2pa_cameras_do_not_survive_contact_with), seemingly.

  strugeesecurity7d ago10▲view on Lobsters ↗
• A

  > 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…

  alwillisHacker News7d agoview on Hacker News ↗
• Z

  “If you think of SynthID as a tag that follows an image around the web, Apple Reference Image is more like a receipt the photographer can show later as proof of origin.” https://www. niemanlab.org/2026/09/apple-la unches-a-new-way-to-prove-a-photo-was-shot-with-an-iphone-not-generated-by-ai/

  zoocoup@mastodon.socialMastodon11d agoview on Mastodon ↗
• @

  interesting detail about Apple Reference Image: it uses their push notification service to get timestamps ranges separately from the iPhone's own clock if it can't verify the earliest time the photo was captured, it uses the date that Apple Reference Image was first created

  @camstadesignX7d agoview on X ↗
• S

  It’s like blockchain provenance. Sure you can copy and modify the asset, but theres always a provable original (Reference) copy to prove origin.

  santagoor/technology7d agoview on r/technology ↗
• T

  Honestly quite glad to see this. I've thought for a while now that a path forward for media authenticity in the generative AI era is going to be a full, cryptographically-verifiable chain of trust (from original capture to viewing). I think this is just the start, and Apple is probably the most appropriate party to start this. In their words…

  technojaminsecurity7d ago7▲view on Lobsters ↗
• R

  This approach assumes that the smartphone in question is not under the user’s control. That should generally not be the case. When I buy a device, I have the right to install whatever I want on it and to make the camera sensors believe whatever I want. If something cannot be implemented securely under these circumstances, it’s not a good idea, and…

  RandomGerm4nHacker News7d agoview on Hacker News ↗
• T

  Apple introduced Apple Reference Image to help users determine whether photos have been edited, including alterations made by AI. https:// techcrunch.com/2026/09/09/appl e-has-a-new-way-prove-your-iphone-photos-arent-ai-slop/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

  TechCrunch@mstdn.socialMastodon14d agoview on Mastodon ↗
• @

  Watching the Apple launch event and I thought this was interesting: a feature called Apple Reference Image makes an unalterable original version of each pic you take, so you can prove it was real and what it actually captured if AI fakes start circulating

  @willoremusX14d agoview on X ↗
• G

  No, the post says this was a core requirement: "Privacy preservation: an outside observer cannot determine whether any pair of reference images were taken by the same device. Image contents are not exposed to Apple or anyone else."

  gignicosecurity7d ago7▲view on Lobsters ↗
• R

  To me the weakest spot of this whole endeavor is how this will create false confidence in a story just because the accompanying images pass Apple's verification.Like with the Watch Ultra (attacking the diving-watch market with the sheer volume-scale of selling the development to everyone buying a Watch Ultra), Apple is attacking the…

  rickdeckardHacker News7d agoview on Hacker News ↗
• P

  Apple's new Reference Image feature embeds sensor-level proof into your shots, making it impossible to hide generative AI edits. Here's how it works: https://www. pcmag.com/news/the-iphone-18-p ro-has-a-secret-weapon-that-busts-fake-ai-photos

  PCMag@mastodon.socialMastodon7d agoview on Mastodon ↗
• @

  OH WAIT THIS IS COOL! Apple Reference Image will prove the authenticity of a photo taken on iPhone 18 Pro. (AI images get tagged with SynthID). now i need all social media platforms to recognize the signature.

  @dnvrsnX14d agoview on X ↗
• V

  I've always seen efforts like these like DRM. We will spend months and years wrangling standardization and deep hierarchies of trust, only for some 20 year old with too much time on his hands to figure out a way to feed a fake signal directly to the sensor circuitry and offer fake "verified" images as a service. How can a sensor trust the photons…

  vprsecurity7d ago5▲view on Lobsters ↗
• R

  I don't understand the vector of this:An insurance would either send #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…

  rickdeckardHacker News7d agoview on Hacker News ↗
• S

  Very excited about Apple Reference Image. An important and impressive bit of tech. https:// techcrunch.com/2026/09/09/appl e-has-a-new-way-prove-your-iphone-photos-arent-ai-slop/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=threads

  sdw@mastodon.socialMastodon14d agoview on Mastodon ↗
• @

  Apple Reference Image is new. It grabs sensor level data to create a reference image, basically digital negative, that you can keep alongside an edited photo. Helps verify real, authentic, unedited photos.

  @mweinbachX14d agoview on X ↗
• N

  > "Image contents are not exposed to Apple or anyone else.” Hmm.. but they are uploaded to Apple’s Private Cloud Compute environment, so they are exposed to Apple-run infrastructure. If that infrastructure is compromised, say by the LLM agents they also run there (which appear to be very good at compromising things), then image contents may well…

  neilmaddensecurity7d ago4▲view on Lobsters ↗
• J

  Seems to lead us down the slippery slope of requiring an Apple device, or a Google device (e.g., https://cybernews.com/privacy/google-qr-code-recaptcha-requi...), or the device of some other entity (that may be mostly non-aligned with democratic values) in order to participate in society.The unfortunate result of AI slop is reduced trust, which in…

  jsroznerHacker News7d agoview on Hacker News ↗
• R

  Interesting attempt to try and guarantee image provenance on the new iPhones.....which is critical in today's world of deep-fakery. https:// security.apple.com/blog/apple- reference-image

  rickf@indieweb.socialMastodon8d agoview on Mastodon ↗
• @

  Well, this is where we are now. Apple is introducing Apple Reference Image, its way of digitally watermarking photos to verify that they were actually captured by a camera—not generated by AI.

  @joannasternX14d agoview on X ↗
• J

  I'm confused, if this is a hardware thing, what's stopping nation states from REing it and spoofing it? I've always been of the opinion is that when you put security axioms into the hands of untrusted users you've immediately invalidated them.

  junonsecurity7d ago4▲view on Lobsters ↗
• W

  The timestamp system seems like it provides more benefit than signing the image data itself, at least in terms of difficulty to fake. As long as rolling back the stored timestamp token is prevented, I would have to find a phone that never updated its timestamp after the time I want to fake. Of course you could potentially find a phone that last…

  wkyHacker News7d agoview on Hacker News ↗