Comment by tgsovlerkhgsel

Yrs; that is what world needs, complete dependency on one giga corporation... I cannot wait for it to happen!

> 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.

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?

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.

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.

> […] 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?

> 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.

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.

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.

> 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.