[eqvinox]

> matching images against known hashes

That's not how that works, last I checked. AIUI it's much more fuzzy. Has to be, being scum doesn't automatically make you an idiot, and a single bit change would make plain old hashes entirely useless.

Insert your favourite dystopia to see where that ends up and how companies benefit from it.

[IncreasePosts]

Hash functions don't need to be bit-level sensitive. See: "perceptual hashing"

[eqvinox]

I personally really prefer the "fingerprint" wording for those, but yes. The question is whether there is a workable area on the sliding scale between "too narrowly matching" and "too prone to malfunction/easy to manipulate/unpredictable". I think no, or rather, the point by which you "solve" this, it's not something you can call a "function" anymore. (e.g. heavier machine learning approaches)