LifeHash Best Practices

LifeHashes can improve the security of digital data in conjunection with other methods of inspection and hashing, but they must be presented well, as discussed in the following best practices.

Also see the OIB Best Practices.

LifeHash Presentation

Present LifeHash as a Square

Don’t vignette or round the corners of a LifeHash image. Every pixel contributes to the security of the image, so show the image as a square. If you really want to round the corners, make the radius small enough to still show the corner pixels.

Present LifeHash Crisply

Don’t interpolate or blur a LifeHash image: show every pixel crisply. On iOS UIKit this is accomplished by setting layer.magnificationFilter = .nearest on a UIImageView. Under SwiftUI you call myImage.interpolation(.none). The Swift LifeHash library already does this for you.

LifeHash Inclusion

Use LifeHash as a Complementary Tool

The biggest challenge in using LifeHash is in determining how to ensure the LifeHash that’s being tested against is valid.

First, you need ways to ensure that a LifeHash wasn’t created by a hacker. If a hacker fakes a bit of data, and then makes a valid LifeHash based on that data, then nothing is gained.

Second, you need to be aware that there will be ways to throw CPUs at LifeHashes to produce near-matches, just as is the case with normal hashes.

The best solution for these challenges is to consider LifeHashes one tool in a larger arsenal. If you make sure you know the identity of senders, through closely held devices, certs, or peer-to-peer connections; and if you check other data such as the digital hash itself; then you can increase our security through the examination of a LifeHash as well.

Library Usage

Optimize Your Use of the Library

The Swift LifeHash library renders LifeHash images asynchronously and caches the result, so if you pass in the same fingerprint you’ll get the same image back right away. If LifeHash rendering seems slow, be sure you’re compiling the Release configuration of your target: LifeHash is really fast when compiled for Release.