AI Detection (Sightengine)

Overview

Verifieddit uses Sightengine for AI-generated content detection. The API determines whether an image was likely generated by AI (DALL-E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, etc.) and returns a confidence score.

API Credentials

API Usage

Direct API Call

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curl -X POST "https://api.sightengine.com/1.0/check.json" \
  -F "url=https://example.com/image.jpg" \
  -F "models=genai" \
  -F "api_user=$(pass sightengine/api-user)" \
  -F "api_secret=$(pass sightengine/api-secret)"

Response Format

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{
  "status": "success",
  "request": {
    "id": "req_xxxxx",
    "timestamp": 1711036800
  },
  "type": {
    "ai_generated": 0.95,
    "photo": 0.05
  },
  "media": {
    "id": "med_xxxxx",
    "uri": "https://example.com/image.jpg"
  }
}

• ai_generated > 0.5: Likely AI-generated
• ai_generated < 0.5: Likely real photo

Via Upload (Binary)

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curl -X POST "https://api.sightengine.com/1.0/check.json" \
  -F "media=@/path/to/image.jpg" \
  -F "models=genai" \
  -F "api_user=$(pass sightengine/api-user)" \
  -F "api_secret=$(pass sightengine/api-secret)"

Rate Limits

Free Tier

• 500 operations/month
• No burst rate limit
• All models available

Enterprise API Key

• Higher monthly quota (check current plan)
• Priority processing
• Dedicated support

Monitoring Quota Usage

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curl -s "https://api.sightengine.com/1.0/account.json?api_user=$(pass sightengine/api-user)&api_secret=$(pass sightengine/api-secret)" | jq '.'

Check the response for:

• usage.operations_used – Operations consumed this billing period
• usage.operations_limit – Total operations available
• usage.reset_date – When the quota resets

Integration Points

Badges Worker (Primary)

The Cloudflare badges worker proxies AI detection requests to avoid exposing credentials to the client:

Browser -> /api/ai-detect -> Badges Worker -> api.sightengine.com

Worker secrets:

• SIGHTENGINE_API_USER
• SIGHTENGINE_API_SECRET

Stripe Backend (Secondary)

The stripe backend can also proxy AI detection for authenticated users:

Authenticated Client -> /ai-detect -> Stripe Backend -> api.sightengine.com

Caching Strategy

To minimize API calls and stay within quota:

1. Hash-based deduplication: Before calling Sightengine, check if the image hash already has a cached result in D1
2. Store results: After each API call, store the result in D1 keyed by image hash
3. TTL: AI detection results don’t change for a given image, so cache indefinitely

D1 Cache Query

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SELECT ai_score FROM badge_images WHERE image_url = ?;

If a result exists, skip the Sightengine API call.

Upgrading to Enterprise

If the free tier quota is exhausted:

1. Contact Sightengine for enterprise pricing
2. Obtain new API credentials
3. Update pass store:

   1 2	pass edit sightengine/api-user pass edit sightengine/api-secret

4. Update all consumers (see Secret Rotation SOP)

Troubleshooting

• Empty response: Quota may be exhausted. Check usage with the account endpoint.
• 403 Forbidden: API credentials are incorrect or expired. Verify with a direct curl test.
• Slow responses: Sightengine may have regional latency. The API is US-hosted.
• False positives: Some photos with heavy filters or editing may trigger AI detection. The ai_generated score is probabilistic, not definitive.