Comments

B.J. Herbison February 5, 2024 11:36 AM

Was the call recorded? On the call we have a bunch of scammers and one person who says “The deepfakes were great, I was fooled.” and sends the money. The “worried about a phishing email” might be just posturing. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear a follow-up story on “fake deepfakes”.

Clive Robinson February 5, 2024 12:19 PM

@ Bruce, ALL,

This was to be expected.

Almost every time there is a new technology it gets used for fraud in some way…

A case of “old wine in new bottles”.

tim February 5, 2024 1:43 PM

If they had even the most basic financial controls in place – this could have been prevented.

echo February 5, 2024 1:44 PM

This had to happen one day. It’s been a trope of sci-fi for years now. It’s recently made an appearance in online videochat rooms and various catfishing scams too in China.

lurker February 5, 2024 2:07 PM

On at least 20 occasions, AI deepfakes had been used to trick facial recognition programs by imitating the people pictured on the identity cards, according to police.[my bold]

NB these are Chinese ID cards which have a chip carrying much more detail than appears printed, including a hi-res photo.

Uthor February 5, 2024 3:02 PM

@Clive Robinson

“A case of “old wine in new bottles”.”

I have a case of some fresh wine I can sell you. Just Venmo me some money…

What February 5, 2024 5:46 PM

Whatever happened to 2FA? I guess the safeguards for telephone and videochat financial transactions need to be reviewed to ensure there are loopholes

MrC February 5, 2024 8:10 PM

Reminds me of a story out of Japan a few years ago where a somewhat renowned middle-aged manga artist was taken in by a romance scam using video chat with a deep faked Mark Ruffalo.

Tom February 6, 2024 12:00 AM

Fancy CEO fraud is all very well, but if you can do realtime deepfakes the real money lies in confirming fraudulent changes to payment details for institutional-scale funds transfers.

echo February 6, 2024 11:22 AM

People have been focusing on the fraud aspect but this kind of thing is likely to seek out mainstream use. Looking a little tired? Annual report due? Buy the CEO level package for chiselled good looks and appropriately greying air to convey the right degree of gravitas. Workplace discrimination and sexual harassment a problem? Buy the enterprise level package and add a perfect level of diversity and happy smiling faces to all your customer service staff. Hurried mum working two jobs? Look effortlessly together and fresh faced with our personal package.

There’s reasons why Madame never officially rises before 10am and calls are by appointment only… I don’t even go out for a jug of milk without my face on and favourite necklace. That said I draw the line at getting Waitrose deliveries in just to impress the neighbors or pass off a £20 bottle of wine at the back of the cupboard as something I drink every day.

Speaking of locations, of course, people always forget the background. It crossed my mind to greenscreen and rig the lighting to match but it’s expensive and a bother. If you were faking a background props and extras can help sell the illusion. One reason why nobody entirely knows where Putin is located at any time is because, it is alleged, he has duplicate windowless rooms from which he delivers his old man at a desk three hour speeches. Xi has his 1970’s G-Plan style office with shelves behind him full of books he never reads and the Soviet style red phone on his desk, and pen holder presumably to he can furiously mark and sign offscreen documents. Wow. Real alpha male podcast energy. The valuetainment just oozes from the screen. Having a crisis? Loosing your grip? Buy the Dictator package to make your place light and airy, add a sparkle to dead eyes, and a lift to the monotone.

Sicher Sucher February 6, 2024 1:00 PM

Apropos deep fakes, but even easier, perhaps:

“At Vanguard, my voice is my password”.

Dumbest idea ever. How does Vanguard come up with these ideas?

are corkscrews really sinistrorse? February 6, 2024 4:45 PM

I’ve been duped more than a few times, so that article topic is kinda harsh for me to read, but I really do appreciate the info, nonetheless.

I gotta be less gullible.

I’m hoping to learn more about conflict prevention techniques rather than getting so much info about the stack of problems.

Personally, and pseudoprivately, I am trying to get used to modern deep fake things the same way I’ve been used to special effects (please don’t call ’em FX!) in MPAA’s and other animations.

I prefer to assist machine learners and other people to better comprehend this mess we call modern human society. So, for example, I’m not so much into using decoys and deliberate forms of confusion.

If pretty much everybody can read past the interferences, then hopefully less disasters will happen.

Does anybody else feel like elaborating on this topic?

Sincerely, “https://i.postimg.cc/JzjNWvmP/SHAaint-BADsumtymes.png”

(That’s my parity name, please don’t ask me to change it!)

P.S. – 3D printing of barcodes seems like a nice way to involve touchy feely people in data storage as well as how to make nice new things for etsy! I ain’t even kiddin’!

lurker February 6, 2024 9:09 PM

@Sicher Sucher

The movie Gattica showed how a human can catch human mistakes. Which hand does a left-handed man use?

lurker February 6, 2024 11:35 PM

“A finance worker at a multinational firm …”

But what if it’s your own government watching to make sure you spend grant money properly?

‘https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68027592

Jase February 7, 2024 7:36 PM

A company that allows a single employee to send $25 million so easily is bound to fall victim to ****some*** fraud or scam sooner or later…

WEIT_QODEQ February 7, 2024 7:49 PM

It occurred to me while studying this* topic(s) here:

In the music industry, there’s a recent demand for offline standalone products that are without any online connectivity. The recent customary path is often with or without some kind of home computer…

IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE: (NOT SERVERS!!!!!!!!–We don’t DAW with file servers; that is for others, NOT US.)

…nevertheless, most of the hardware only (nonsoftware) alternatives to a “Digital Audio Workstation” (DAW) computer cost more money.

What occurred to me is that this might be a “de facto” (by default) form of digital ransom.

For example, if we pretty much always tend to have to pay more money to avoid malicious hackers, this pretty much seems like a form of digital ransom afflicting us DAW users of every kind, including honorable “mister mister” (one of my friends who needs to start wearing gloves a lot more often).

P.S.- Please, stop worrying about the nullification of slavery.

  • = (and other (dalek) sec (joke))

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