Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1527276
8 SMT007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2024 Nolan's Notes by Nolan Johnson, I-CONNECT007 'Deepfake' Components Folks in my age group tend to be the targets of text phishing, so when a friend recently shared a screenshot of a peculiar text conversation, it illustrated to me a growing trend in subterfuge. If you're not familiar, these schemes start sim- ilarly with an invitation to some activity, fol- lowed by an apology for the "wrong number" and an offer to become friends, because "you seem like a nice person." In this example, aer starting in English, the phisher inadvertently sends a follow-up text in the Chinese alphabet (translated as "Bella, I'm Evelyn. Are you not in Oregon now?"). Oops. at "technical difficulty" gives them away. Text phishing is a simple, brute-force ploy, and there are other little details which expose the sender as an imposter: • Crater Lake National Park is truly spectac- ular, but at over 6,000 feet, the road to the park is closed for winter by November. • "Bella, I'm Evelyn" is a giveaway. If this truly were a case of mistaken identity, the texter would have been much more informal. • I can't remember the last time I reached out to a friend or family member by manu- ally putting their number. "Misdialing" just doesn't happen like it used to. It's hard to talk about fakes and counterfeits nowadays without mentioning artificial intel- ligence. Mainstream media is awash in stories about what generative AI can do, and not always for the greater good of mankind. I recently read about a speech synthesis company claiming it could create a complete model of someone's voice from as few as 45 key phrases. It wouldn't take much audio to "steal" our voices, and it's no wonder that we see a wave of deepfakes of government leaders and political figures across social media containing spoofed voices. Of course, doctoring information to deceive is nothing new, but the level of sophistication now possible makes it increasingly difficult to distinguish real from counterfeit. Attention to Figure 1: A phishing text exchange went something like this.