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British engineering giant Arup revealed as $25M deepfake scam victim

cnn.com

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Re: British engineering giant Arup revealed as $25M deepfake scam victim

#2
I said this over a year ago elsewhere:

Electronic engineers spent decades overcoming thermal noise floors so that humans could communicate over vast distances with small amounts of energy.

AI researchers, in a few short years, undid all that by making computer-generated chatter and images indistinguishable from messages sent by humans.

Until such a time as we live in a Bladerunner-like world of Replicants, being in-person will be the only reliable way to convey a message from human to human.

I'm long on travel and in-person meetings, short on VR and telecoms.

Re: British engineering giant Arup revealed as $25M deepfake scam victim

#3
post #2

I said this over a year ago elsewhere: Electronic engineers spent decades overcoming thermal noise floors so that humans could communicate over vast distances with small amounts of energy. AI researchers, in a few short years, undid all that by making computer-generated chatter and images indistinguishable from messages sent by humans. Until such a time as we live in a Bladerunner-like world of Replicants, being in-p…

Isn't it also possible to scam people in in person meetings by pretending to be someone you aren't? The new thing with deepfakes is that you can pretend to be someone that the victim knows.

Re: British engineering giant Arup revealed as $25M deepfake scam victim

#4
> According to police, the worker had initially suspected he had received a phishing email from the company’s UK office, as it specified the need for a secret transaction to be carried out. However, the worker put aside his doubts after the video call because other people in attendance had looked and sounded just like colleagues he recognized.

Regardless of the sophistication of the deepfake, surely this rings huge alarm bells, right? I'm not even sure I'd be comfortable making secret transactions on instruction from my boss. Even if your boss is actually asking you to do this, how can you have the financial authority to transfer $25M and not the savvy to think that being asked to transfer huge amounts of money in secret isn't going to result in you getting thrown under the bus?

Re: British engineering giant Arup revealed as $25M deepfake scam victim

#5
post #2

I said this over a year ago elsewhere: Electronic engineers spent decades overcoming thermal noise floors so that humans could communicate over vast distances with small amounts of energy. AI researchers, in a few short years, undid all that by making computer-generated chatter and images indistinguishable from messages sent by humans. Until such a time as we live in a Bladerunner-like world of Replicants, being in-p…

Isn't it also possible to scam people in in person meetings by pretending to be someone you aren't? The new thing with deepfakes is that you can pretend to be someone that the victim knows.

Yes but the cost is much higher as is the risk of being caught and arrested.

Re: British engineering giant Arup revealed as $25M deepfake scam victim

#6
post #2

I said this over a year ago elsewhere: Electronic engineers spent decades overcoming thermal noise floors so that humans could communicate over vast distances with small amounts of energy. AI researchers, in a few short years, undid all that by making computer-generated chatter and images indistinguishable from messages sent by humans. Until such a time as we live in a Bladerunner-like world of Replicants, being in-p…

What you said only applies to communication that requires authenticating a party. Most cases that doesn't matter. Voice or video communication used to be inherently unfakeable, now that it is fakeable, we'll just treat it like text comms, relying on secure channels, signing etc.

Re: British engineering giant Arup revealed as $25M deepfake scam victim

#7
post #2

I said this over a year ago elsewhere: Electronic engineers spent decades overcoming thermal noise floors so that humans could communicate over vast distances with small amounts of energy. AI researchers, in a few short years, undid all that by making computer-generated chatter and images indistinguishable from messages sent by humans. Until such a time as we live in a Bladerunner-like world of Replicants, being in-p…

we're probably ~10 years away from replicants. in 20years there's going to be millions of tesla humanoid robots all over the place

Re: British engineering giant Arup revealed as $25M deepfake scam victim

#8

> According to police, the worker had initially suspected he had received a phishing email from the company’s UK office, as it specified the need for a secret transaction to be carried out. However, the worker put aside his doubts after the video call because other people in attendance had looked and sounded just like colleagues he recognized. Regardless of the sophistication of the deepfake, surely this rings huge a…

Big transactions happen and it’s some people’s jobs to execute them

Re: British engineering giant Arup revealed as $25M deepfake scam victim

#9
post #2

I said this over a year ago elsewhere: Electronic engineers spent decades overcoming thermal noise floors so that humans could communicate over vast distances with small amounts of energy. AI researchers, in a few short years, undid all that by making computer-generated chatter and images indistinguishable from messages sent by humans. Until such a time as we live in a Bladerunner-like world of Replicants, being in-p…

Human written text has been indistinguishable from machine written text for a very long time. We've still managed to maintain chains of trust to discern legitimate messages with decent success rates.

Re: British engineering giant Arup revealed as $25M deepfake scam victim

#10
post #2

I said this over a year ago elsewhere: Electronic engineers spent decades overcoming thermal noise floors so that humans could communicate over vast distances with small amounts of energy. AI researchers, in a few short years, undid all that by making computer-generated chatter and images indistinguishable from messages sent by humans. Until such a time as we live in a Bladerunner-like world of Replicants, being in-p…

We need new ident protocol just for AI. I think that's part of Altman doing that orb thingy with iris scanner. It's creepy though and I'll never touch that things.
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