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The Three-Second Theft: Why AI Voice Fraud Outruns Every Defence

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Re: The Three-Second Theft: Why AI Voice Fraud Outruns Every Defence

#102
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only solution? Answer the phone in an over the top comedy accent, such as Simpsons characters, or just whatever comes to mind.

A terse, altered "Hello" is all I say. Sometimes I don't say anything. Most humans would wait a few seconds then prompt with "...Hello?", whereas bots tend to hang up after ~2s silence

Don’t you guys have phones that screen calls?

Re: The Three-Second Theft: Why AI Voice Fraud Outruns Every Defence

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I told my parents that I will never ask for money, doesn't matter the situation, even with live video, it's trivial to generate live audio and video nowadays. I hope they got the message.

The best things to stop these AI voice schemes, is to agree on a family password. The cloned AI voice will not known it.

That's a great idea. What do you use as your family password?

Re: The Three-Second Theft: Why AI Voice Fraud Outruns Every Defence

#104
post #22

Sounds like AI is just greasing the wheels of a long established 'grandparent scam'... goes something like this: 1) voice one: young adult calls, sobbing 2) grandparent inquires with a name... "Ben, is that you?" 3) voice one: "Yes grandma, it's me, Ben... I'm in trouble, please don't tell mom 4) voice two: "Hello, I'm attorney..." My grandmother fell victim to this almost 20 years ago, which only stopped when Wester…

"Greasing the wheels" seems right in principle, but possibly putting the accelerant factor a bit... mildly. Like going from burning the turkey in the oven, to deep frying and burning your whole house down.

> cybercrime losses across the United States rose 26 per cent in a single year

> The FBI was candid that even these figures understate the problem. AI attribution in the report reflects only what victims recognised and reported, and most victims of a cloned-voice call never learn that a machine was involved at all.

> INTERPOL found that AI-enhanced fraud is roughly four and a half times more profitable than its traditional equivalent, and that so-called agentic AI systems can now autonomously plan and execute entire fraud campaigns, from reconnaissance through to the ransom demand.

Re: The Three-Second Theft: Why AI Voice Fraud Outruns Every Defence

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about that but finding excuses for the scum of this earth is certainly not a solution. Take Europe for example: nobody dies of hunger in Europe. And yet there are plenty of thieves. People stealing tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of EUR aren't doing it to "feed their families". Think of the situation today. Think of the victims today . Instead of thinking of tomorrow's hypothetical sit…

> Take Europe for example: nobody dies of hunger in Europe. Nobody? France, as the most extreme example, has a rate of 1.52 per 100K. That's about a thousand people a year. That is certainly a small percentage of the population, but it isn't "nobody". https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/malnutrit...

> That's about a thousand people a year.

Eh, maybe.

Some of those may be hospice-style scenarios, where starvation is technically the cause of death at times. https://www.ccjm.org/content/ccjom/70/6/548.full.pdf

Re: The Three-Second Theft: Why AI Voice Fraud Outruns Every Defence

#106

The problem described in the article is unsolvable, given that a mid-range desktop from a few years ago can easily clone a voice that's convincing enough and there are no guardrails to those. Some silly KYC laws might limit a highschool kid making deepfakes of his crush, but once a model exists it's trivial to spread it around, and for organized groups to get ahold of those. Similar will happen with images, it's just…

> The problem described in the article is unsolvable Well, not completely unsolvable. But nobody would like the solution. What all these scams rely on is a way to transfer money in an irrevocable fashion. Restrict that in meaningful ways and you end a lot of the abilities for these scams to operate. You could, for example, outlaw gift cards as a start. You could force the likes of Western Union to have a holding peri…

> (I'd worry less about crypto though as it's pretty hard for grandma to reliably setup)

These scumbags send grandma to a Bitcoin ATM.

Re: The Three-Second Theft: Why AI Voice Fraud Outruns Every Defence

#107

The problem described in the article is unsolvable, given that a mid-range desktop from a few years ago can easily clone a voice that's convincing enough and there are no guardrails to those. Some silly KYC laws might limit a highschool kid making deepfakes of his crush, but once a model exists it's trivial to spread it around, and for organized groups to get ahold of those. Similar will happen with images, it's just…

> The problem described in the article is unsolvable Well, not completely unsolvable. But nobody would like the solution. What all these scams rely on is a way to transfer money in an irrevocable fashion. Restrict that in meaningful ways and you end a lot of the abilities for these scams to operate. You could, for example, outlaw gift cards as a start. You could force the likes of Western Union to have a holding peri…

> (I'd worry less about crypto though as it's pretty hard for grandma to reliably setup).

Difficulty in setting up a money transfer is not a hindrance. I have heard stories of scammers walking someone through the entire process to getting a mortgage on a house on the A&E Intervention episode of Greg. If they think you have money and they think you are gullible, they will devote time and effort to getting it.

Re: The Three-Second Theft: Why AI Voice Fraud Outruns Every Defence

#109

What are legitimate uses for copying someone's voice without permission? I see none. Those scientists are just helping criminals to fully automate scamming and governments to create fake videos.

Well of course as you pointed out the legitimate one would be copying voices WITH permission (yours, someone you know who gives authorization, through contracts for movies/bots etc). The model can’t differentiate between voices for which you have permission or not. But more generally while recordings might be copyrighted, the voice itself isn’t so copying a voice isn’t a crime, at least as it currently stands. You ca…

Maybe the voice should be copyighted or protected then, I do not want anyone use to my voice, let them use their own boring afwully sounding voice. I am sure such models are used in 99% cases for illegal purposes or creating fake news.

Also, one's likeness (like face image) should also be protected from being used by anyone.

Re: The Three-Second Theft: Why AI Voice Fraud Outruns Every Defence

#110
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point, the scam evolves to a live video of a gagged loved one being tortured. "Stop wasting my time or they lose another finger." People aren't prepared for this shit.

Oh, man. That does seem likely. What a world. I wonder if eventually there won’t be a human in the loop, just a model trained to make money with a strategy like that, automatedly selecting victims and a person to be impersonated for each. Pre-render a few videos, place multiple calls in parallel. Basically a turnkey Docker container that takes a bitcoin address as a parameter and fills it with stolen money.

Long-term, it would mean that videos like that no longer function as a proof of life nor as a credible threat.
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