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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

#121

Post by wlesieutre »

xp84 wrote: post #84
mikepurvis wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Key phrases make sense to put in place, but another easy safeguard is: "Before you send anything to anyone, ever, call them back. Doesn't matter if it's me, the bank, a lawyer, whatever... tell them 'hang on I have another call coming in, let me just call you back in a few minutes, okay?'"

Not a thorough safeguard, if scammers have half a brain cell they can provision a VOIP number for such a request. They’re nothing if not accommodating.

You're supposed to call them back on a number you know is really that person/company. This ensures the person you're talking to is actually from your bank and not just calling from a random number and saying "I'm from your bank," or even spoofing a real number of your bank or a family member, because when you call back it will go to the real person and not the impostor.

This is a very useful precaution for banks, and for or calls that come from a family member's real phone number.

But scammers will just open with "I'm in trouble and my phone died" or "I'm in jail calling from a pay phone" and calling back won't do anything to help with that.

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

#122

Post by root-parent »

ferngodfather wrote: post #103
root-parent wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Nice try.

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

#123

Post by trollbridge »

Brendinooo wrote: post #74
saaaaaam wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. To me it reeks of AI, and the first major tell was the first paragraph, at which point I stopped reading. > No human had. The crying had been synthesised from a fragment of audio, and the daughter she thought she was rescuing existed only as a pattern of numbers in someone else's machine.

Yeah, I can't explain it but the headings feel very AI. And there are a bunch of things in the text that remind me of chats I have with Claude during the day job >and it is worth being clear about why >The emotional mechanism the scam exploits is not a gap in knowledge that a leaflet can fill; it is the love a person has for their grandchild, weaponised >These are not the numbers of a credulous minority being separat…

One of the best ways to 'detect' AI is to have a job where you're stuck reading novel output from Claude, etc. all day.

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

#124

Post by greygood »

cik wrote: post #27
revolvingthrow wrote: post #20

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…

Yet all of this can be easily defeated with soft language. The basic check "what's the password/verification word" will defeat this every time. This is basically opsec that we taught my grandparents, who were in their 90s. Its doable.

Code words break down emotionally. Many seniors do not reliably trust their own memory during a frightening call

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

#125

Post by trollbridge »

natebc wrote: post #106
cogman10 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Most usage of Bitcoin ATMs (they're actually "reverse ATMs"0 in America is for these scams. Eliminating them would be a great start; they really have no legitimate purpose.

A while ago, some police department simply seized them and the cash inside and reimbursed victims with the proceeds thereof.

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

#126

Post by fhdkweig »

codedokode wrote: post #42

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.

Parody for one. Trey Parker and Matt Stone (of South Park) created a nice one that clones faces (but uses celebrity impersonators for voices).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassy_Justice

https://www.youtube.com/@SassyJustice/videos

Full video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WfZuNceFDM

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

#127

Post by hyperhello »

_cs2017_ wrote: post #115
hyperhello wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they trick the kid out of the password first by calling them and pretending to be the parent.

How is that possible? The procedure is: 1. Kid tells password to parent in person. 2. From then on: when kid calls parent, if kid requests anything sensitive, parent ask for the password, and kid must provide it. 3. Password is never mentioned over the phone in any other situation. How would anyone be able to extract the password from the kid?

"Kid/Grandma, someone is trying that scam where they pretend to be you on a call!"

"Oh my gosh Dad/Son! You know we have a password for that!"

"Yes -- actually, use it now so WE BOTH KNOW YOU'RE NOT A SCAM!"

"Sure, Dad/Son! It's DOUBLE CHEESEBURGER!"

"Thanks!"

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

#128

Post by dieselgate »

wrs wrote: post #112

Everyone suffers from this, not just the scam victims. I opened a bank account for a new business this year, and the friction for doing perfectly normal things was ridiculous due to the bank’s paranoia about scams. I couldn’t even make an initial deposit from my previous business, or transfer money to my personal account, without triggering a fraud alert and freezing the entire account (couldn’t even log into the ban…

From a business perspective genuinely curious to know general location and bank name for this. In WA state I've only dealt with minor scrutiny (from credit union not bank) asking if the business is involved with cannabis otherwise it's been easy.

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

#129

Post by dieselgate »

abirch wrote: post #50
imoverclocked wrote: post #24

So, you answer your phone to the scam and… now they have your voice too. Talking on the phone is now an unmitigated liability.

A few years back, I would talk with scammers for a while to waste their time. Now I don't. LPT: Please have a codeword or phrase that you use with your loved ones so even if the scammers use your voice, they won't know the phrase.

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