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SCAMS BULTIN Host Jay White is an inactive attorney in San Mateo County, California.

Jauary 19, 203

DEEPFAKE VIDEO SCAMS

 Attribution: scambusters.org

Deepfake is a video of a person in which their face or body has been digitally altered so that they appear to be someone else. One of the big challenges is to be able to tell deepfake videos from the real thing. This is particularly bad news in a year running up to the US 2024 presidential election.

The technology has been used to trick investors into believing they were watching a company boss making financial statements, or for job interviews.

All the crooks need to do is scour the internet for a genuine video of the person they want to imitate. Artificial intelligence does the rest.

The biggest challenge in spotting a deepfake is our willingness to believe what we see, usually without even thinking about it.

So, the first thing a viewer should do before reposting a video or acting on an instruction from someone on a video call is to slow down. Take time to mentally question what you’re seeing.

One simple defense tactic in a video interview or meeting that has just surfaced is to ask the other person to turn their face sideways by a full 90 degrees. According to AI specialists Metaphysic, the technology is good at doing front-facing shots but struggles with side profiles. This tends to cause distortions to the image.

Another defense tactic is to ask the video subject to wave their hands in front of their face. Artificial intelligence takes a little time to work out what’s happening, resulting in distortion and poor lip synchronization.

It may seem burdensome that you might have to perform these actions, but it’s more comfortable than having to explain how you transferred money to an untraceable account.

Hope lies with Artificial Intelligence itself. Several companies have taken a lead in developing AI software that can analyze videos in much greater detail than the human eye can, detecting inconsistencies that occur in a matter of seconds.

There are still a lot of other things you can do to spot a deepfake. See our earlier report for more tips at https://scambusters.org/deepfake.html.

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