Deepfake: Unmasking the Truth

James Clark 

jc270403@ohio.edu 

 

 

A deepfake is a forgery using the voice or likeness of an individual to create a false narrative which according to Oscar Schwarts “could be weaponized in ways that weaken the fabric of democratic society itself.” They have become a major concern in recent years with evolving technology that makes re-creating audio or computer-generated imagery relatively easy and more widely accessible to the lay person. 

According to Norton.com the term deepfake became popular in 2017 after a reddit user named deepfake used face swapping technology to edit adult videos to resemble famous celebrities faces and then began posting them online.  This practice is a threat to personal privacy of every human on this earth. What is worse is this technology was not dreamed up by him/her/them in their basement.  It is a readily accessible google.com algorithm that is evolving every day.

The most common forms of deepfake are manipulating words by stringing multiple prerecorded sentences together, to alter the words of an individual.  Another deep fake tactic is using technology to alter the mouth as it is speaking or the face of an individual entirely.  It is a criminal’s dream.  It can be used in phishing scams, data breaches, hoaxes, for reputation smearing, election manipulation, social engineering, identity theft, and blackmail (Norton.com).

I first heard about deepfake before it had a name, while stationed in Florida.  The Air Force base I was assigned to received intel that robot callers were phoning individuals in our area and recording their greeting, which for many is “hello, this is (insert your name)”.  They would then open lines of credit over the phone using their voice.  Once the credit line was exhausted and the bank would hunt them down, to the victim’s surprise, the creditors had audio of them opening the account with their voice.  This form of identity theft is incredibly difficult to fight and leave the responsibility of the victim to prove their innocence.     

The technology itself is not inherently bad, I personally enjoy the Nicholas Cage “face-off” videos I get sent from my friends around Christmas time, but this technology can also be used in nefarious ways.  The Jordan Peele video impersonating former President Barack Obama alone sent chills down my spine.  Imagine the implications on foreign policy or national security.  An August 2020 report from the University College of London ranked deepfakes as the number one cyber security (AI crime) threat.