Public Service Announcement

Is this post/website/document/photo/video legit?  With the advent of AI generated materials, that is the question you must always ask yourself - whatever you are reading, viewing or listening to. If it feels fishy, it probably smells that way as well. And don't click on those Facebook posts with the punch line cutoff or the "I will miss him.." clickbait. Be skeptical.  Truth is a precious commodity.  Make sure you are a truthy not a dupey. 

I have to keep harping on this because you are vulnerable and you need to pay attention. And in an election year,  you should be doubly diligent and expect a deluge of deepfakes.

For example:

• An AI generated photo of an explosion near the Pentagon causes a stock market crash. 
• A robo-call urging voters not to vote used an AI generated voice of President Biden.
• Deepfakes  e.g. a new service claiming to use artificial intelligence (AI) “neural networks” and “generators” to create fake driver licenses and passports has reportedly succeeded in passing Know Your Customer (KYC) checks on multiple crypto exchanges.
• Ransomware  Digital extortion
• Vishing - voice phishing. Calls or messages to trick you to reveal personal or financial info
• Zoombombing.  Hijacking video conferences
• Biometric attack - using fake facial/voice recognition
• Phishing - duping you to reveal identity information

Don't share any article or post unless you are absolutely positive that its source is legitimate. Don't be an artificial disseminator.  If 2 people share a false statement and those 4 people share and the next 8 people share, pretty soon you are at 2²⁵⁶ and that is a very large number.

From the Washington Post. Dec 18, 2023

“Some of these sites are generating hundreds if not thousands of articles a day,” said Jack Brewster, a researcher at NewsGuard who conducted the investigation. “This is why we call it the next great misinformation superspreader.”

Sensationalist newspapers and magazines used to be referred to as "Yellow Journalism". We now have Pink-slime journalism and it is an order of magnitude worse. It deliberately misrepresents.  The use of AI makes it easy to mimic legitimate news sites, images and even voices. Use reputable fact checking sites like PolitiFact, Snopes to verify the legitimacy of information.

Finally, here is a wealth of good information on how to recognize and avoid scams:  https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-recognize-and-avoid-phishing-scams

Be careful out there.

Copyright ©  2024 Dave Hoplin