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Entities like CFOs and political leaders will have to start cryptographically signing their statements. There is no practical way to detect fakes after the fact

Entities like CFOs and political leaders will have to start cryptographically signing their statements. There is no practical way to detect fakes after the fact.

baq 3y ago
A great not-quite-unexpected renaissance of PGP...?
rightbyte 3y ago
Really? How about not using unofficial channels for statements? I mean, what is new to this problem. Other than it is somewhat cheaper to pair the fake statement with the person responsible reading it out laud. Department press release -> Reuters -> News paper -> reader No signing required. The reader can verify the press release of he wants to.
- Voultapher 3y ago
  Relevant XKCD https://xkcd.com/2650/ https://xkcd.com/2650/
  - thfuran 3y ago
    I think that's a really bad take. The difficulty of making many categories of lies is radically decreasing. That it has long been possible for a well-funded vfx team to do something doesn't mean nothing will change when it becomes possible for anyone with a cellphone and five minutes of free time to do the same thing.
    - cj 3y ago
      > anyone with a cellphone and five minutes of free time One could argue that this will be a good thing because deep fakes will be so prevalent (e.g. kids making videos of their parents saying and doing funny things) that the default assumption is that everything is fake until proven not fake.
      - 2devnull 3y ago
        Lower trust societies are better if you enjoy living in a warzone and being oppressed by a tyrannical government.
      - macintux 3y ago
        The default assumption will be, as it mostly is already, that anything you want to believe is true, and anything you don't, is fake. Thanks to a businessman/politician who turned "news about me I don't like" into "fake news", we got a jump start on that.
      - pixl97 3y ago
        > default assumption is that everything is fake until proven not fake. This is what it's like living under an authoritarian government. "Of course the government is lying", "Of course the politician is lying", "Of course my neighbor is lying", "Of course the company is providing me with a fraudulent product" This eventually turns into a kind of learned helplessness and is how you create a crapsack nation/world. "Everything is bad, so there is no reason I should do anything good" I can promise you that you won't enjoy this world we're creating if you don't live in an authoritarian shithole already.
      - thfuran 3y ago
        Why would that be a good thing?
- aqme28 3y ago
  You rarely need a perfect fake because you rarely need to convince everyone, you can often achieve the same goal by just convincing a large group of people. Also, official channels get hacked too.
- carstenhag 3y ago
  It is different in my opinion. * Text: You have little (definitive) clue who wrote what. You essentially have to ask the (apparent) writer. * Photo: You used to have high confidence that a picture shows who appears to be shown. Not 100%, sure, but it's high. * Video & Audio: You used to have very high confidence that the video including its audio are genuine. It was very difficult to replace video and/or audio. Nowadays, none is trustworthy by default anymore. You can say: Well, just trust the company or Reuters. Sure, but I don't think anyone cares about this case. It's not controversial. But how will they be able to verify controversial sources? If they get sent a video claiming to be about Ukrainins killing civilians, and outfits & speech matching that, how can Reuters be sure about anything now? Trust can't be given to the source, nor to the video, nor to the audio, nor to the metadata.
  - verve_rat 3y ago
    But that is out of scope of what you are replying to. If a CFO makes a statement and that is on the company's website we can have reasonable confidence that the CFO made that statement and we can act on it. Reporting on a video of unknown (possibly unknowable) provenance is a different kettle of fish.
    - carstenhag 3y ago
      Ah I see, I forgot the topic of this specific comment thread. Political Leaders could also have similar problems though. Example - Dictator A says terrible things on video/audio. Of course it's not going to be shown on their nations' broadcast website or in media. How can the rest of the world make sure the video that was recorded is trustworthy?
      - verve_rat 3y ago
        The same way we did in the days of print media being the only media? A network of trusted sources, reporters and newspapers that the public trusts. Eye witness accounts, a preponderance of evidence. Basically it boils down to the reputation of the individuals involved in the chain of trust. Personally I'm excited by the prospect that we might get mainstream investigative journalism back in some form.
- jasonjayr 3y ago
  Whistleblowers also can't use official channels.
- dangerface 3y ago
  What happens when the news paper just makes stuff up because they need a more click baity article? People click links on emails without verifying the sender what makes you think readers will track back through the chain you describe to verify anything? Don't roll your own authentication.
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    What happens is that the readers lose trust in the newspaper and reads another one. I guess that is not a new problem either with lying newspapers.
- remus 3y ago
  This assumes people are consuming news through official channels which I don't think is true in a lot of cases. For many people, news is whatever pops up in their facebook/instagram/twitter feed, and it's relatively easy to slip fake content in there.
- lazide 3y ago
  It’s trying to solve the social issue of ‘omg react!’ videos and random reshare clips through technical means (proving the clip isn’t original). Which it won’t. Eventually might be relevant when in a context where someone actually stops and spends time looking at evidence (civil and criminal court cases perhaps?) but those already use chain of custody for evidence because evidence has already been easy to fake for… well forever. Still should be done IMO though, as it’s cheap and easy and will hopefully make it a little harder (or easier to detect) to do mass faking in the ‘middle’ - like fake IDs for online services, fake blackmail photos, etc.
cwillu 3y ago
https
deleted 3y ago
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- deleted 3y ago
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wojciechpolak 3y ago
All official materials should primarily be posted on the original authors' websites and signed using asymmetric cryptography. Furthermore, new open standards should be established to enable the presentation of such signatures/verification on well-known platforms like YouTube, FB, etc. These platforms should always provide a clear reference to the original material along with its digital signature. For example, when watching a video on YouTube containing a speech by the president (provided on an official channel like the White House's), there should be a clear indication that the video has a digital signature and the option to verify it on an independent government website.
- nicce 3y ago
  There are already coming cameras which sign the data on the fly with help of hardware security modules. Only that can be truly verifiable. Adding signature after recording works to certain degree, but it still does not guarantee that the content is what the camera saw.
  - rhplus 3y ago
    …what the camera saw. Cameras can record screens. Perhaps adding a signed channel for depth and/or non-visible light would be the next step.
    - Horffupolde 3y ago
      Yes but the idea is that you trust the camera which unique and works as a physical private key.
      - tivert 3y ago
        > Yes but the idea is that you trust the camera which unique and works as a physical private key. You're pushing a (bad) technical solution to a social problem. Cameras that cryptographically sign their output will not solve anything. The idea has more flaws than it's possible to list, but here's a big one: do you really think a technological gimmick like that would stand up to a nation state? Do you really think the CIA, NSA, FSB, Chinese Ministry of State Security, etc. will not be able to sign whatever the hell image they want with a camera's signature?
helsinkiandrew 3y ago
The vast majority of uses for deep fakes is not for content that would appear on an official site: surreptitious videos of CEO/Politician doing illegal or embarrassing behaviour, racist tweets and emails from when they were college students etc.
- insanitybit 3y ago
  At the same time, now when a sex tape comes out for someone they can claim it's a deepfake.
  - 2devnull 3y ago
    But will that make a difference?
    - insanitybit 3y ago
      Time will tell. I think the answer is yet. I am inclined to avoid naming specific, relatively recent instances, but I think it would be fair to say that we're in a world with very high skepticism of the media and politicians have been taking that into account by claiming that the news is simply lying, that what they're reading is fake, etc.
      - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
        It cuts both ways. We don't trust the media, and we don't trust the politicians. So when a politician says that the media is lying, we tend to believe whatever we want to believe. The loss of truth is a serious thing for a society. (Yes, back in the Walter Cronkite days we had less truth than we thought we did. We had more agreed-upon truth that matched reality than we do today, though, and I think the difference matters.)
pokstad 3y ago
… or do everything in person. You know, like before computers existed.
- anononaut 3y ago
  That just delegates trust to media channels, which are equally as untrustworthy.
briffle 3y ago
I honestly find it suprising that photo's and video's taken with a smart phone are not signed in some way to ensure they are not modified.. Would love to see it become more mainstream, since editing is so easy.

Entities like CFOs and political leaders will have to start cryptographically signing their statements. There is no practical way to detect fakes after the fact.

baq 3y ago

A great not-quite-unexpected renaissance of PGP...?

rightbyte 3y ago

Really? How about not using unofficial channels for statements? I mean, what is new to this problem. Other than it is somewhat cheaper to pair the fake statement with the person responsible reading it out laud. Department press release -> Reuters -> News paper -> reader No signing required. The reader can verify the press release of he wants to.

Voultapher 3y ago
Relevant XKCD https://xkcd.com/2650/ https://xkcd.com/2650/
- thfuran 3y ago
  I think that's a really bad take. The difficulty of making many categories of lies is radically decreasing. That it has long been possible for a well-funded vfx team to do something doesn't mean nothing will change when it becomes possible for anyone with a cellphone and five minutes of free time to do the same thing.
  - cj 3y ago
    > anyone with a cellphone and five minutes of free time One could argue that this will be a good thing because deep fakes will be so prevalent (e.g. kids making videos of their parents saying and doing funny things) that the default assumption is that everything is fake until proven not fake.
    - 2devnull 3y ago
      Lower trust societies are better if you enjoy living in a warzone and being oppressed by a tyrannical government.
    - macintux 3y ago
      The default assumption will be, as it mostly is already, that anything you want to believe is true, and anything you don't, is fake. Thanks to a businessman/politician who turned "news about me I don't like" into "fake news", we got a jump start on that.
    - pixl97 3y ago
      > default assumption is that everything is fake until proven not fake. This is what it's like living under an authoritarian government. "Of course the government is lying", "Of course the politician is lying", "Of course my neighbor is lying", "Of course the company is providing me with a fraudulent product" This eventually turns into a kind of learned helplessness and is how you create a crapsack nation/world. "Everything is bad, so there is no reason I should do anything good" I can promise you that you won't enjoy this world we're creating if you don't live in an authoritarian shithole already.
    - thfuran 3y ago
      Why would that be a good thing?
aqme28 3y ago
You rarely need a perfect fake because you rarely need to convince everyone, you can often achieve the same goal by just convincing a large group of people. Also, official channels get hacked too.
carstenhag 3y ago
It is different in my opinion. * Text: You have little (definitive) clue who wrote what. You essentially have to ask the (apparent) writer. * Photo: You used to have high confidence that a picture shows who appears to be shown. Not 100%, sure, but it's high. * Video & Audio: You used to have very high confidence that the video including its audio are genuine. It was very difficult to replace video and/or audio. Nowadays, none is trustworthy by default anymore. You can say: Well, just trust the company or Reuters. Sure, but I don't think anyone cares about this case. It's not controversial. But how will they be able to verify controversial sources? If they get sent a video claiming to be about Ukrainins killing civilians, and outfits & speech matching that, how can Reuters be sure about anything now? Trust can't be given to the source, nor to the video, nor to the audio, nor to the metadata.
- verve_rat 3y ago
  But that is out of scope of what you are replying to. If a CFO makes a statement and that is on the company's website we can have reasonable confidence that the CFO made that statement and we can act on it. Reporting on a video of unknown (possibly unknowable) provenance is a different kettle of fish.
  - carstenhag 3y ago
    Ah I see, I forgot the topic of this specific comment thread. Political Leaders could also have similar problems though. Example - Dictator A says terrible things on video/audio. Of course it's not going to be shown on their nations' broadcast website or in media. How can the rest of the world make sure the video that was recorded is trustworthy?
    - verve_rat 3y ago
      The same way we did in the days of print media being the only media? A network of trusted sources, reporters and newspapers that the public trusts. Eye witness accounts, a preponderance of evidence. Basically it boils down to the reputation of the individuals involved in the chain of trust. Personally I'm excited by the prospect that we might get mainstream investigative journalism back in some form.
jasonjayr 3y ago
Whistleblowers also can't use official channels.
dangerface 3y ago
What happens when the news paper just makes stuff up because they need a more click baity article? People click links on emails without verifying the sender what makes you think readers will track back through the chain you describe to verify anything? Don't roll your own authentication.
- rightbyte 3y ago
  What happens is that the readers lose trust in the newspaper and reads another one. I guess that is not a new problem either with lying newspapers.
remus 3y ago
This assumes people are consuming news through official channels which I don't think is true in a lot of cases. For many people, news is whatever pops up in their facebook/instagram/twitter feed, and it's relatively easy to slip fake content in there.
lazide 3y ago
It’s trying to solve the social issue of ‘omg react!’ videos and random reshare clips through technical means (proving the clip isn’t original). Which it won’t. Eventually might be relevant when in a context where someone actually stops and spends time looking at evidence (civil and criminal court cases perhaps?) but those already use chain of custody for evidence because evidence has already been easy to fake for… well forever. Still should be done IMO though, as it’s cheap and easy and will hopefully make it a little harder (or easier to detect) to do mass faking in the ‘middle’ - like fake IDs for online services, fake blackmail photos, etc.

cwillu 3y ago

https

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

wojciechpolak 3y ago

All official materials should primarily be posted on the original authors' websites and signed using asymmetric cryptography. Furthermore, new open standards should be established to enable the presentation of such signatures/verification on well-known platforms like YouTube, FB, etc. These platforms should always provide a clear reference to the original material along with its digital signature. For example, when watching a video on YouTube containing a speech by the president (provided on an official channel like the White House's), there should be a clear indication that the video has a digital signature and the option to verify it on an independent government website.

nicce 3y ago
There are already coming cameras which sign the data on the fly with help of hardware security modules. Only that can be truly verifiable. Adding signature after recording works to certain degree, but it still does not guarantee that the content is what the camera saw.
- rhplus 3y ago
  …what the camera saw. Cameras can record screens. Perhaps adding a signed channel for depth and/or non-visible light would be the next step.
  - Horffupolde 3y ago
    Yes but the idea is that you trust the camera which unique and works as a physical private key.
    - tivert 3y ago
      > Yes but the idea is that you trust the camera which unique and works as a physical private key. You're pushing a (bad) technical solution to a social problem. Cameras that cryptographically sign their output will not solve anything. The idea has more flaws than it's possible to list, but here's a big one: do you really think a technological gimmick like that would stand up to a nation state? Do you really think the CIA, NSA, FSB, Chinese Ministry of State Security, etc. will not be able to sign whatever the hell image they want with a camera's signature?

helsinkiandrew 3y ago

The vast majority of uses for deep fakes is not for content that would appear on an official site: surreptitious videos of CEO/Politician doing illegal or embarrassing behaviour, racist tweets and emails from when they were college students etc.

insanitybit 3y ago
At the same time, now when a sex tape comes out for someone they can claim it's a deepfake.
- 2devnull 3y ago
  But will that make a difference?
  - insanitybit 3y ago
    Time will tell. I think the answer is yet. I am inclined to avoid naming specific, relatively recent instances, but I think it would be fair to say that we're in a world with very high skepticism of the media and politicians have been taking that into account by claiming that the news is simply lying, that what they're reading is fake, etc.
    - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
      It cuts both ways. We don't trust the media, and we don't trust the politicians. So when a politician says that the media is lying, we tend to believe whatever we want to believe. The loss of truth is a serious thing for a society. (Yes, back in the Walter Cronkite days we had less truth than we thought we did. We had more agreed-upon truth that matched reality than we do today, though, and I think the difference matters.)

pokstad 3y ago

… or do everything in person. You know, like before computers existed.

anononaut 3y ago
That just delegates trust to media channels, which are equally as untrustworthy.

briffle 3y ago

I honestly find it suprising that photo's and video's taken with a smart phone are not signed in some way to ensure they are not modified.. Would love to see it become more mainstream, since editing is so easy.