4 ms·

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 stateme

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.

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.