6 ms·

To who?

by jowea 2y ago

To who?

NewJazz 2y ago
Anyone who has to deal with the sad excuse of a communications method that the sum of SMS, MMS, RCS, VoLTE, VoWiFi, et al constitute. I.e. me most days. Back in 03 FBI would have probably called all this obvious insecurity, lack of privacy, lack of cryptographic attestation... A feature. Now the chickens come home to roost. And we all suffer in the end. Some more directly than others.
- Philpax 2y ago
  Er, how is this relevant? The threat of AI voice cloning is largely decoupled from the medium; attestation might help in some circumstances, but it's unlikely that it would have solved the social problems associated with being able to clone someone else's voice.
  - NewJazz 2y ago
    If you want to invent crypto for irl conversations, OK sure. Go ahead. But the core of this issue is that people are getting spammed by robot dialers because digital identity in the context of a phone number is a figment of the FBI's imagination. Completely opaque to laypeople.
    - llamaimperative 2y ago
      It has nothing to do with phone numbers. If your child or spouse or parent called you in distress from a random phone number, there are countless believable reasons they could offer for it being from a random phone number, and no you're almost certainly not going to say "ya sorry not talking to you [child/spouse/parent] unless you call me back from the phone number you claim to have lost/broke/had seized."
- Tagbert 2y ago
  This scam doesn’t require that the victim received a call from a known phone. It could come from any random phone number or other audio channel. That might be one factor making the victim suspicious but they are going to be primarily influenced by the voice and will be highly motivated to comply while ignoring “minor” inconsistencies. How would cryptography help a grandmother getting a call from her “grandson” who needs help?
  - NewJazz 2y ago
    A culture that understands and values digital identity rooted in cryptographic security won't be so quick to panic. It is an education and culture problem more than technical.
    - llamaimperative 2y ago
      Not really. There are millions of perfectly believable scenarios in which a loved one wouldn't have access to whatever cryptographic key you're imagining, but needs your assistance nonetheless. Not sure how your second statement follows the first... Agreed this isn't a technical problem per se.
    - FloorEgg 2y ago
      Okay I think I understand you now. And on some level I agree, but I also think you're failing to consider how much people vary in their abilities and personalities. Your criticism of the institutions meant to protect our security seems reasonable though.
- FloorEgg 2y ago
  I've really tried to understand your judgement but I'm not able to yet. You're bringing up sms, but what does that have to do with voice cloning? Read all your comments in this thread, and you're still not making sense to me.
  - jowea 2y ago
    I'm guessing but the problem is source phone number spoofing. If Caller ID worked correctly 100% of the time and 100% of the time you get a fraud/spam/etc call you could complain and the authorities knew who owned the phone number it would be harder to operate the fraud. And with personal cryptographic attestation you could reliably link a phone number to a person.

To who?

by jowea 2y ago

To who?

Anyone who has to deal with the sad excuse of a communications method that the sum of SMS, MMS, RCS, VoLTE, VoWiFi, et al constitute. I.e. me most days. Back in 03 FBI would have probably called all this obvious insecurity, lack of privacy, lack of cryptographic attestation... A feature. Now the chickens come home to roost. And we all suffer in the end. Some more directly than others.

Philpax 2y ago
Er, how is this relevant? The threat of AI voice cloning is largely decoupled from the medium; attestation might help in some circumstances, but it's unlikely that it would have solved the social problems associated with being able to clone someone else's voice.
- NewJazz 2y ago
  If you want to invent crypto for irl conversations, OK sure. Go ahead. But the core of this issue is that people are getting spammed by robot dialers because digital identity in the context of a phone number is a figment of the FBI's imagination. Completely opaque to laypeople.
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    It has nothing to do with phone numbers. If your child or spouse or parent called you in distress from a random phone number, there are countless believable reasons they could offer for it being from a random phone number, and no you're almost certainly not going to say "ya sorry not talking to you [child/spouse/parent] unless you call me back from the phone number you claim to have lost/broke/had seized."
Tagbert 2y ago
This scam doesn’t require that the victim received a call from a known phone. It could come from any random phone number or other audio channel. That might be one factor making the victim suspicious but they are going to be primarily influenced by the voice and will be highly motivated to comply while ignoring “minor” inconsistencies. How would cryptography help a grandmother getting a call from her “grandson” who needs help?
- NewJazz 2y ago
  A culture that understands and values digital identity rooted in cryptographic security won't be so quick to panic. It is an education and culture problem more than technical.
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    Not really. There are millions of perfectly believable scenarios in which a loved one wouldn't have access to whatever cryptographic key you're imagining, but needs your assistance nonetheless. Not sure how your second statement follows the first... Agreed this isn't a technical problem per se.
  - FloorEgg 2y ago
    Okay I think I understand you now. And on some level I agree, but I also think you're failing to consider how much people vary in their abilities and personalities. Your criticism of the institutions meant to protect our security seems reasonable though.
FloorEgg 2y ago
I've really tried to understand your judgement but I'm not able to yet. You're bringing up sms, but what does that have to do with voice cloning? Read all your comments in this thread, and you're still not making sense to me.
- jowea 2y ago
  I'm guessing but the problem is source phone number spoofing. If Caller ID worked correctly 100% of the time and 100% of the time you get a fraud/spam/etc call you could complain and the authorities knew who owned the phone number it would be harder to operate the fraud. And with personal cryptographic attestation you could reliably link a phone number to a person.