This new technology could send American politics into a tailspin

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: October 20, 2018 at 7:29:27 PM GMT+9
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] This new technology could send American politics into a tailspin
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> This new technology could send American politics into a tailspin
> By Ben Sasse
> Oct 19 2018
> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-real-scary-news-about-deepfakes/2018/10/19/6238c3ce-d176-11e8-83d6-291fcead2ab1_story.html>
>
> Ben Sasse, a Republican, represents Nebraska in the Senate and is the author of the new book “Them: Why We Hate Each 
> Other and How to Heal,” from which this op-ed was adapted. 
>
> Flash forward two years and consider these hypotheticals. You’re seated at your desk, having taken your second sip of 
> coffee and just beginning to contemplate the breakfast sandwich steaming in the bag in front of you. You click on 
> your favorite news site, one you trust. “Unearthed Video Shows President Conspiring with Putin.” You can’t resist.
>
> The video, in ultrahigh definition, shows then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin examining an 
> electoral map of the United States. They are nodding and laughing as they appear to discuss efforts to swing the 
> election to Trump. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump smile wanly in the background. The report notes that Trump’s 
> movements on the day in question are difficult to pin down.
>
> Alternate scenario: Same day, same coffee and sandwich. This time, the headline reports the discovery of an audio 
> recording of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch brainstorming 
> about how to derail the FBI investigation of Clinton’s use of a private server to handle classified emails. The 
> recording’s date is unclear, but its quality is perfect; Clinton and Lynch can be heard discussing the attorney 
> general’s airport tarmac meeting with former president Bill Clinton in Phoenix on June 27, 2016.
>
> The recordings in these hypothetical scenarios are fake — but who are you going to believe? Who will your neighbors 
> believe? The government? A news outlet you distrust?
>
> If you thought the fight over Brett M. Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation couldn’t have been more horrible, 
> buckle your seat belts. Imagine how the public divisions would have deepened had there been fake-but-plausible video 
> of an undergraduate Kavanaugh partying hard at Yale, or fake-but-plausible audio of Senate Democratic Leader Charles 
> E. Schumer (N.Y.) huddling on strategy calls with lawyers for Kavanaugh’s accusers.
>
> Deepfakes — seemingly authentic video or audio recordings that can spread like wildfire online — are likely to send 
> American politics into a tailspin, and Washington isn’t paying nearly enough attention to the very real danger that’s 
> right around the corner.
>
> Consider: In December 2017, an amateur coder named “DeepFakes” was altering porn videos by digitally substituting the 
> faces of female celebrities for the porn stars’. Not much of a hobby, but it was effective enough to prompt news 
> coverage. Since then, the technology has improved and is readily available. The word deepfake has become a generic 
> noun for the use of machine-learning algorithms and facial-mapping technology to digitally manipulate people’s 
> voices, bodies and faces. And the technology is increasingly so realistic that the deepfakes are almost impossible to 
> detect.
>
> Creepy, right? Now imagine what will happen when America’s enemies use this technology for less sleazy but more 
> strategically sinister purposes.
>
> I spoke recently with one of the most senior U.S. intelligence officials, who told me that many leaders in his 
> community think we’re on the verge of a deepfakes “perfect storm.” The storm has three critical ingredients: First, 
> this new technology is staggering in its disruptive potential yet relatively simple and cheap to produce. Second, our 
> enemies are eager to undermine us. With the collapse of the Russian economy, Putin is trying to maintain unity at 
> home by finding a common enemy abroad. He has little to lose and lots to gain — it’s far easier to weaken U.S. 
> domestic support for NATO than to actually fight NATO head-on. Russia hasn’t mastered these information operations 
> yet, but China is running scout-team offense behind every play. China will eventually be incredibly good at this, and 
> we are not ready.
>
> [snip]
>
> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp



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