Mind Readings: You Need Passwords for Life in the Age of Generative AI Fraud

In today’s episode, we delve into the critical need for digital security in an era where technology can easily deceive us. You’ll learn about the resurgence of an old-school method, the “password for pickup,” adapted for the modern challenges posed by voice synthesis and deepfake technologies. Discover practical strategies for safeguarding yourself, your loved ones, and your company from sophisticated scams that can mimic voices and visuals with alarming accuracy. Tune in to equip yourself with knowledge and tools to thwart these digital threats effectively.

Mind Readings: You Need Passwords for Life in the Age of Generative AI Fraud

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In today’s episode, let’s talk about passwords.

Not the ones you log in with, but something from a blast from the past.

Now, one thing I started telling parents in particular about a year ago when Eleven Labs voice synthesis hit the market was, you need to bring back a Gen X tradition of passwords for pickup.

So for those who don’t remember, Gen X, we were the generation that were basically raised on neglect.

And very often, in the occasions where we would even get picked up from school, someone else, a relative, would pick us up from school because our primary caregiver probably was busy at work.

And there was a tradition that was sort of established that, particularly for families that didn’t function as well, the person who was authorized to pick you up would be given a password.

And then you as the kid would say, OK, Uncle Johnny, what’s the password? Because maybe Uncle Johnny’s not supposed to be there that day.

And if he doesn’t say something like Vatican cameos or, Oreo cookies or something, you don’t get in the car with him.

That was a way, a fairly straightforward, primitive way to validate that that person was who they said they were supposed to be and that they were authorized on that day to have that pickup.

This matters with things like voice synthesis now because you can get a ransom call that sounds exactly like a loved one.

You can get a fake call from a presidential candidate or a sitting public official.

You can get a facetiming.

A fake video call with a conference room of executives.

It is trivial these days to replicate and clone voices, images, and things like that.

And so we need that authentication mechanism.

There’s one example of the ransom that I play at conferences a lot.

In fact, we’ll play it now.

I did this with the consent of the person, Coco, who lended her voice to this effort.

So she’s okay with this.

So give this a listen.

Hello? Hello.

Mom? Listen, I’m in a bit of trouble.

Look, I can’t tell you much.

I just need you to wire some money on my behalf, all right? I can’t.

They say I only have a few more seconds on this call.

They’ll text you the account number in a moment.

Just please do as they say, all right? That is uncannily good.

That sounds exactly like her.

And the only way that her mother would have known that this was not her is because I got one piece of the text prompt wrong.

I got one word.

I got one word in there that is wrong.

Otherwise, it would have passed.

It could have fooled any of her relatives.

So you would have that password.

You would sit down with your kids and say, okay, kids, this is the password for if you get a call from someone that sounds like me, ask the password.

This is really important for people who are caring for elder parents in some way, even if you just have a casual relationship with your parents.

Elders in particular.

Elders in particular are very susceptible to this stuff.

So teach them the same thing.

Like, hey, remember when we were kids and you had me do that whole password thing with the bus stop? Well, now we’re going to do the same thing.

If you get a call that sounds like me saying, hey, I’m trapped in some country and I need $5,000 wired to me right away, ask the password.$

And if the person on the other end can’t provide the password, it’s not me.

It’s not me.

It would seem that corporations now need this as well.

There was a story in the South China Morning Post the other day about a Hong Kong trading firm that had a deepfake video simulation of their CFO calling a mid-level clerk in the organization to transfer25 million.

And they did.

It worked.

They did.

Now, the people who did this may or may not get caught.

Probably will get caught.

Don’t mess with the government of China.

But the fact that it worked and that it fooled someone to transfer millions of dollars means that your company needs to have this basic pass word set up internally today.

Today.

Because every criminal, every fraudster has just seen how well this can work and how much money this fraudulent company was able to steal.

$25 million in one call.

They see the cash register ring and they hear that bell and say, we need to do that too.

And so they will be coming for you, for your company, for your, your most vulnerable employees, people who can be fooled by a deep fake video or a deep fake phone call.

Set up that internal security procedure, have passes, maybe have rotating passwords that change every 30 days or whatever that you just know, Hey, this is a weird request coming from my, my, my manager, my boss, what’s the password.

And if they can’t provide it, you know, it was fake.

You will have to protect that.

Like you do all your other authentication mechanisms, but you need to do it.

Do this soon, because this has been shown to the world to work and it is too rich of an opportunity for scammers to pass up.

So that’s the, that’s the lesson for today.

Thanks for tuning in.

Talk to you next time.

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Mind Readings: You Need Passwords for Life in the Age of Generative AI Fraud

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