Page 24 - ARUBA TODAY

A24 TECHNOLOGY
Monday 17 June 2019
'Deepfakes' called new election threat, with no easy fix

WASHINGTON (AP) — authority to tech giants
"Deepfake" videos pose a such as Facebook and
clear and growing threat to Twitter to make judgment
America's national security, calls about content.
lawmakers and experts say. Nunes claimed that cur-
The question is what to do rent filters have a pro-lib-
about it, and that's not eas- eral bias. "Most of the time
ily answered. it's conservatives who get
A House Intelligence Com- banned," he said. "It's all
mittee hearing Thursday in who's building the filter,
served up a public warning right?" (Nunes has sued
about the deceptive pow- Twitter and several of the
ers of artificial intelligence platform's users, accusing
software and offered a so- them of defaming him.)
bering assessment of how Danielle Citron, a Univer-
fast the technology is out- sity of Maryland Law pro-
pacing efforts to stop it. fessor, told lawmakers that
With a crudely altered vid- many of the laws regulat-
eo of House Speaker Nan- ing online video date back
cy Pelosi, D-Calif., fresh on decades and need to be
everyone's minds, lawmak- overhauled to keep pace
ers heard from experts how with the growing threat.
difficult it will be to combat "We have an audience
these fakes and prevent primed to believe things
them from being used to in- Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, center, is joined like manipulated video of
terfere in the 2020 election. by, from left, Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, Chairman Adam Schiff, D- lawmakers," Citron said.
Calif., and Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., during a hearing on politically motivated fake videos and
"We don't have a general manipulated media, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 13, 2019. "I would hate to see the
solution," said David Do- Associated Press deepfake where a promi-
ermann, a former official nent lawmaker is purported
with Defense Advanced words, as nothing more Doermann said the threat at curbing deepfakes is to ... (be) seen taking a
Research Projects Agency. than a "cheap fake." has grown worse due to "worthy of serious consid- bribe that you never took."
"This is a cat and a mouse Rep. Adam Schiff, the com- the proliferation of what eration." But he said the U.S. intelligence officials
game." As the ability to de- mittee chairman, said the was once specialized tech- problem will never be com- have repeatedly warned
tect such videos improves, Pelosi video "demonstrates nology. Creating convinc- pletely solved, only sup- about the threat of foreign
so does the technology the scale of the challenge ing fabricated videos once pressed. meddling in American poli-
used to make them. we face." But he said he required expensive equip- Clint Watts, a research fel- tics, especially in the lead-
The videos are made using fears a more "nightmarish ment and software, but low with the Foreign Policy up to elections.
facial mapping and arti- scenario," with these video now "a high school student Research Institute, sug- U.S. officials determined
ficial intelligence . The al- spreading disinformation with a good computer" gested tech companies Russia carried out a sweep-
tered video of Pelosi, which about a political candi- can do it, he said. should play a role in de- ing political disinformation
was viewed more than 3 date and the public strug- "It's not something that you ciding which false videos campaign on U.S. social
million times on social me- gling to separate fact from have to be an (artificial in- should be taken down from media to influence the
dia, gave only a glimpse fiction. telligence) expert to run. A the internet. But that idea 2016 election. The direc-
of what the technology The technology, said Schiff, novice can run these types drew skepticism from the tor of national intelligence,
can do. Experts dismissed D-Calif., has "the capac- of things," he said. committee's top Republi- Dan Coats, has said Russia
the clip, which was slowed ity to disrupt entire cam- Schiff told reporters after can, California Rep. Devin attempted to meddle in
down to make it appear paigns, including that for the hearing he believes Nunes. He raised concerns the 2018 midterm elections,
that Pelosi was slurring her the presidency." federal regulation aimed about granting too much but was unsuccessful.q
Chinese cyberattack hits messaging app during HK protest

By YANAN WANG ibly dispersed by police us- protests in hopes the en-
Associated Press ing tear gas, pepper spray cryption will allow them to
BEIJING (AP) — An encrypt- and rubber bullets. They evade the government sur-
ed messaging app said did not assemble again veillance of Chinese social
Thursday that it was hit by a on Thursday and debate networking apps such as
powerful cyberattack from over the legislation was de- WeChat.
China as a major protest layed. Whereas WeChat users re-
unfolded in Hong Kong. Telegram CEO Pavel Durov ported this week that pho-
The attack on the Telegram tweeted that most of the tos of the protests could
app, which slowed con- attackers had IP addresses not be viewed, apps like
nectivity but did not com- from China. Telegram offer more pri-
promise user data, came "Historically, all state actor- vacy and independence.
as thousands surrounded sized (attacks) we experi- Telegram is blocked in
Hong Kong government enced coincided in time mainland China, but users
headquarters on Wednes- with protests in Hong Kong," can access it using soft-
day to protest legislation Durov said. "This case was ware to circumvent the
that would allow people to not an exception." firewall, which also blocks
The website of the Telegram messaging app is seen on a com- be extradited to mainland Activists in both Hong Kong apps and websites ranging
puter's screen in Beijing, Thursday, June 13, 2019. China to stand trial. and mainland China often from Facebook to The New
Associated Press They protesters were forc- use Telegram to organize York Times.q