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| Picture AI-generated (Copilot) |
High time for a summery blog, although the inspiration doesn’t come from the current weather. Fortunately, a colleague gave me a great tip.
He showed
me two short videos. The first one shows him and his girlfriend sitting next to
each other. They turn toward each other and kiss. In the second video, he’s
alone on a rock by the sea, and four blonde, long-haired, and rather scantily
clad women slide into view and, well, caress him. He lifts his head in delight.
Why does he
share that footage? We don’t have a team culture where we brag about such
conquests. No, he showed me this because it’s not real. Oh, it starts with a
real photo, just a nice vacation snapshot. Then the AI app PixVerse turns it
into a video. You can choose from a whole range of templates—far more than the
two examples mentioned: you can have someone board a private jet, cuddle with a
polar bear or tiger, turn into Batman, have your hair grow explosively, get
slapped in the face, and so on. With many of these videos, viewers will
immediately realize they’re fake. But with my colleague’s videos, it’s not so
obvious.
That’s
exactly why the European AI Act requires that content created by artificial
intelligence be labeled as such. Imagine if his girlfriend saw the second video
without any explanation. Depending on temperament and mutual trust, that could
easily lead to a dramatic scene. PixVerse is mainly aimed at having fun, but
you can imagine how such tools could be used for very different purposes.
Take
blackmail, for instance. You generate a video of someone in a compromising
situation, threaten to release it, and hold out your hand. And like any good
criminal, they won’t necessarily follow the law and label it as fake. Now,
PixVerse’s quality isn’t immediately threatening: if you look closely, you can
tell. Fingers remain problematic for AI, and eyes too. But still, if you’re not
expecting to be fooled, you won’t notice—and you only see it once you’re
looking for it. I see a criminal business model here.
It seems
PixVerse mainly targets young people, judging by the free templates available.
My colleague’s videos were also made by a child. On the other hand, you can
subscribe to various plans, ranging from €64.99 to €649.99 per year. That’s
well above pocket money level for most. If you do get a subscription, the
watermark disappears from your videos—in other words, no more hint that AI was
involved.
One of the
pillars of information security is integrity: the accuracy and completeness of
data. This was originally conceived with databases and other computer files in
mind. It would be wrong if a house number or amount would be incorrect or if
data would be missing. But you can easily apply this principle to images and
audio, too. If you can no longer trust them, integrity is no longer guaranteed.
Not to mention the (personal) integrity of those who abuse it.
After this
blog, my vacation begins, and I used AI to help plan it. For example, to find
nice overnight stops on the way to our final destination. But you have to stay
alert: ChatGPT claimed the distance between two stops was over a hundred
kilometers less than what Google Maps calculated. When confronted, ChatGPT
admitted it had measured as the crow flies. I’d call that artificially dumb
rather than intelligent.
I hope you
encounter something during your own vacation that makes you think: he should
write a blog about that. Write it down or take a photo and send it to me! As
long as it’s real…
The
Security (b)log will return after the summer holidays.
And in the big bad world ...
- maybe the kiss-cam couple should have just lied that the video was fake
- I wonder if we’ll consider this kind of AI usage normal in fifty years
- bug bounty programs are getting clogged with hallucinated AI reports
- a Nigerian cybercrime gang is targeting the aviation industry with phishing attacks
- your suitcase reveals where you’re going
- the Belgian police officer in charge of security awareness said: “Piece of cake!”
- phishers have found a workaround for FIDO
- the Public Prosecution Service has been hacked – possibly by the Russians
- the Pay-or-Okay model is not okay
- the cybercriminal might just politely ask for your password
- UK government agencies may soon be banned from paying ransomware ransoms
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