
Ask HN: Deep Fake potential impact on upcoming US election - unexaminedlife
Biden appears to be leading substantially, but surprisingly enough Trump leads substantially in many states and seems to be holding his own in several key swing states.<p>Due to all the recent reports of possible foreign election interference I think most people are probably focused on hacking of the machines that will be used for voting.<p>However, I&#x27;m trying to think outside the box.  Deep fakes, given that probably the majority of the US population are not knowledgeable in this area, feels like a very likely potential attack vector (assuming the voting machines will be secured).  Imagine the night before the election WikiLeaks posts new (deep fake) audio of Biden in what could be the biggest scandal in American history.<p>There will be no time for anyone to research the findings, and by then (if the audio feels genuine) it&#x27;s likely to sway many swing voters back to Trump.<p>My thinking is that somehow we may need to try to educate people on how good this technology has gotten and to be wary of last-minute &quot;discoveries&quot; as the election approaches.<p>What do you all think (besides voting machines) could be the new attack vector used for this coming election?  And what steps do you all think, within the next ~100 days, could be taken to mitigate them?
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PaulHoule
Hollywood has been making "deep fakes" for years. When Soviet astronauts got
blown up, they would airbrush them out.

If you get 20 hours of clean audio from somebody like Joe Biden or Lester Holt
you can cut out phonemes, groups of phonemes, words and phrases and patch them
together with a tool like Adobe Audition.

It's a lot of work and takes some talent, like good writing and art you may
have to make several attempts before getting it right.

With deepfakes you can make a much less convincing fake without the talent.
Meh. But somehow people can write "news" stories over and over about the same
technological development and people think it's fresh. I don't get it.

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unexaminedlife
You may be right, but I can't recall ever being convinced it could be real
until very recently.

