The Stranger In Your Pocket: Pig-Butchering & Other AI Scams

Last week I spent two hours at the bank with an elderly relative who had gotten scammed out of thousands of dollars and other personal information. And yes this has been happening since snake-oil salesmen rolled in, conned us, and then moseyed on out of town with our money... but now it's on steroids. 

The Economist held a contest to redesign a cover (my entry above); original story is about Pig-Butchering 🐷 🗡 

Pig-butchering, or sha zhu pan, is Chinese criminal slang. First the scammers build a sty, with fake social-media profiles. Then they pick the pig, by identifying a target; raise the pig, by spending weeks or months building trust; cut the pig, by tempting them to invest; and butcher the pig by squeezing “every last drop of juice” from them, their family and friends.

Online scamming compares in size and scope to the illegal drug industry. (est: 1.5M criminals)

The difference is you don't have to be doing drugs or any illegal activities to encounter this phenomenon. Just living your life and they come to you. 

Scammers target all human frailties: fear, loneliness, greed, grief and boredom. 

There are romance scams, crypto and investment scams, identity scams, and who knows what else is coming. The point is we are not handling this on a global scale and it will eventually touch us or someone we care about. And AI will simply make them more efficient, realistic and harder to trace. 

This is a security and defense threat! It's not only money and humiliation in the mix but the opportunity for blackmailing and ransom leverage. It should be a top priority while we have control to some degree. What will happen when all our data is accesible in the cloud and the scammers don't need people pulling off these scams but AI can do it on its own?! 🤖

Banks, crypto exchanges, internet-service providers, telecoms companies, social-media platforms and e-commerce firms as well as schools, community organizers and government entities need to sound the alarms and work together to educate the public, protect the money and safety of those who get insnared and use this as a diplomatic minimum for good foreign relations. Cut off access to our citizens if they do not enforce laws against these types of criminal activity. 

Yes, suckers are born every day but never have we had to protect ourselves and every aspect of our lives from this kind of sophisticated technology and threats. Good Capitalism means protecting your clients, workers and industry from fraud- we need to pull together before none of us have any roast beef left and we're all wee, wee, weeing wondering if we still have a home.     

Original

The original cover and the winners: 

[Note: This is part of a project of mine: AI COVERS. This is not an actual Economist cover, nor is it endorsed in any way by their publisher/owners.]

[🤓 FOLLOW UP...

A friend asked for examples when I posted this on FB, so here is what I answered her back:

For my family situation it was a phone call about tax concerns (totally made up but scared them). 

For me, it was on a dating app (Hinge).

And for others I read about recently everything from on LinkedIn pretending to be businesses that weren't legit.

Lesson is that it's not a few bad apples, it's a highly organized well oiled machine of organized crime and everyone is vulnerable because we never think it'll happen to us or our loved ones. 

Take away: NEVER give anyone your personal info or access to your money unless you are the one instigating the contact. Don't click on links, instead go to the sites and accounts directly. And no one will call you with demands for payment or info that is such an emergency they need it right then. Block anyone whenever in doubt. Other tips: here ]

MOODY LOVE: AI Will Break Our Hearts

I've had a surreal summer and I'm about to tell you the weird tale of it but only if you agree not to judge 🤨

So I was minding my own business when I get a like on Hinge from Lewy, this guy I am sure is not my type, but he had video and voice prompts and they were deep and soulful so I was open to the possibility. After all, he was my "most compatible" according to Hinge so what the heck, why not give it a go?!

I matched with him but then asked him to get verified and after a few days he hadn't so I wished him well and told him I was not interested. Well this is usually where they disappear if they are phony profiles so I was surprised when he sent me a nice note back and said he had reasons to not get verified but wished me nothing but joy- which you know had me hooked. 

Yada, yada, yada... I am now completely amused by this guy who is not my type. Or so I thought. He is cute, sweet, funny, pro-gun reform, been working a sober program for 7 years, interested in AI, does charitable work, close to his kids, and wait for it... wanted to know about my book! Hello 😍

After a while of chatting we exchanged numbers and moved it to Signal to message directly. Which is where I found out his name was Ivan Lewis Moody. Yup, I had no idea I was supposedly chatting with a big rockstar.

Just as we were starting to get close his summer tour started and so we were just checking in about his day and mine. 

A few weeks of this went by and he had shared a lot of very personal stories about his sobriety, his hopes for love and some contract details he thought I should be aware of. 

He hadn't gotten risque in any way- a perfect gentleman. But he was super sappy and I felt it was getting a little love bomby so I held back. It was hard because I have rarely encountered such an emotive person. He had deep feelings and because of the rough times when he was in his alcoholism he had a lot of regrets and wasn't shy about owning up to them. 

My weakness is people who have done work on themselves and can clean up their own messes. I love a guy who knows why his last relationship didn't work. So I was melty and crushing hard. 

Well you probably guessed it from the AI foreshadowing... he was not who he claimed to be. And the freakiest part is even after audio messages one night we got into an argument about me doubting him and he video-called me and there he was! 

I was so freaked out to see him on my screen- the room was dark but there he was, Lewy on my phone. The call was 56 sec and then he hung up with an excuse that his security must have guards on his computer because he couldn't get the audio to work. But my heart stopped- was any of this real?!

And that is the point! 

We are now entering a time when voices can sound so real you can't tell if it's your loved one calling or not. Video that on a small screen is undetectably fake or not. 

The scary part is that it is just the begining. Watch the movie Mountainhead and the entire premise is that an app gets so realistic it causes global chaos 

And corporate interest is not in helping us! When you report fake accounts to Meta they won't remove them unless you can prove they have been soliciting from people. And remember it was Hinge that recommended "Lewy" to me in the first place. Another reason why we need Good Capitalism!! 

We are on our own! So learn from my broken heart and bruised ego that we are all foolish enough to fall for the things we think we're actually manifesting.  I fell for a rockstar, you might fall for a crypto, or a cause that pulls at your heartstrings, or a politician with a perfect pitch. 

I'll be alright. While I was healing my heart I remembered what Nora always said and so I could at least make some use of this mess.

Things are about to get bumpy and weird and even dangerous. So stay safe, sane and keep your heart open but your eyes on AI  🤖 👀