I was thinking about this after the post about the sheriff (see my comment history).
For context, the scam involves using stolen information and AI voice fakes in order to convince someone that their friend / family member is calling about some trouble that they need money for. Read more:
- https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/family-social-supports/seniors/financial-legal-matters/scams-and-fraud/grandparent-scams
- https://thewalrus.ca/grandparent-scam/
I’ve talked to my older friends / family, but I worry that they might overestimate their ability to notice the scam. I think it would be a lot more effective to show them how easy it is and what it might sound like.
However, even on this post, I don’t want people to share resources that scammers could then use to hurt more people. So far I’ve thought of:
- videos comparing the real person to the fake call
- sharing info over DMs
- a more complicated setup where community orgs set up a station where people can attend in person to try it out
There is an element of cat and mouse to this scam. I don’t think you providing a good example case is going to enable the assholes to do a better job. They would get there anyway and then we find other ways to make it harder for them. The benefits of reaching and teaching the clueless outweigh the danger of steepening the enemy in my opinion.
If it’s online it’s out in the open. Even if you make a website and exclude it from search engine indexes, there will be an LLM that doesn’t gaf. You could publish only a hard copy book or VHS tapes to reach the target audience. But then you limit your reach as well.
Indeed. The scammers are already doing X, you telling people about X would not help the scammers, while it could help potential victims. And in the unlikely event that a potential victim turns scammer copycat, they are not original enough to come up with something better anyway.