Lawmakers ask intelligence community for 'deepfakes' assessment

Rep. Adam Schiff and others have asked the intelligence community to assess how foreign governments could use the technology — video, audio, and images fueled by machine-learning algorithms and other tools — to harm national security interests.

The intelligence community should assess how foreign governments could use so-called “deepfake” technology to harm U.S. national security interests, a bipartisan trio of lawmakers says.

Reps. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., and Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., wrote to the director of national intelligence Thursday, asking about technologies federal agencies or private companies could use to combat the spread of fabricated images, videos, and audio. Examples of deepfakes — including doctored videos involving famous people — have caught the public’s attention recently.

“You have repeatedly raised the alarm about disinformation campaigns in our elections and other efforts to exacerbate political and social divisions in our society to weaken our nation,” the lawmakers wrote to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. “We are deeply concerned that deepfake technology could soon be deployed by malicious foreign actors.”

The rise of increasingly realistic deepfakes — fueled by machine-learning algorithms and other tools — has prompted a conversation in Washington about the phenomenon’s potential consequences.

“As deepfake technology becomes more advanced and more accessible, it could pose a threat to United States public discourse and national security, with broad and concerning implications for offensive active measures campaigns targeting the United States,” the representatives wrote.

The potential ramifications of deepfakes are wide-ranging. A fake audio clip could claim to show a candidate’s “criminal” behavior during an election, as legal analysts Bobby Chesney and Danielle Citron have pointed out. Or, an adversary could obtain sensitive government documents through cyber-espionage and “leak” forged audio and video along with those real documents, as Harvard’s Belfer Center highlighted in a 2017 report.

Schiff, Murphy, and Curbelo want the intelligence community to explore these types of possibilities and report back to Congress. They want documentation of any instances of foreign governments or foreign individuals using deepfake technology against the United States, and they want to know which intelligence agencies have the lead in countering that threat.

“Deepfakes could become a potent tool for hostile powers seeking to spread misinformation,” Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, warned in a statement.

The lawmakers ask Coats for a response by Dec. 14. Asked why the response wasn’t requested before the November midterm elections, an aide to Schiff said: “This request wasn’t pegged to the election; we are asking for a substantial review, and that will take a significant amount of time.”

You can read the full letter below.

[documentcloud url=”http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4878351-2018-09-ODNI-Deep-Fakes-Letter.html” responsive=true height=500]

Government

• Feds accuse China of ‘systematic’ distillation of U.S. AI models

• CIA’s Michael Ellis says cyber intelligence is changing how the agency operates

• The G7 tells industry to hurry up and prep for post-quantum encryption

• Jail time for Maine child in 764 marks turning point in federal law enforcement

Technology

• European parliament members call for slowdown of Serbia’s EU entry over spyware use

• FCC proposes public scorecard to rate telecoms on anti-robocall efforts

• Pegasus, NoviSpy variant spyware found on devices of Serbian activists

• Wyden seeks upgraded NSA security guidance on commercial VPN use

Threats

• Chinese espionage groups swarm to exploit triple-link chain of zero-days

• Microsoft discloses two actively exploited zero-days among 974 vulnerabilities

• Russian national extradited to US for alleged involvement in bank-account takeover scheme

• Attackers exploit zero-days in consistently besieged SonicWall product

Policy

• Whistleblower says USPS deploying new, ‘untested’ IT systems governing mail-in ballots

• ‘Watershed 250’ test program in Texas looks to private sector for water cybersecurity help

• Former sexual abuse victims say Grok used their images, videos to train deepfake capabilities

• Cyber threats nudge Trump to sign executive order on foreign equipment in U.S. energy infrastructure