The Daily Valet. - 8/30/23, Wednesday

✔️ Deepfake Scams Are Here

August 30, 2023

Wednesday, August 30th Edition

By Cory Ohlendorf, Valet. Editor

Be kind to your flight attendants. And don't hog the armrest. And let's all leave the airplane in a nice, orderly fashion, okay?

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Today’s Big Story

Deepfake Scams Are Here

The videos have become so easy to make, You can now have anyone do or say anything ... on film

Is that real? Get ready to start saying that a whole lot more. Because the deepfake scam, a long feared phenomenon, has finally arrived on social media. Fraudulent videos of celebrities hawking phony services have begun gaining traction on major social media platforms from Facebook and YouTube to TikTok. And if we can't trust TikTok, who can we trust!?NBC News recently reviewed more than four dozen videos posted online that featured computer-manipulated images and audio of well-known people, all of which appeared to have been created to scam viewers out of money. The majority of them centered on Elon Musk, with manipulated videos of several news and television personalities—including CBS News anchor Gayle King, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and HBO host Bill Maher—falsely claiming that Musk had invented a technologically advanced investment platform.Musk, the wildly unpredictable mogul, has promoted some cryptocurrencies in the past, so he's become extremely popular with scammers who use his image to bilk people out of their money thinking they're investing in something Musk is behind.For the uninitiated, deepfake videos use artificial intelligence to create believable but fake depictions of real people. And they've become significantly more common online in recent months. Some easily accessible websites specialize in deepfake p#rn of celebrities. What's even scarier is that the technology has become far more accessible to everyday users. Apps that can create moderately convincing deepfakes, often in real time, are available to anyone with a computer or a smartphone, said Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor of computer science at Arizona State University who has studied deepfake technology. In May, Donald Trump Jr. went viral by tweeting a fan-made video that deepfaked the face of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis onto the body of Michael Scott from The Office.The unchecked rise of deepfakes has led some experts to warn that the first “deepfake election” will arrive next year, when a substantial number of voters will see political disinformation videos online and not be able to tell with certainty whether they're real.

Dig Deeper:

Deepfakes pose not only criminal risks, but also threats to national security.

Idalia Strengthens Into Category 2 Hurricane

As it intensifies, forecasters are warning Florida Residents of a "catastrophic" storm surge

Hurricane Idalia strengthened into a Category 2 storm on Tuesday with 100+ mph winds as its outer bands lashed Florida ahead of a potentially catastrophic collision with the state's west coast today resulting in a “life threatening” storm surge, the National Hurricane Center warns.Idalia is now expected to strike Florida's Gulf coast this morning as an “extremely dangerous” major Category 3 storm. According to the NWS forecast office in Tallahassee, the forecast track and intensity would be unprecedented in modern record-keeping for this part of Florida. Their official statement: “Don't mess around with this.”Tolls were waived on highways out of the danger area, shelters were open and hotels prepared to take in evacuees. More than 30,000 utility workers were gathering to make repairs as quickly as possible in the hurricane's wake. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, speaking at the state's emergency operations center, tried to keep residents calm. “You do not have to leave the state. You don't have to drive hundreds of miles,” he said. “You can ride the storm out there, then go back to your home.”

Dig Deeper:

The Wall Street Journal speaks with scientists about why hurricanes are becoming more and more intense.

A First Step Against Pricey Prescriptions?

Medicare names first 10 drugs up for price negotiations with the government

The Biden administration Tuesday identified 10 expensive prescription drugs it has chosen for price negotiations with pharmaceutical manufacturers as the government seeks to ease the financial burden on older and disabled Americans. According to the Washington Post, the announcement marks an unprecedented step in a long political war over the nation's exorbitant drug costs even as the pharmaceutical industry is still trying to block the plan.People on Medicare who took the 10 drugs—popular and costly blood thinners and diabetes medications—paid a total of $3.4 billion in out-of-pocket costs for them in 2022, according to the government. The cost to Medicare was much higher, at around $50 billion in total.“This is a long time in coming,” President Biden said at the announcement. “We're going to keep standing up to Big Pharma, and we're not going to back down.” The controversial program was authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act that Democrats pushed through Congress last year. But the drug industry and their supporters are determined to quash the effort, filing at least eight lawsuits in recent weeks declaring it unconstitutional.

FYI:

Insulin is already subject to a $35 monthly co-pay cap for Medicare prescription drug plan enrollees under a different provision of the IRA.

Flight Attendants Push for Self-Defense Training

As passengers keep wilding out, it becomes more and more necessary

Flying these days can be an ugly affair. People are behaving badly, and I'm not just talking about bringing smelly food onto the plane. Earlier this month, a passenger on a Delta Air Lines flight grabbed a flight attendant and injured her with a sharp object. If that sounds familiar, it's because for the past three years such assaults have become a fairly regular occurrence.According to a recent survey, nearly one in five flight attendants had been in a physical altercation with an unruly passenger, and that was just in the first half of the year alone. Sadly, every attempt to dissuade unruly passengers—from memes to the threat of a no-fly list— has so far fallen flat.So it's no surprise that flight attendants are pushing for legally mandated self-defense training (which they've actually been pushing for since 9/11). And, thanks to a provision in a major Senate aviation policy bill, they may soon have it. Currently, the TSA offers a self-defense course for flight attendants and pilots, which was paused due to the pandemic but is now back on. According to the TSA, more than 29,000 flight crew members have taken the training. Honestly, as a frequent flyer myself, I say if you disturb my peaceful time in the sky and get physical with the flight attendant, they should have the know-how and legal ability to take you down and restrain you.

Meanwhile:

One European airline has announced plans to trial an adults-only zone inside their planes.

In Other News

Lawyers Indicted With Trump Say They Were Doing Their Jobs

But that may be a tough argument for them to make.

Neurosurgeon Investigating Patient’s Mystery Symptoms Plucks a Worm From Woman’s Brain in Australia

Right-to-Repair Advocates Tear Down a McFlurry Machine to Show It’s Easy to Fix

Ozempic Makes Some Users Drink Less—And Scientists Might Finally Know Why

Have you heard about ...

RIP ‘The Idol’

Rival late-night hosts unite

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