This has already been adressed below, there are "perjury laws" that deal with these contingencies.
The real danger, then, is from these technologies being utilized in a non-controlled environment, like forging a "phone call from the boss", or an emergency call over a radio frequency (using the dispatcher's voice), the social engineering applications are limitless, thus precepitating a need for more reliable identity verification for voice communication.
Wouldn't it be neat if ALL of the phone systems everywhere worked on voice-over-IP?
::Proof once again that the jerks have more spare time then the people who actually do something worthwhile.::
I'd say that 9 times out of 10 this sentiment is expressed, the jerks actually ARE doing something worthwhile, by forcing complacent developers to get themselves into gear and improve the way things work.
I forget where i saw this website (it was probably linked to from Memepool.com), but theres a website out there where you can custom order a strand of DNA, they line up all the proteins for you and ship you the completed DNA segment. All you have to send them is the data.
Every useful technology was spoofable long before it became useful
Wow..i wish my email adress was flooded with secretely intercepted documents about money laundering and kidnapping.
you know, what if this virus was inserted into that area of the world purposefully to expose illegal operations and aid law enforcement? not a bad idea, except its a bit of an infringement of privacy.
i guess the downside to getting all those files is that the originators CAN track you down and kill you, id consider a quick adress change/plastic surgery
Of course, this is true for anything classified "confidential" or higher, "Noforn", a lower level of classification, can be processed on unisolated networks. I wonder, however, how wise this policy is given that the sircam virus could potentially send something like that overseas.
Ah well. People with that kind of responsability are smart enough not to download arbitrary attachments anyway, i was just curious
I agree with you about the keyboard, even the most expensive electric piano's that ive had the opprotunity to fiddle with were not much more than glorified general midi or frequency shifted samples. The synths i were referring to were something i saw on some science television show a couple years back, and existed strictly in a labratory (and with the aid of a GFlop or two, i would imagine), and were able to do some truely incredible reproductions of a flute and a clarinet, i beleive. I havent heard anything about this recently, but the concept stuck in my mind.
Working a "day job" as an acoustical engineering intern, i get to see some pretty impressive modeling and analysis done on some -old- computers, I don't think the actual technology is that far off, just an affordable implimentation. After all, today's computer periferals can keep track of millions of triangles, account for echos and reverberation in hardware accelerated sound, and tons of other goodies. Maybe it's out of reach of the chipsets currently out there, but i think its just a matter of someone sitting down and putting all the peices together.
Even if there were no threat to the legal system, how easy would it be to synth. someone important's voice for social engineering? a police officer? a corperate CEO? Sounds like a good time to invest in caller ID.
I could think of some major mischeif someone could cause with a radio transmitter set to a police frequency and this technology
That could be a great thing, maybe it would stem the tide of hundreds of cookie-cutter broadway musicals every year (to compete with the instant gratification of television and movies), and recenter commercial theatre on "quality"
I've only gotten one email..but frighteningly enough it was from a WEBSITE that I ordered COMPUTER PARTS from with my CREDIT CARD NUMBER. I wish I had looked more carefully at which company it was before i deleted it, so i could avoid them in the future.
I don't know what the "legal" ramifications of leaking a document like this through a virus would be, but i would certainly expect the company to hold the individual responsible for abusing company property in this way. The person who downloaded the file and clicked on it could conceivably be fully accountable to the company for the damages they've incurred, and rightfully so, i beleive. I would imagine the company would sue the employee foolish enough to leak the document in this way. It would be easy enough to do, you could track where the file came from, who's machine it was sent by, when it was sent, etc.
What -I- would be interested to know (since it relates directly to my current employment) is how the government would treat the leaking of defense information overseas as a result of this virus. Would the person who infected the machine be arrested for treason/espionage? Interesting question...
As for who is "logically" or "ethically" responsible for the damages, I firmly beleive the person who downloaded the file and allowed it to execute is the one at fault. Viruses like this specific one depend on ignorance to propagate, and theres really no excuse for ignorance.
...and if you juxtapose the ultra-realistic movie-making that squaresoft has been doing with nearly-perfect voice synthesis (that could always be retouched and tweaked in post, it wouldnt have to be perfect on the fly), you would be able to completely eliminate the profession of acting. After all, if you can perfectly -synthesize- a voice, you could tweak the variables and create a completely unique voice, and 3d render a unique character, create a truely "virtual" person.
I see your point here, I had (either willfully or accidentally, im not sure) overlooked the fact that he was SELLING this product. Thanks for the clarification.
Well, i'm not sure about if ATT's technology is "there" yet in terms of what you're describing, but it certainly can't be a long way off. There are instrument synth's that have been out for a while that actually acoustically model the instrument being synthesized, and instead of altering the frequency/amplitude of the generated noise, actually change the model's airflow, resonance, etc. Processing power is up to the challenge, certainly, and its not too much of a stretch to imagine a synth that would model a person's vocal chords, they're not all that complicated, and then account for lung capacity, flow, etc. From there, choosing which words to say and how to say them are simple, and could be accomplished with some simple markup language (like HTML).
"Accelerator cards" are a trend that would make this even more possible. A 3d graphics accelerator is a must-have for today's games, and for a lot of people, a beefy soundcard is a must have (with hardware acceleration of "cool sound stuff"), and there have been some mentioning "out there" of the possability of an "artifical intelligence" PCI card, that would take the strain off the CPU in doing common "AI" tasks such as pathfinding (i dont know enough about AI to give better examples than good 'ol A* pathfinding). So, given that, if the technology were to take off, we could ostensibly see "Voice synthesis" PCI cards, or more likely, improved Voice synth incorperated into the chipsets of the next generation of $100+ soundcards
(on an unrelated note, i just got the Herculese Gametheatre XP soundcard, and it rocks throughout the projects)
That's something i have no experience with. can you (or someone else) briefly explain the perjury laws, as they would apply in this case?
I mean, just reasoning from the point of departure that the accused is "innocent until prooven guilty", if you make that proof impossible, how would someone be convicted?
A crude example would be, say, a chat log. If someone were to just hand in an ASCI or HTML transcript of things that were said online, I dont see how that would be admissible evidence, since it only takes a word processessor and a little bit of time to forge/alter. Even with IP logging, THEN you have to proove that no one was spoofing the IP adress.
Given the above, could someone explain these perjury laws?
This would be a good point, if the "kid" had broken any laws.
One would reason that a gun is "specifically designed to break the law", IE, intentionally harming or killing another individual. I mean, look at a gun (or a picture of one, i certainly don't have any lying around). Do you see many other uses for it, besides fatally injuring someone?
Here's a better example. There are a few good FTP server programs out there, that allow you to host an FTP site on your computer, allowing people to download any file you give access to. Thousands of public FTP sites exist for the unauthorized distribution of commercial products. We don't, however, see the authors of BulletProof FTP server in jail, nor the author of CuteFTP, or BPFTP client, etc.
Logically, adobe does have the right to electronically secure their product, but judging from the "securing" they've done, they obviously didnt decide doing so was worth the investment (or got scammed by their "security developers"). Although Dmitry's software allows someone to duplicate an Ebook file (from what i understand), I beleive users are allowed (by law) to make one copy of ANY electronic media they've purchased, for archival purposes. This principal has kept websites like www.gamecopyworld.com et al in existance, simply because, although they give you the tools to defeat copy protection on the latest and greatest games, it is the -user- who breaks the law when he does so for purposes other than archival/educational, not the author for making it possible in the first place.
The "Kid"'s arrest was simply another poorly thought out knee-jerk reaction by the technology-illiterate powers that be.
Well kids, say goodbye to phone taps, voice mail, and important business being conducted over the phone. If this technology really accomplishes what the above says, Voice recordings wouldnt be able to hold up in court because..well..it would be difficult/impossible to proove that they were really recordings of the persons voice.
Of course, i don't think this kind of techonology should be "outlawed" or "restricted", that will only make it easier to be used maliciously, as with any technological advancement.
Another interesting point of interest is with the new Final Fantasy: spririts within movie, actors are beginning to consider copyrighting their likenesses, since they can be reproduced on a computer with frightening quality and clarity. Perhaps this applies to voice reproduction as well.
This sounds like a very beneficial technology, especially for games, where a high-quality voice synth could replace volumes of digitally recorded and compressed audio files..but it opens the door for some really frightening possabilities of fraud, social engineering, and copywrite side-stepping.
I wonder how long before MS (or the government for that matter) starts releasing their own malicious Worms to increase antivirus revenue, spy on users, or scare the lUser population into making uninformed purchasing decisions?
Didn't they just pass a law making that illegal without a warrant?
That tempest stuff is crazy..how far away does it work? 100 feet or something like that? I'm gonna get me one of those.
Broadcasting a lot of EM noise would be a good way to defeat that, except i think to be strong enough, it would end up distorting your monitor's output, as well as running the risk of damaging your EM-sensitive computer innards. another thing to consider, if you were to just radiate tons of em interferance from your house, wouldnt that be some sort of FCC violation? i mean, your neighbor's TVs and radios would start flipping out..
Ben franklin once said "when you give up freedom for security, you often find you end up with neither", or something to that effect.
Privacy is something worth preserving even if you're not doing anything illegal. The right to privacy has to be garunteed to minimize the possibility of corrupt authorities misusing their power. The more power the government has to spy on our private lives, the more likely it is to be abused.
If we do just disregard our privacy and let our lives become open books...what happens when the laws change? what happens if they become unreasonable? I certainly wouldnt want to have to appear in court every time i made a backup of one of my PC disks, or sent someone an MP3 so they could hear what i was listening to. I wouldnt want to come under investigation for tinkering around with packet sniffers and powerful encryption. -I- know i'm not engaging in any malicious activity, but we can't always trust the ones with the firearms to know the difference.
I loved the original tron (I think it was released the year i was born), and i have it on DVD. I'm wondering if TRON 2.0 will stay true to what made the first one such a great movie, though. Computers aren't as mysterious and alien as they were in the early 80's/late 70's, and i'd hate to see TRON 2.0 get filled with meaningless buzzwords and catchphrases (Swordfish and Hackers come to mind, although I enjoyed both they were decidedly "dumbed down" for a mass audience).
Anyone else hear about the new TRON PC game that's supposed to be released somewhere around the time of the movie? I thought i read somewhere that Shiny Entertainment was doing it, but i'm not sure i remember that correctly.
well, its not like someone's going to MAKE everyone take this pill, it's just there as an option. It's up to the individual to determine what degree of control they want to exert over their (normally) involuntary bodily processes, and each new medical development increases the possabilities.
Hmm..as near as i can tell, the only people i've alienated thus far are..well..idiots. The people I surround myself make for some damn good company, and i can only expect the trend to continue.
I'm not saying i -know- anything about you, i was merely suggesting possabilities. The fact that, each time, you have reacted to each suggestion in an extremely hostile manner only prooves that I am correct.
I'm also not saying i know anything beyond what i observe and experience, but those things arent all that complicated. Tracing this back, this all started because I enjoy being actively social. Specifically, i like organizing large groups of people to do fun stuff. I don't see what's so objectionable about that::shrug::.
There's really nothing to "figure out". That's thinking along the wrong lines.
Of course, your ramblings would make more sense if i spent any appreciable amount of time consuming alchohol, which was an off-base assumption that weakens your whole argument. If you think being "sociable" means getting drunk all the time, I'd say that's a serious problem of -yours-, not mine. I do the things I enjoy, and since i genuinely enjoy them, I consider them worthwhile activities.
As for "pegging you", my observations have been strictly limited to the contents of your posts, and i haven't derived any information you haven't clearly laid out in your amusingly defensive outlashings. You, on the other hand, have made the logical error of assuming that, first of all, "social life" is at all related to alchohol consumption, and second of all, that I hold that same truely sad outlook.
I never claimed to have anything figured out, I'm merely in tune with what I need to do, and what I want to do. That dosen't seem like an absurd or egotistical standpoint at all.
Are your hostile, overdefensive reactions to my rather mild statements signs of greater personal issues i wonder? If so, perhaps you should find therapy that is more effective than trolling on BBs'.
If internet service providers stop allowing their users to participate in legal, reasonable filesharing, its not hard to imagine the people engaging in those activities (and "other activities") would simply take their business elsewhere, and those fascist ISPs will have to keep afloat with the fees payed by the occasional email users and web browsers.
Slashdot Mirror
This has already been adressed below, there are "perjury laws" that deal with these contingencies.
The real danger, then, is from these technologies being utilized in a non-controlled environment, like forging a "phone call from the boss", or an emergency call over a radio frequency (using the dispatcher's voice), the social engineering applications are limitless, thus precepitating a need for more reliable identity verification for voice communication.
Wouldn't it be neat if ALL of the phone systems everywhere worked on voice-over-IP?
::Proof once again that the jerks have more spare time then the people who actually do something worthwhile.::
I'd say that 9 times out of 10 this sentiment is expressed, the jerks actually ARE doing something worthwhile, by forcing complacent developers to get themselves into gear and improve the way things work.
I forget where i saw this website (it was probably linked to from Memepool.com), but theres a website out there where you can custom order a strand of DNA, they line up all the proteins for you and ship you the completed DNA segment. All you have to send them is the data.
Every useful technology was spoofable long before it became useful
Wow..i wish my email adress was flooded with secretely intercepted documents about money laundering and kidnapping.
you know, what if this virus was inserted into that area of the world purposefully to expose illegal operations and aid law enforcement? not a bad idea, except its a bit of an infringement of privacy.
i guess the downside to getting all those files is that the originators CAN track you down and kill you, id consider a quick adress change/plastic surgery
Of course, this is true for anything classified "confidential" or higher, "Noforn", a lower level of classification, can be processed on unisolated networks. I wonder, however, how wise this policy is given that the sircam virus could potentially send something like that overseas.
Ah well. People with that kind of responsability are smart enough not to download arbitrary attachments anyway, i was just curious
I agree with you about the keyboard, even the most expensive electric piano's that ive had the opprotunity to fiddle with were not much more than glorified general midi or frequency shifted samples. The synths i were referring to were something i saw on some science television show a couple years back, and existed strictly in a labratory (and with the aid of a GFlop or two, i would imagine), and were able to do some truely incredible reproductions of a flute and a clarinet, i beleive. I havent heard anything about this recently, but the concept stuck in my mind.
Working a "day job" as an acoustical engineering intern, i get to see some pretty impressive modeling and analysis done on some -old- computers, I don't think the actual technology is that far off, just an affordable implimentation. After all, today's computer periferals can keep track of millions of triangles, account for echos and reverberation in hardware accelerated sound, and tons of other goodies. Maybe it's out of reach of the chipsets currently out there, but i think its just a matter of someone sitting down and putting all the peices together.
Even if there were no threat to the legal system, how easy would it be to synth. someone important's voice for social engineering? a police officer? a corperate CEO? Sounds like a good time to invest in caller ID.
I could think of some major mischeif someone could cause with a radio transmitter set to a police frequency and this technology
That could be a great thing, maybe it would stem the tide of hundreds of cookie-cutter broadway musicals every year (to compete with the instant gratification of television and movies), and recenter commercial theatre on "quality"
I've only gotten one email..but frighteningly enough it was from a WEBSITE that I ordered COMPUTER PARTS from with my CREDIT CARD NUMBER. I wish I had looked more carefully at which company it was before i deleted it, so i could avoid them in the future.
I don't know what the "legal" ramifications of leaking a document like this through a virus would be, but i would certainly expect the company to hold the individual responsible for abusing company property in this way. The person who downloaded the file and clicked on it could conceivably be fully accountable to the company for the damages they've incurred, and rightfully so, i beleive. I would imagine the company would sue the employee foolish enough to leak the document in this way. It would be easy enough to do, you could track where the file came from, who's machine it was sent by, when it was sent, etc.
What -I- would be interested to know (since it relates directly to my current employment) is how the government would treat the leaking of defense information overseas as a result of this virus. Would the person who infected the machine be arrested for treason/espionage? Interesting question...
As for who is "logically" or "ethically" responsible for the damages, I firmly beleive the person who downloaded the file and allowed it to execute is the one at fault. Viruses like this specific one depend on ignorance to propagate, and theres really no excuse for ignorance.
...and if you juxtapose the ultra-realistic movie-making that squaresoft has been doing with nearly-perfect voice synthesis (that could always be retouched and tweaked in post, it wouldnt have to be perfect on the fly), you would be able to completely eliminate the profession of acting. After all, if you can perfectly -synthesize- a voice, you could tweak the variables and create a completely unique voice, and 3d render a unique character, create a truely "virtual" person.
I see your point here, I had (either willfully or accidentally, im not sure) overlooked the fact that he was SELLING this product. Thanks for the clarification.
Well, i'm not sure about if ATT's technology is "there" yet in terms of what you're describing, but it certainly can't be a long way off. There are instrument synth's that have been out for a while that actually acoustically model the instrument being synthesized, and instead of altering the frequency/amplitude of the generated noise, actually change the model's airflow, resonance, etc. Processing power is up to the challenge, certainly, and its not too much of a stretch to imagine a synth that would model a person's vocal chords, they're not all that complicated, and then account for lung capacity, flow, etc. From there, choosing which words to say and how to say them are simple, and could be accomplished with some simple markup language (like HTML).
"Accelerator cards" are a trend that would make this even more possible. A 3d graphics accelerator is a must-have for today's games, and for a lot of people, a beefy soundcard is a must have (with hardware acceleration of "cool sound stuff"), and there have been some mentioning "out there" of the possability of an "artifical intelligence" PCI card, that would take the strain off the CPU in doing common "AI" tasks such as pathfinding (i dont know enough about AI to give better examples than good 'ol A* pathfinding). So, given that, if the technology were to take off, we could ostensibly see "Voice synthesis" PCI cards, or more likely, improved Voice synth incorperated into the chipsets of the next generation of $100+ soundcards
(on an unrelated note, i just got the Herculese Gametheatre XP soundcard, and it rocks throughout the projects)
That's something i have no experience with. can you (or someone else) briefly explain the perjury laws, as they would apply in this case?
I mean, just reasoning from the point of departure that the accused is "innocent until prooven guilty", if you make that proof impossible, how would someone be convicted?
A crude example would be, say, a chat log. If someone were to just hand in an ASCI or HTML transcript of things that were said online, I dont see how that would be admissible evidence, since it only takes a word processessor and a little bit of time to forge/alter. Even with IP logging, THEN you have to proove that no one was spoofing the IP adress.
Given the above, could someone explain these perjury laws?
This would be a good point, if the "kid" had broken any laws.
One would reason that a gun is "specifically designed to break the law", IE, intentionally harming or killing another individual. I mean, look at a gun (or a picture of one, i certainly don't have any lying around). Do you see many other uses for it, besides fatally injuring someone?
Here's a better example. There are a few good FTP server programs out there, that allow you to host an FTP site on your computer, allowing people to download any file you give access to. Thousands of public FTP sites exist for the unauthorized distribution of commercial products. We don't, however, see the authors of BulletProof FTP server in jail, nor the author of CuteFTP, or BPFTP client, etc.
Logically, adobe does have the right to electronically secure their product, but judging from the "securing" they've done, they obviously didnt decide doing so was worth the investment (or got scammed by their "security developers"). Although Dmitry's software allows someone to duplicate an Ebook file (from what i understand), I beleive users are allowed (by law) to make one copy of ANY electronic media they've purchased, for archival purposes. This principal has kept websites like www.gamecopyworld.com et al in existance, simply because, although they give you the tools to defeat copy protection on the latest and greatest games, it is the -user- who breaks the law when he does so for purposes other than archival/educational, not the author for making it possible in the first place.
The "Kid"'s arrest was simply another poorly thought out knee-jerk reaction by the technology-illiterate powers that be.
Well kids, say goodbye to phone taps, voice mail, and important business being conducted over the phone. If this technology really accomplishes what the above says, Voice recordings wouldnt be able to hold up in court because..well..it would be difficult/impossible to proove that they were really recordings of the persons voice.
Of course, i don't think this kind of techonology should be "outlawed" or "restricted", that will only make it easier to be used maliciously, as with any technological advancement.
Another interesting point of interest is with the new Final Fantasy: spririts within movie, actors are beginning to consider copyrighting their likenesses, since they can be reproduced on a computer with frightening quality and clarity. Perhaps this applies to voice reproduction as well.
This sounds like a very beneficial technology, especially for games, where a high-quality voice synth could replace volumes of digitally recorded and compressed audio files..but it opens the door for some really frightening possabilities of fraud, social engineering, and copywrite side-stepping.
I wonder how long before MS (or the government for that matter) starts releasing their own malicious Worms to increase antivirus revenue, spy on users, or scare the lUser population into making uninformed purchasing decisions?
who's to say this hasnt already happened?
Didn't they just pass a law making that illegal without a warrant?
That tempest stuff is crazy..how far away does it work? 100 feet or something like that? I'm gonna get me one of those.
Broadcasting a lot of EM noise would be a good way to defeat that, except i think to be strong enough, it would end up distorting your monitor's output, as well as running the risk of damaging your EM-sensitive computer innards. another thing to consider, if you were to just radiate tons of em interferance from your house, wouldnt that be some sort of FCC violation? i mean, your neighbor's TVs and radios would start flipping out..
Ben franklin once said "when you give up freedom for security, you often find you end up with neither", or something to that effect.
Privacy is something worth preserving even if you're not doing anything illegal. The right to privacy has to be garunteed to minimize the possibility of corrupt authorities misusing their power. The more power the government has to spy on our private lives, the more likely it is to be abused.
If we do just disregard our privacy and let our lives become open books...what happens when the laws change? what happens if they become unreasonable? I certainly wouldnt want to have to appear in court every time i made a backup of one of my PC disks, or sent someone an MP3 so they could hear what i was listening to. I wouldnt want to come under investigation for tinkering around with packet sniffers and powerful encryption. -I- know i'm not engaging in any malicious activity, but we can't always trust the ones with the firearms to know the difference.
I loved the original tron (I think it was released the year i was born), and i have it on DVD. I'm wondering if TRON 2.0 will stay true to what made the first one such a great movie, though. Computers aren't as mysterious and alien as they were in the early 80's/late 70's, and i'd hate to see TRON 2.0 get filled with meaningless buzzwords and catchphrases (Swordfish and Hackers come to mind, although I enjoyed both they were decidedly "dumbed down" for a mass audience).
Anyone else hear about the new TRON PC game that's supposed to be released somewhere around the time of the movie? I thought i read somewhere that Shiny Entertainment was doing it, but i'm not sure i remember that correctly.
well, its not like someone's going to MAKE everyone take this pill, it's just there as an option. It's up to the individual to determine what degree of control they want to exert over their (normally) involuntary bodily processes, and each new medical development increases the possabilities.
Hmm..as near as i can tell, the only people i've alienated thus far are..well..idiots. The people I surround myself make for some damn good company, and i can only expect the trend to continue.
::shrug::.
I'm not saying i -know- anything about you, i was merely suggesting possabilities. The fact that, each time, you have reacted to each suggestion in an extremely hostile manner only prooves that I am correct.
I'm also not saying i know anything beyond what i observe and experience, but those things arent all that complicated. Tracing this back, this all started because I enjoy being actively social. Specifically, i like organizing large groups of people to do fun stuff. I don't see what's so objectionable about that
There's really nothing to "figure out". That's thinking along the wrong lines.
Of course, your ramblings would make more sense if i spent any appreciable amount of time consuming alchohol, which was an off-base assumption that weakens your whole argument. If you think being "sociable" means getting drunk all the time, I'd say that's a serious problem of -yours-, not mine. I do the things I enjoy, and since i genuinely enjoy them, I consider them worthwhile activities.
As for "pegging you", my observations have been strictly limited to the contents of your posts, and i haven't derived any information you haven't clearly laid out in your amusingly defensive outlashings. You, on the other hand, have made the logical error of assuming that, first of all, "social life" is at all related to alchohol consumption, and second of all, that I hold that same truely sad outlook.
I never claimed to have anything figured out, I'm merely in tune with what I need to do, and what I want to do. That dosen't seem like an absurd or egotistical standpoint at all.
Are your hostile, overdefensive reactions to my rather mild statements signs of greater personal issues i wonder? If so, perhaps you should find therapy that is more effective than trolling on BBs'.
im with you on this one. Unsolicited mass e-mail should be considered a punishable abuse of the internet in general
If internet service providers stop allowing their users to participate in legal, reasonable filesharing, its not hard to imagine the people engaging in those activities (and "other activities") would simply take their business elsewhere, and those fascist ISPs will have to keep afloat with the fees payed by the occasional email users and web browsers.