The Battle Against Deepfakes is Already Lost
But that’s not a reason to believe those who downplay any data breach.
Are you being gaslit about the importance of large scale data breaches that “only” expose your name and email address? Do you get the sense that leaks of financial data including credit card numbers and other replaceable identifiers, however sensitive matter more than our name and birth dates? Are you being led to believe that data breaches are anything but preventable?
As most of us suspected, there is good reason to believe that all it takes to create a deepfake identity of everything necessary to impersonate you is simply a leaked name and little more than some synthetic data.
While impersonating us to steal our data has always been a thing, now organized criminals are patching the missing holes in our personal records with ‘good enough’ data to create fake identities, Jurassic Park style.
If you’re not convinced that deepfake technology is worrying both governments and businesses, pay more attention to the silent trends towards reducing its accelerated adoption.
So next time you see mention of “just” your email address being lost, remind yourself that
- names and emails are personal information and they deserve protection
- email addresses are your one unique personal identifier on the Internet
- you should make more frequent use of the plus notation where possible
And remember: don’t let anyone else tell you how valuable your personal information is or is not. Anything else is just gaslighting.
