PSA Newsletter 28: Privacy, Security, Automation!
Defense Against the Dark AI Arts…
Privacy
Personal data is often used to train AI models and almost all of it comes through publicly accessible and uploaded social media content. To help protect yourself and your family from having your photos scraped and used for AI training, follow these steps:
- Set your privacy settings to private only
- Remove EXIF or metadata from your photos before uploading
- Don’t upload your data to AI tools
- Blur or mask the faces of children or anyone whose face you don’t want to be used
- Talk to your family members about posting photos publicly and ask them to not post your family photo online
The article goes on to recommend Proton Drive for photo sharing. While I can’t recommend any service I haven’t used myself, I hear good things about Proton Drive. [1]
Security
There's a scene in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 where Harry is prompted (albeit forcefully) by Professor Lupin to verify his identity by recounting an in-person moment between the two of them. He does so successfully and is informed that the group may have been betrayed by an imposter. Shortly after, Kingsley Shacklebolt arrives and challenges Lupin in the same way.
While this scene is a fantastic example of Multifactor Authentication in practice, this technique can also be used to defend against AI imposters. The source below links to an article that describes using passphrases, exchanged in person, to verify identity in a potentially high-stress situation, like fleeing Death Eaters or scammers pretending to be a kidnapped relative. This, combined with other practices like hanging up and calling back a known number, or verifying each other through another channel like Signal Messenger, helps protect against imposter attacks. [2]
Heads Up
In lieu of an Automation tip this month, please watch this video and show it to everyone you can. AI is now at the point where casual observation is no longer good enough to spot fakes, and even the most astute observer can be duped. Awareness is very important and this video may be enough to convince your friends and loved ones they need to be a bit more skeptical from now on. [3]
