If someone is intent on scamming your contacts with a voice deepfake, they don’t need expensive tools. They can scam them for free.
Testing free software for voice deepfakes
Charlie Osborne of ZDNET wanted to conduct a deepfake scam test. But because she didn’t have consent to clone soneone else’s voice, she cloned her own with FREE software. She then used FREE software to have the cloned voice recite a scam script.
- She found her own Spotify podcast interviews, then (to simulate acquired voice quality) downloaded then as compressed WAV files. She “wanted to use audio samples of a similar quality to those you could rip from the average Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok content that could be exploited by scam artists.”
- Within three minutes, Osborne had Claude write “a short script for a phone-based scam, emphasizing urgency, panic, and a few deliberate pauses for a conversational effect.”
Here’s an excerpt:
“I can’t get into my banking without my phone, and I don’t want to worry anyone else. [pause 1s] Please don’t say anything, I feel so stupid.”
Note that the “please don’t say anything” line is VERY effective in ensuring that the recipient doesn’t question the scam.
- She then experimented with six free voice cloning apps to have them read the scam script in a voice created from her WAV samples. However, one was too professional and the others had a flat voice, which did NOT sound like a frightened woman.
- She tried a seventh that promised emotional control, but it produced a voice with “a strangely breathy, husky whisper.”
- She then went back and selected one of the original six, Voicebox.
Testing the scam
After Osborne created the recording, she tried it on five of her contacts. She didn’t fool four, but did fool one.
“Because she was of an older generation and slightly hard of hearing, it was harder for her to distinguish the familiar clues in a voice that make someone recognizable and trustworthy. (This wasn’t necessarily fair, I know, but it was a scam scenario that could realistically play out, and I was swiftly forgiven.)”
Now you could say that Osborne only had a 20% success rate, but remember that she was only using FREE tools. If she had spent some money, maybe she could have pulled it off.
Which emphasizes the importance of checking any communication you receive, and possibly setting up a phrase of four safe words (not one).
And no, I don’t encourage you to start scamming your contacts.
