“The amount of information flowing throw the internet, especially social networks, is massive and cannot be handled manually, especially with high accuracy,” Wael AbdAlmageed, a computer engineering professor at the University of Southern California, who has developed AI algorithms for detecting visual misinformation, told Lifewire in an email interview.

Webinar 4 – Forensic AI in e-Evidence – Presentation by Wael Abd-Almageed on FAKE VISUAL EVIDENCE

Cyberattacks are increasingly sophisticated as institutions of all kinds turn to biometrics to confirm user identity. USC Information Sciences Institute researchers are on the front lines, developing systems to guard against security breaches and hacking attempts.

“Once this line is eroded, truth itself will not exist,” said Wael Abd-Almageed, a research associate professor at the University of Southern California and founding director of the school’s Visual Intelligence and Multimedia Analytics Laboratory.

Deepfakes estão tentando mudar o curso da guerra na Ucrânia . Especialistas se preocupam com o potencial de espalhar mentiras e caos por meio de deepfakes à medida que elas se tornam cada vez mais realistas…

Five years ago, nobody had even heard of deepfakes, the persuasive-looking but false video and audio files made with the help of artificial intelligence. Now, they’re being used to impact the course of a war.

Wael Abd-Almageed, research director with the Information Sciences Institute at USC, speaks to CP24 about Russia’s mis-information campaign.

Experts in disinformation and content authentication have worried for years about the potential to spread lies and chaos via deepfakes, particularly as they become more and more realistic looking. In general, deepfakes have improved immensely in a relatively short period of time.

“As soon as this line is eroded, reality itself will not exist,” stated Wael Abd-Almageed, a studies partner professor at the college of Southern California and founding director of the faculty’s visual Intelligence and Multimedia Analytics Laboratory. 

“I ask you to lay down your weapons and go back to your families,” he appeared to say in Ukrainian in the clip, which was quickly identified as a deepfake. “This war is not worth dying for. I suggest you keep on living, and I am going to do the same.”

 “If you see anything and you cannot believe it anymore, then everything becomes false. It’s not like everything will become true. It’s just that we will lose confidence in anything and everything.”

According to USC Viterbi School of Engineering professor Wael AbdAlmageed, visual disinformation comes in two main varieties — repurposed media and fake media.

 Another concern is that such findings will create the impression that deepfakes will become completely undetectable, says Wael Abd-Almageed, founding director of the Visual Intelligence and Multimedia Analytics Laboratory at the University of Southern California, who was not involved in the study.

Dr. Wael Abd-Almageed of the University of Southern California’s Visual Image Lab, tweeted in response to the Zelenskyy video, that the problem is time – computer scientists are not afforded time to authenticate or debunk videos before they are shared and believed.

NBC TODAY interview with Wael AbdAlmageed a multimedia forensics expert

Wael AbdAlmageed’s interview with Glamour UK

HIGH-TECH To make a deepfake video, people use software to map a subject’s face. Then facial features can be moved around, like those of a puppet. This spring, artists circulated a deepfake of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to see if people could tell it was false.

By now you’ve seen them on Facebook being shared by your friends. They’re videos of one politician or another saying something you never believed they’d say. Perhaps it’s a video of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson endorsing his opponent. Or perhaps it’s Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitting openly that he wants to own you.

These days, downloading a CTO’s headshot to create a 3D replica and break into a secret lab is not just the stuff of espionage movies—it could happen. But a USC researcher is working on AI that will protect your biometric security.

“Deepfake” videos have become hugely popular online — for better or worse. 

In this work, we present a general framework for building a biometrics system capable of capturing multispectral data from a series of sensors synchronized with active illumination sources.

The tool, which was produced by researchers from the USC Information Sciences Institute, can detect subtle face and head movements along with unique artifacts in video files, and apparently can identify such fakes with up to 96 percent accuracy.

A new tool developed by researchers from the USC Information Sciences Institute (USC ISI) may prove to be a major help in the ongoing war against deepfakes.