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(CNN) – This is a scene from a modern horror film: The call comes from inside the house.
But this is not any call. It's from you.
This was played on a recent Wednesday night, when the caller ID of my iPhone showed my own phone number, as well as a picture of my face. It was an automated call using identity theft technology to pretend calling from my own number.
I picked up and tried to sound threatening: "Can I help you?"
This was an automated pre-recorded message from "Microsoft" claiming that my computer's license was expiring. Knowing the exercise, I was not surprised to learn that I had 24 hours to react before going to jail.
I receive more fraudulent calls than calls – after all, almost 30% of all calls made each day are automated calls – but a call from my own number was a new one for me.
Still, some experts warned that it was only a taster of the biggest dangers ahead: a world in which you receive automated calls from numbers you know and where the no one at the other end sounds like someone you know.
Spoofing, a form of robotic calling, is becoming more commonplace. This is when a person makes a call from an IP voice service, such as Skype, and can enter a host number. While the operator must provide a number when a call is made from a mobile phone or landline, any sequence of numbers can be entered via a VoIP service, whether it is a dialed number, a a number from your address book or from the White House. . It's so easy that everyone can do it.
Because a hustler knows that you are more likely to pick up if you recognize the caller, it is possible that he enters a number that he thinks is in your address book. . They might even one day use voice manipulation technology to mimic that person. (Think deepfakes for automated calls).
Tarun Wadhwa, founder of technology consulting firm Day One Insights, says it's easy for strangers to find out who's close to you and what their personal contact information is on social media or other sites Web. Years of large-scale data breaches have put online the phone number, address, password and credit card information of millions of people, facilitating their insertion into a ploy.
"It will be like Photoshop – something so easy, widespread and well known that we stop following how it is used against people and that it does not surprise us," said Wadhwa, who has spent years in study problems related to identity, technology falsification and cybersecurity.
Wadhwa fears that this type of forgery technology can also ruin relationships and reputation.
"I can easily imagine situations in which this type of speech synthesis technology is used to confuse people, extort people and make fraud and scams much more precise," he said.
Some startups are already working on voice manipulation technology. Others use AI to generate voices that can be joked just like real humans.
Last year, Google introduced its AI-powered Duplex Assistant that showed how a person could make restaurant reservations over the phone without knowing that the receptionist was not a person. The technology, which seemed extremely realistic and could keep the conversation with the caller, caused a sensation. Critics worry that it will be difficult for the average citizen to distinguish who is real and not on the phone, blurring the line between automated and authentic conversations.
But Alex Quilici, CEO of the YouMail automated call prevention application, said it would require considerable work from the scammer.
"Building a fake computer voice right now is a decent job," said Quilici. "If I wanted to create one that looks like you, for example, I would need a ton of samples of you saying specific phonemes, and form a computer model about it."
He argues that it is easier, but nevertheless sophisticated, to call a number of a friend to tell him that he is in jail and that it must be bailed out. Or, it could mean calling your child's number from someone claiming to be a doctor, asking you to go to the hospital – only to be burglarized when you're out.
These concerns come at a time when automated calls are more prevalent than ever and fewer people pick up calls from unknown numbers. Americans received 26.3 billion automated calls last year – a 46% increase over 2017 – and this March set a new monthly record with 5.23 billion automated calls , according to YouMail data. At the same time, the Federal Communications Commission said unsolicited calls were the biggest consumer complaint to the agency each year. (It received 7.1 million complaints about automated calls in 2017).
In general, I do not answer calls to unknown numbers, but it was difficult to resist that of me. According to Quilici, simply taking the phone can be a mistake. By answering a phone call, fraudsters know that my number is active and that I am ready to take it.
"Identity theft is becoming more common as fraudsters try to call with numbers less likely to be blocked," he said. "You do not block your own number and you are more likely to answer numbers that seem local."
The FCC's efforts to crack down on automated calls have been slow. In November 2018, FCC President Ajit Pai sent letters to carriers, including Verizon, AT & T and T-Mobile, encouraging them to adopt an authentication framework for callers.
"The fight against illegal automated calls is our number one priority in terms of consumption at the FCC," said Pai in a statement. "That's why we need call authentication to become a reality, and that's the best way to ensure that consumers can confidently answer their phone." next, I hope consumers will start seeing it on their phones. "
The telecommunications industry is working on a tool called Stir / Shaken to identify and track spoofing efforts that could have the greatest potential for curbing automated calls. AT & T, Comcast and Verizon have already performed tests and other vendors have committed to adopt Stir / Shaken by the end of 2019. (AT & T owns CNN's parent company, WarnerMedia.)
But because it's a massive crossover – a person using an AT & T wireless phone will need to be verified when calling a Comcast landline – it's a big technical challenge. Some experts, like Wadhwa, fear that solutions will be obsolete by the time they arrive on the market.
In the meantime, robot blocking applications such as YouMail can send a message out of service when a known Robo number arrives. The message gives the impression that your number is disconnected, so the fraudsters will not call you back. Meanwhile, operators like Verizon, AT & T and T-Mobile offer free download applications that automatically block these types of calls. For a monthly cost of several dollars, apps can reverse the caller's search.
Automated call scammers rely on cheap technology that works on a large scale, but new systems could become smarter and pose an even greater threat in the future.
"If we can not solve this problem, I think we will consider automated calls as a problem much easier to solve than what is in the pipeline," Wadhwa said.
The-CNN-Wire
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