Letters | Companies must turn to checks and balances to fight deepfake scams
- Readers discuss how organisations can outsmart the scammers, the post office’s ‘user pays’ principle, tackling food waste as a start, and the vandalism of the grave of a beloved Hong Kong musician
Years ago, John Woo’s film Face/Off captivated audiences with its tale of swapped faces. Today, reality presents us with the same concept, but with a digital twist – no scalpels required, just artificial intelligence.
But while technology can transform the familiar into the fraudulent, blaming the whole HK$200 million fiasco on the cleverness of deepfakes alone would be missing the point. The real issue lies deeper. Even if the video had been real, shouldn’t it have raised some serious red flags that such a massive sum was to be transferred at a word from one senior executive?
This brings to mind another lesson from history, albeit in a different field – the 1977 Tenerife airport disaster. Two jumbo jets collided on the airport runway, resulting in the deadliest aviation accident in history, with 583 lives lost. In a study of the human factors that might have contributed to the tragic outcome, investigators noted the apparent hesitation of junior crew members to question their captain’s premature take-off order.
In the face of authority, it’s human nature to hesitate, to second-guess ourselves. Scammers know this all too well. They craft a sense of urgency, leveraging the weight of authority, knowing it can cloud judgment and suppress critical thinking.