In early 2024, AI-generated explicit photos of Taylor Swift attracted 45 million views, causing widespread outrage. These incidents are just a glimpse of the disruptive impacts deepfakes have on politics, finance, and social media. Recently, OnlyFakes has started creating custom IDs that pass KYC verification at major exchanges, sparking further concern.
OnlyFakes simplifies the creation of fake identities, making processes that once required skilled craftsmanship or mailing risks more accessible. Users input personal details and choose from documents like licenses and passports from over 25 countries. The website then generates photos with realistic information commonly used in verification processes.
The Impact of OnlyFakes
Security Violations
The use of OnlyFakes raises concerns about the potential damage to various organizations. It bypasses identity verification at well-known cryptocurrency exchanges, challenging current verification technologies.
Mass Production of Fake Identities
OnlyFakes claims to generate up to 20,000 documents per day. This large-scale production of fake identities through a simple application marks a significant escalation in identity fraud.
Online Verification Threats
OnlyFakes generates fake IDs for $15 each, posing a serious cybersecurity threat. It forces a reevaluation of digital identity verification processes and increases the need for advanced measures against sophisticated fraud schemes.
Impact on Cryptocurrency Exchanges
- Fake IDs present considerable challenges to KYC verification on various platforms. The threats include
- Targeting high-value investors
- Deceiving platform customer service
- Resetting accounts, emails, passwords, and phone numbers
- Compromising 2FA authentication
- Changing login emails
- Leading to asset loss on social media, banking, and cryptocurrency exchanges
OnlyFakes lowers the barrier to fraud, allowing almost anyone to generate convincing IDs in under a minute. These IDs bypass online verification systems, compromising the identity verification processes of cryptocurrency exchanges and presenting major challenges to financial institutions and online services. This technology simplifies activities like bank fraud and money laundering, directly threatening the integrity of online verification systems.
OnlyFakes streamlines the creation of fake identities. Users input personal details and choose from documents like licenses and passports from over 25 countries. The website generates realistic photos for verification processes. The user-friendly process involves generating PDF417 and Code128, sending them to the server, and previewing the final product. The USA, Canada, the UK, Australia, and several EU countries are included. OnlyFakes accepts various cryptocurrency payments through Coinbase.
Using Blockchain Technology for Protection
Open-source deepfake models are circulating, and despite potential criminalization, misuse of deepfakes is likely to continue. However, we can prevent malicious deepfake content from entering the mainstream. By stopping people from believing deepfake images are accurate, we can create platforms that restrict deepfake content. This section introduces cryptographic solutions to address the misleading nature of malicious deepfakes while highlighting each method’s limitations.
Hardware Certification
Hardware-certified cameras embed unique proof in every photo, proving that the camera took the picture. This proof, generated by the camera’s exceptional, tamper-proof chip, ensures image authenticity. Audio and video can also use similar procedures.
This certification tells us the image is genuine, meaning we can trust it is an actual photo. We can only flag images with such proof. However, if the camera captures a fake scene designed to look natural, this method fails—you can point the camera at a phony image. Detecting if the captured image is from a digital screen involves checking for distortions, but fraudsters will find ways to hide these flaws (e.g., using better screens or limiting lens glare). Eventually, even AI tools may fail to recognize such fraud.
Hardware certification reduces the risk of trusting fake images, but we still need additional tools to prevent deepfake photos when the camera is compromised. Using hardware-verified cameras can still create the false impression that deep fake content is accurate for reasons like camera hacking or photographing deep fake scenes on a computer screen. To address this, other tools like camera blocklists are needed.
Blockchain-Based Image Chronology
Blockchain, being tamper-proof, allows us to add images with attached metadata to a timestamped chronology. This ensures that the timestamp and metadata cannot be altered. We can identify malicious edits and verify the original source by storing unedited original images on the blockchain before malicious edits spread. This technology is implemented on the Polygon blockchain network as part of the Verify fact-checking tool developed with Fox News.
Digital Identity
Deepfakes undermine our trust in unverified images and videos, making trusted sources the only way to avoid misinformation. We rely on trusted media sources to verify information because they follow journalistic standards, fact-checking processes, and editorial oversight. However, we need a method to confirm whether online content comes from trusted sources. Cryptographic signature data can mathematically prove who authored a piece of content.
Signatures, generated using digital keys created by wallets, ensure that only the person with the corresponding cryptographic wallet knows the key. This way, we can verify the author’s identity by checking if the signature matches the key in the individual’s cryptographic wallet.
Using cryptocurrency wallets, we can seamlessly attach signatures to our posts. If we log into social media platforms with a cryptocurrency wallet, we can create and verify signatures on social media. Thus, if a post’s source is untrustworthy, the platform can warn us by flagging misinformation using automated signature verification.
Deepfake technology and applications like OnlyFakes present unprecedented challenges. These tools threaten personal privacy and security and pose significant risks to financial institutions, cryptocurrency exchanges, and other online platforms that rely on identity verification. Innovative methods like hardware certification, blockchain technology, and digital signatures are being developed to counter these threats to ensure information authenticity and integrity.
These protective measures have limitations and cannot eliminate the risks posed by deepfakes. To prevent deepfake misuse effectively, a multi-layered approach combining advanced technological measures and stringent legal regulations is needed. As we refine these solutions, a collective effort is required to enhance public awareness and vigilance against deepfake threats, creating a safer and more trustworthy digital world.
About CipherBC
CipherBC stands as a market leader in digital asset custody and payment solutions. Catering to businesses seeking a secure and efficient transition to Web3 transformation, ensuring the security of assets and We are committed to the mission of “ fostering financial freedom.” In line with this objective, we provide asset owners with a complete range of services, encompassing asset custody, merchant payments, clearing and other financial services.