ICYMI: A mom is accused of harassing daughter's cheerleader rivals with humiliating deepfake vids
- Reference: 1615936012
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/03/16/cheerleader_deepfake_mother/
- Source link:
Rafaella Spone was this month [1]arrested and charged with three counts apiece of harassment and cyber harassment of a child. Police in Hilltown Township, Pennsylvania, began investigating when three high-school students in the US state said they started receiving strange text messages and video clips from various unknown cellphone numbers.
[2]
A mother of one girl said her daughter received a message reading, “you should kill yourself,” along with photos of the child doctored to show her naked, vaping, and drinking alcohol. An altered video of the student vaping was also sent to the owner of her cheerleader gym, which could have caused her to be kicked out, it is claimed.
Another student was sent a photo of her pictured in a bikini with the words “toxic traits, revenge, dating boys, and smoking” written across it. The third teenager was accused of “drinking at the shore,” and smoking pot.
[3]
US Senate approves deepfake bill to defend against manipulated media [4]READ MORE
The images and videos, however, appear to be digitally altered by AI-based deepfake-creating software, with the students’ faces pasted onto other people’s bodies. All three students are part of the same cheerleading squad. Officers reviewing the material believe the content is “the work of a program that is or is similar to ‘Deep Fakes’,” according to a criminal complaint obtained by The Register that we are not sharing as it contains sensitive information about juveniles.
The teenagers’ faces were scraped from their public social media profiles, it is said.
Police said they got a search warrant to extract from a VoIP business the IP addresses used to send the text messages to the young cheerleaders. Those IP addresses, we're told, belonged to Spone's Verizon account. The cops swooped on her home in Chalfont, New Britain Township, and seized laptops, phones, and other electronics inside, and said they found enough evidence to charge her.
[5]
It is believed Spone was trying to force her daughter’s rivals off their team, either by landing them in trouble or embarrassing them, [6]according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. The mother is expected to appear in a preliminary court hearing on March 30. ®
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[1] https://bucks.crimewatchpa.com/hilltowntwppd/17270/arrests/spone-raffaela-marie-3-counts-cyber-harassment-child-m3-and-1-additional-charge
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YFGM8Mt5sGvuHrWw@xtUbQAAANc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YFGM8Mt5sGvuHrWw@xtUbQAAANc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/19/us_senate_deepfake/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YFGM8Mt5sGvuHrWw@xtUbQAAANc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.inquirer.com/news/bucks-county-raffaela-spone-cyberbullying-deepfake-20210312.html
[7] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Girls…
The Kathleen Turner movie _Serial Mom_ was supposed to be a comedy, not a guide to proper maternal behavior.
The use of 'AI'
did not extend to trying to use even the most basic of identity / location obfuscation.
Re: The use of 'AI'
Oh, there was plenty of artificial intelligence in play here.
Just no actual human intelligence.
Re: basic obfuscation
Mrs Spone sent her fakes via a VOIP service so the recipients would not be able to trace them back to her. She used the same service from her home internet connection for all the fakes so it took minimal effort from the police to identify the source house hold. Her OPSEC was sufficient for a minor irritation but not sufficient for committing a crime.
Utterly disgusting
I hope the woman gets serious jail time for that. She clearly didn't consider how she'd feel if her daughter were targeted like that, or what it is like to be the target of such abuse. It's bad enough having male ne'erdowells do this sort of thing (Guys - I know it's only a small percentage of males that are that sick; I'm not having a go at all of you!) without having other women get in on the act as well! I hope her child is OK, as clearly the mother isn't a good parent.
When I was a kid....
Mums would compete by trying to make the most attractive cup-cakes to sell at the school fete.
How times change.
Cybermom crime is apparently on the rise ...
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/543408-high-schooler-and-mother-arrested-for-hacking-homecoming-queen-vote