Engineer for the future of Cloud
June 10-13, 2019
San Jose, CA

Deepfakes: If anything can be real, then nothing is real

April Wright (Architect Security, Inc.)
2:20pm–3:00pm Thursday, June 13, 2019
Emerging Tech
 Location: LL21 E/F
Average rating: ****.
(4.83, 6 ratings)

Level

Non-technical

What you'll learn

  • Explore deepfakes and learn how to protect yourself from their ramifications

Description

“I didn’t say that!” The world will be forever changed by deepfakes. A portmanteau of “deep learning” and “fake,” this trend refers to a new AI-assisted human image-synthesis technique that generates realistic video face swaps that can even be done in real time. With modern face-swapping video technology, selfies can be used to create videos. A voice can be faked. A face can be faked. This is the new reality. What happens when we cannot trust what we hear and what we see? How do we detect and defeat this threat to global society?

April Wright explores the possible ramifications of deepfakes, from privacy violations to personal and professional embarrassment to causing global thermonuclear war, and considers what can be done to protect ourselves—emphasizing the need for remaining critical of what we see as this technology gets better and better.

Photo of April Wright

April Wright

Architect Security, Inc.

April C. Wright is a hacker, O’Reilly author, teacher, and community leader who has been breaking, making, fixing, and defending the security of global critical communications and connections for over 25 years. She’s an international speaker and trainer, educating and advising on matters of privacy and information security with the goal of safeguarding the digital components we rely on every day. April has held roles on defensive, operational, adversarial, and development teams throughout her career, and she has spoken and contributed to numerous worldwide security conferences including BlackHat, DEF CON USA and DEF CON China, DerbyCon, Hack in Paris, DefCamp Romania, and ITWeb South Africa as well as for the US government and industry organizations such as OWASP and ISSA. She has started multiple small businesses, including a nonprofit, handles communications for DEF CON Groups community outreach, and in 2017 cofounded a popular local Boston community event (DC617). April has collected dozens of certifications to add capital letters at the end of her name and almost died in Dracula’s secret staircase. She once read in the Onion that researchers at the University of North Carolina released a comprehensive report in 2014 confirming her status as the “most significant and interesting person currently inhabiting the earth,” and it was on “teh internet,” so it must be true.