“A reasonably good clone can be created with under a minute of audio and some are claiming that even a few seconds may be enough.” Mom wary about answering calls for fear voice will be cloned for future virtual kidnapping.

    • Cegorach@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      1 year ago

      the title already is about “improving kidnapping scam”

      so yes, that “kidnapping scam” seems to be a thing

      and scams generally work best if done low effort

      fun fact: most of the time you don’t want to waste time on less-guilible people, so making your scam less obvious isn’t that usefull.

    • quirzle@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      Yes, the article is about a specific instance of it happening.

      I think this might be a case where the generic “scams generally work best if done low effort” doesn’t apply, since to be successful, this sort of scam requires some specifics. The not-kidnapped daughter was away training for a ski race. Blasting “we kidnapped your daughter” to people whose daughter is sitting on the couch next to them or people without daughters doesn’t work at all.

      The article mentions people lose an average of $11k in these scams, which means they’re probably working best when targeting people with some savings.