Mayors across Europe have fallen victim to a deepfake. The city leaders fell for the fakery of conferring with Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kiev, via video call ( HERE ). As reported, these included Michael Ludwig (Vienna) and Franziska Giffey (Berlin).

According to their own statements, Vladimir Krasnov and Alexei Stolyarov, known in Russia as Vovan and Lexus, are likely to be behind the video calls to politicians.

to the ARD political magazine Contrasts that it is not a deepfake, but that the fake was light. An evaluation of contrasts also suggests that it is not a computer-generated image of Klitschko using artificial intelligence. Rather, image elements appear to have been copied from an older interview, rearranged and set to music for a new video.

The Tagesschau reports:

“In order to credibly deceive the interviewees, we prepared well and carried out so-called social engineering. Existing information about people and their environment is collected and, for example, e-mail senders are falsified in order to convince the recipients. The art lies in the illusion. 'It works every time,' said Stolyarov in an interview with Contrasts. The comedy duo will post video recordings of all the 'jokes' online. A first publication is planned for Thursday on a Russian YouTube clone.”

The information cannot be verified by a second source, but is so far only based on the statements of Alexei Stolyarov.

According to Stolyarov, the action was not political. Nevertheless, it turns out that the comedian duo's fakes are directed against people critical of Russia. At the beginning of June, Krasnov and Stolyarov were honored in Moscow. According to ARD, the award was presented by a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, who described the comedian duo as “masters of telephone diplomacy” in the middle of the war.

On Thursday, the duo wants to publish video recordings, as announced on ARD.

Source: Kleine Zeitung , futurezone , Tagesschau

This might also be of interest: Deepfake: Politicians talk to the alleged Klitschko


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