From Washington Post
Another impostor scam hits Capitol Hill
By Kadia Goba
Someone using an outdated cellphone number belonging to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford (R-Arkansas) contacted at least one current and one former member of Congress seeking help with a purported project related to first lady Melania Trump.
The impostor contacted Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Missouri) and disgraced New York GOP congressman George Santos via the popular messaging app Telegram and directed them to install a special “Phoner App” so more information could be shared with them about the alleged project, according to both Burlison and Santos...
Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who specializes in digital forensics, said government communication habits need to change.
“Because we do so much of our interactions over devices now — whether that’s a phone call, text messaging, video calls — we’ve come to generally trust that when you’re talking to somebody and it sounds like them and it looks like that them, it is them. But in the age of AI that is no longer true, and we have to adapt to that. This is a new reality...”
Hany Farid is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences and the School of Information at UC Berkeley
