Garden Variety Malfeasance

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We discussed the Biden New Hampshire deepfake robocall a long while ago (In AI terms that means January 2024), where Biden supposedly told primary voters to not vote:

And now we have the rare Internet pleasure of closure to this mystery, with the New Hampshire Attorney General stating:

• the perp was Texas-based Life Corporation, run by a Walter Monk

• identified by the Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force, which is a bipartisan task force made up of 50 state attorneys general

• the FCC tracked down the calls to Lingo Telecom of Texas, sent it a cease-and-desist to stop supporting robocalls

• no confirmation that ElevenLabs was used to deepfake the voice

Interestingly, Lingo Telecom has been in the illegal robocall business since at least 2003 and has gone by Americatel, BullsEyeComm, Clear Choice Communications, Excel Telecommunications, Impact Telecom, Matrix Business Technologies, Startec Global Communications, Trinsic Communications, and VarTec Telecom.

The FCC now “continues to investigate“.

All this begs the question, of course, of why such rampant illegality goes uncaught for literal decades until it upsets the political powers that be by using “AI”.

Maybe we should just brand every annoying fraudulent activity as AI, just to get the attention of relevant authorities with the power to stop it.

Attention is all you need, indeed.

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