'It is clear we are entering a new, deeply concerning frontier,' says county executive
A school employee who had clashed with the principal has been arrested in suburban Baltimore in the U.S. for creating a deepfake recording featuring the principal's voice — and spreading the recording in public.
Dazhon Darien, Pikesville High School athletic director, was arrested after he allegedly distributed a voice recording where a man appeared to say disparaging comments, including one about two teachers, another about Jewish people, and another about Black students, according to CNN.
The voice in the recording appeared to be that of school principal Eric Eiswert.
However, investigators shared the audio file with two forensic experts, including an FBI contractor. One said it appeared “the recording contained traces of AI-generated content with human editing after the fact, which added background noises for realism.” Another expert said it seemed “the recording was manipulated, and multiple recordings were spliced together using unknown software.”
The voice recording file was attached in an email sent by gmail user TJFOUST9 to three teachers, including Darien, at their school email addresses on Jan. 16, said CNN. The subject line of the email read: “Pikesville Principal — Disturbing Recording.”
However, through a subpoena to Google, a detective found that the IP address where the email address TJFOUST9 was created could be traced to the IP address of a relative of Darien. The gmail account also had a recovery phone number that was traced to Darien.
Deepfake: ‘A new, deeply concerning frontier’
“Today, we are relieved to have some closure on the origins of this audio,” Johnny Olszewski, Baltimore County Executive, said at a news conference on Thursday.
But he hinted at the disturbing possibilities of artificial intelligence, according to the CNN report. “It is clear that we are also entering a new, deeply concerning frontier.”
The rise in AI-generated deepfake scams is keeping Canadian business leaders up at night, according to a previous KPMG report.
Darien had previously clashed with Eiswert over unauthorized payments and performance challenges, said CNN.
On Wednesday, authorities obtained an arrest warrant for Darien on charges of theft, stalking, retaliating against a witness, and disturbing the operation of a school.
Cybercriminals upped their activity in the first half of 2023 compared to 2022, and one thing that’s fueling the increase in cyber attacks is companies’ adoption of AI, according to Trend Micro.
