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Deepfake bots used for the undress underage girls

21-October-2020

In June of 2019, Vice uncovered the existence of a disturbing app that used AI to �undress� women. Called DeepNude, it allowed users to upload a photo of a clothed woman for $50 and get back a photo of her seemingly naked. In actuality, the software was using generative adversarial networks, the algorithm behind deepfakes, to swap the women�s clothes for highly realistic nude bodies. The more scantily clad the victim, the better. It didn�t work on men.
�This is a serious crime and we have a team to monitor this and take stringent action. We are very proactive about taking action in such cases,� Superintendent of Police, Maharashtra Cyber department, Balsing Rajput, said.

The gamification of harassment

The deepfake bot, launched on July 11, 2019, is connected to seven Telegram channels with a combined total of over 100,000 members. (This number doesn�t account for duplicate membership across channels, but the main group has more than 45,000 unique members alone.)
The central channel is dedicated to hosting the bot itself, while the others are used for functions like technical support and image sharing. The image-sharing channels include interfaces that people can use to post and judge their nude creations. The more a photo gets liked, the more its creator is rewarded with tokens to access the bot�s premium features. �The creator will receive an incentive as if he�s playing a game,� Patrini says.

Blackmailing victims

Experts said that once a nude of any woman was generated, the possibilities for misuse were endless. Already, information about some women being targeted had started trickling in.
�We have received information about pictures of women being morphed using Deep Nude and being used for nefarious purposes like blackmail, pornography and creating catfish accounts on dating apps. Information is being shared with the relevant police agencies and we are tracking this trend further�
�Recent trends like the Saree Challenge, where women upload their pictures on their social media accounts and tag their friends, creating a chain, present endless opportunities to criminal elements to prey on them using websites like Deep Nude. It is best to have privacy settings that do not allow strangers access to pictures,� a Cyber police officer said.

Operation Blackface

Earlier this year, Maharashtra Cyber started Operation Blackface, a campaign against online sexual exploitation of women and children in India, and the campaign is still ongoing.
�We have registered 140 FIRs and arrested 42 accused in the last three months in Maharashtra for online child pornography or exploitation of women and children over the Internet or social media. This is one of the largest crackdowns on such offences in recent times,� Mr. Rajput said.