The Great "AI" Scam

"Oh Here you go again Stafford, you're hating on AI".

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Well no, well, maybe.

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You see I somewhat predicted, that due to human nature, AI would be weaponized by anyone with access to it.? And in one of his recent enthusiastic videos Zuck expounded the fact he's going to give AI to everyone, for free… (we will come back to that).? He's weaponizing a whole scamming culture.? But he's too evangelistic in his love of "AI" to care.? Its all about cash.

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Fakebook is full of AI scams.? Full of it.? And it actually helps Zucks business model that it is.?

Fake "AI" products are offered via Fakebook Ads, folk "buy" said "product" and don't get their cash back (sometimes they do), anyway said fakers get their cash, either way, and recycle it on Fakebook Ads.? So Zuck profits, scammers profit, public loses.?

They NEVER take an ad down.? You can report them until you are blue on your digits, but it takes 6 months to see any action. There is a 'review' and it always says no, its good, and you have to appeal.? And I know this because I had a community moderation twice, both six months after I posted the post… so my post had six months to do its stuff, much like a scammers ad.

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Tools like Midjourney make the scamming easy.? You don't have to pay much in cash or time to create a fake picture.? I actually call these "Digital Creators" that Zuck thinks he's created with the phrase "prompt jockeys", because that’s where they are at.? 20 seconds, there is a fake picture I can use for any nefarious purpose.? If you're reading this and don't know what Midjourney is, go play with it.? You'll suddenly see why it's putting real artists out of jobs (in fact there are groups where these "digital creators" pose as real artists).

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So lets look at one of the scams, because they are very "ordinary" in target market, but not surprisingly, in the world of home products, which used to be the domain of mail order catalogs. So they know their target market. They know its people who buy this stuff from a picture.

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Lets look at Quilts.? Patchwork Quilts. Grandma would be turning in her grave.

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The scammers have caught on that MidJounrey and their ilk are very good at faking catalog, and review style, photos of patchwork quilts with fantastic designs which to anyone with a good eye, and apparently only 75% of us can spot 75% of AI pictures, would guess is fake.? Herein is such an advert:

Now a slight digression… this "company" has several adverts on Fakebook all under different accounts (I though multiple accounts were not allowed… ) but they all point to the same website (and Meta clever AI doesn't spot that? Hmmmm…).?

Anyways you can see a fantastical Elephant quilt.? And apparently if you look a lot of people like elephant quilts.

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So lets dissect this first because its important to understand how the scam is enabled by Fakebook.?? And I do mean enabled.

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There are 20,000 comments, 15,000 shares.?

The chances of finding any truth in that set of comments and shares is slim. The scammers know this.? Hence they have their own bots and shills who flood the adverts with simple, but gushing praise.?

Also the scammers will pick positive reviews and get their bots and shills to like those comments, and respond. Fakebook calls this "engagement".?

When Fakebook presents the comments, these will get preference.? Scammers win.??

Even the Meta AI (jk) when it summarizes the comments, tends to ignore the lone comment with evidence of fakery or scam because its not "engagement".? So 20,000 comments if they are "Generally Positive" will lead to Meta AI (really is a jk) saying that.? Enabling the scam.

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Now there are tools, and have been tools to detect a lot of these issues for some time.? But let's get back to the scam...

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Enter SightEngine.? Play with this and tool yourself up with it.? It has a free plan.? I have NO ASSOCIATION.

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If you put that image into SightEngine (which has an API by the way)… this happens…

?Oh look!? MidJourney.?

That’s why as a human, with my 75% of 75% I spotted it (I think I might have honed my skills BTW).? SightEngine is about 99% accurate, so there was a slight chance that this was wrong… so I had to go a little deeper.? (and this is what you expect Fakebook "security" to do, it’s not a false positive in terms of security… yet, and spoiler, it won’t be false).

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So using a safe PC I decide to go to the website.? I really don't know if Fakebook traverses adverts but given the Nigerians are all over Sports Fans pages with their fake betting scam sites which are full of malware I doubt it.

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Here are some of the things within 10 minutes I found…

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On the landing page of the site was another set of "products".? I picked one that I know would get a lot of hits as a popular image (a Bulldog) and SightEngine did its stuff…

Next I decided to reverse engineer the process to triple check. That's a real analystical method.? I typed a simple prompt into MidJounrey (for my sins and investigation I have an account).? I didn't work hard at it, I just typed "Patchwork Quilt of a Lion" as the prompt.? Herein the one of the results? (MidJourney gives you four):

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Right so that confirms it.? They use Midjourney to create their "product catalog".? So its all fake right?? Yep.? Unless they reverse engineer the picture, it going to be at best a shoddy print onto a generic blanket style quilt.? Midjourney doesn't output high resolution pictures for the size of a quilt.? For paper print work yes, huge bed size quilts, no.? And again its not a patchwork quilt if it’s a print…

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Now I also spotted another scam tell.? The so called business address looked familiar.? I have seen it before:

It’s a small set of serviced office space in a Mall.? Now here’s another tell of a scam… That address is a bitmap render and not text.? It can’t be searched or indexed, which means if you attempt to search for it, it won’t show against the website.

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That’s always suspicious…

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Anyways…

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I manually found what appeared to be a listing of the tenants and yep you guessed it a virtual business address/office came up…

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https://www.davincivirtual.com/loc/us/district-of-columbia/washington-virtual-offices/facility-1310

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Now… look at the reviews of users of the Davinci offices…? Those pics are suspicious right?? Yep…? stock photos.? And this is where tool 2, Google Lens helps (teach your friends and family to use Google Lens!):

That lady sure gets around.?

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So now we have a "AI" quilt provider using a virtual office that uses stock photos of people for "reviews".? Hmmm…

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Anyway my job is not to go after Davinci, but the fact they'd be using stock photos for reviews means you wonder if this quilt company is their client (probably behind some other name), and they, Davinci, check the company details?? Probably not…

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It also gets better… in that advert, one of the comments, the actual scammers are annoyed that others are picking up on their scam… but that they want to appear not to be a scammer themselves… the old social engineering trick of reverse psychology:

And back to other tells.? Payment Terms.? Yes you guessed it Debit Cards through PayPal…? Another sign of a scam.? And shipping?? Well production take a week, then shipping another.? This is a sweat or small shop operation, somewhere in Asia, at best, if you get anything.? Why would "in stock items" take weeks?

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So there you have it Fakebook enables scams that use "AI". And easy to spot "AI".

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This article, and I admit to not being a Journalist but true to form refuse to use the Millennial ChatGPT fakery, took me far longer to write this than the discovery.? Once I had a positive on the use of AI images (which can be done via API), it took me 5 minutes to know this advert should be removed and any associated adverts to that website.?

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I have reported it.? True to form Fakebook say there is nothing wrong and I have appealed which takes 6 months (see my comment earlier on my experience of being reported).? So this company has 6 months of giving advertising revenue to Zucks Fakebook whilst ripping off the public.? And once taken down its whack-a-mole as they can use all the same tools, and organizations, to setup again in an instant.? Using Zucks tools… in some cases.? The real solution is Zuck has an AI that stops it…

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But… You're telling me Meta with its powerful "we are going to give it to the World" AI can't spot these scams in seconds?? The same Meta AI that can't spot bots, shills, fake comments and accounts?

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So what exactly are you up to Zuck with your "AI"??

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My guess is those advertising bucks more powerful than a safe platform.

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This is why AI is not AI.? It’s the emperor's new clothes.? And that empire is criminal, fakery, lazy…

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And don't start me on the Digital Creator fakery Zuck enables…? He's sending humanity to hell in a LLM Handcart. I get so many "enabled" "digital creators" coming at me thinking that because the tool can, they can. That's down to Zuck and his business model. It encourages fakery. Lots of it.

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Views My Own. This article does not represent my current or any previous employer. I am not associated with any of the companies and/or their tools mentioned in the article bar as a user/subscriber. I'd better just put Facebook in the text so they do actually find this... and maybe fix it, but I doubt it.