Espionage isn’t what it used to be like in James Bond films. No need for exploding pens and microdots. The new frontier is digital—and it’s nightmarish. We’re not just referring to hackers stealing government secrets. After all, we’re not just discussing the erosion of journalism, but rather of truth itself. The emergence of deepfakes is a technological issue. It's a societal earthquake waiting to happen. Whether we like it or not, the intelligence community is right in the thick of it.
Who Controls Your Digital Shadow?
Consider just how much of your life now exists online. Your social media accounts, your payment info, your medical history… Even if you’re not posting, all that information is still available, creating a digital shadow that reflects who you are. Now imagine someone else controlling that shadow. Not just accessing it, but rewriting it. That’s the demonic power that deepfake technology – when used with comprehensive and often unwitting profile engineering – provides.
Defence agencies are in a pickle. They’re required to develop a compelling fictional online persona themselves for their own internal operations. They’re thinking ahead to the sure-to-come wave of bots. These profiles are used to further disinformation campaigns, influence stock markets, and rally individuals to violence. It’s some sort of digital arms race, and quite frankly, I don’t think we’re prepared.
The scariest part? The very same tools that are being developed to protect us can just as easily be used to hurt us. Welcome to the new Deep Fakes world, where in just a moment your entire reputation could be ruined by a scammed up video. Or where your bank account is drained because a deepfake was able to persuade your bank that you were authorizing the transfer. This isn't science fiction. It's the very near future.
Blockchain: Savior or Enabler?
Now, you might be thinking, "Okay, Rajiv, this is all doom and gloom. Is there any hope?" Here's where things get interesting. I have a deep and abiding expertise in decentralized finance and NFTs. I see the amazing opportunities and the terrifying threats presented at the intersection of this new technology and the deepfake dilemma.
On one hand, blockchain is presenting a great solution for proving digital identities. Now picture a system where your identity is linked to a digital, unique, unchangeable token on a blockchain. Every transaction, every interaction with the digital world, is tied to this verifiable identity. This would severely limit deepfakes’ ability to function. They’d need to effectively impersonate a trusted, verified identity.
Here's the catch: blockchain can enable the creation of sophisticated, untraceable deepfakes. The very anonymity that makes cryptocurrencies attractive to some can be exploited by those creating and deploying malicious deepfakes. Today, individuals are able to purchase and trade counterfeit digital identities on the dark web. These identities carry with them verifiable blockchain-based credentials.
This is the point at which the “surprising link” is developed. The very technology we’re using to free ourselves from centralized control could be used to create the most sophisticated tool of digital tyranny. It’s all about who has the custodian of the keys.
The Price of Digital Deception
What do we do when we can’t trust anything that we see or hear online? What’s missing is critical engagement to help young people understand what happens when reality and fabrication blur together. Are we no longer able to distinguish between fact and fiction?
The consequences are profound. Trust erodes. Societies become polarized. Democracies falter. The potential for manipulation by state and non-state actors as well doubles, triples, quadruples etc.
Or, we need to stand up and demand transparency and accountability from tech companies. Because they hold billions of pieces of our individual information, the largest databases of any entity—larger than most foreign governments. We need to put power in the hands of people so they can own their own digital identity.
We need to educate public critical thinking and digital literacy skills. We need to teach people how to spot deepfakes, how to verify information, and how to navigate the increasingly complex digital landscape. As we move into a new Deepfake Nation, our ability to tell truth from lies will be more critical than ever. This skill will be the greatest currency of them all. It will dictate whether we emerge victorious or fall prey to an information warfare campaign the likes of which we have never experienced before. The ethical and societal implications are profound as well. The United States government and these firms should coordinate the development and deployment of these technologies with Western democratic values, address ethical and privacy concerns head on, and win back public trust.
