Bradford Smith, a NASA astronomer who acted as planetary tour guide to the public with his interpretations of stunning images beamed back from Voyager missions, has died.

Smith’s wife, Diane McGregor, said he died Tuesday at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, of complications from myasthenia gravis, an autoimmune disorder. He was 86.

Smith led the NASA team that interpreted pictures taken by Voyager space probes as they passed Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune and then presented the images to the public. He was a retired professor of planetary sciences and astronomy at the University of Arizona and research astronomer at the University of Hawaii in Manoa.

At NASA press conferences on Voyager discoveries following their launch in 1977, Smith was a star, and known for a certain dry wit. At a press conference showing a multicolored, pockmarked moon of Jupiter called Io, Smith quipped, “I’ve seen better looking pizzas than this.”

A video of the conference ran on national broadcast news and his quote was on front pages around the world, said Ellen Hale, a former Associated Press communications director and friend of Smith’s.

A 1981 People magazine profile called Smith “the nation’s tour guide” who showed the public active volcanoes on Io, violent hurricanes on Jupiter, thousands of complex rings around Saturn and other space oddities that constituted “a very bizarre world,” as Smith put it, “that goes beyond the imagination of science fiction writers.”

Planetary scientist Carolyn Porco who worked with Smith at NASA called him a “visionary” who pushed for changes in optics on Voyager cameras and the hiring of scientists with expertise in geology and planetary rings.

“Brad was one of few who had the foresight to recognize the satellites and, later, the rings of the outer planets would be as fascinating as the planets themselves, and the need for a high-resolution imaging capability to address both,” Porco recalled in tribute to Smith on Facebook.

Smith is survived by McGregor, his wife of 34 years, three children, five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
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From: MeNeedIt

A report in a prominent U.S. newspaper Sunday said the United States bullied and threatened nations in an effort to water down a World Health Assembly resolution supporting breastfeeding.

The New York Times said the U.S. delegation at the assembly in Geneva this spring embraced “the interest of infant formula manufacturers” and “upended the deliberations.”

The resolution had been expected to be approved “quickly and easily,” the newspaper said. Instead, the U.S. delegation “sought to wear down the other participants through procedural maneuvers in a series of meetings that stretched on for two days, an unexpectedly long period.”

Ecuador was slated to introduce the breastfeeding resolution, but after the U.S. threatened to “unleash punishing trade measures and withdraw crucial military aid,” according to the newspaper, Ecuador “quickly acquiesced.”

The Times said more than a dozen participants from different countries at the assembly confirmed the “showdown over the issue.” Many of them, however, asked to remain anonymous because they fear U.S. retaliation.

Health advocates had trouble finding another sponsor who did not fear U.S. “retaliation.”

Patti Rundall, the policy director of the British advocacy group Baby Milk Action told the newspaper, “What happened was tantamount to blackmail, with the U.S. holding the world hostage and trying to overturn nearly 40 years of consensus on the best way to protect infant and young child health.”

Finally, the Russian delegation stepped in as the resolution’s sponsor. The newspaper said that “the Americans did not threaten them.”

The Trump administration’s contentious behavior at the health assembly was seen as similar to approaches it has taken with other long-standing international alliances and blocs such as NATO and the G-7.
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From: MeNeedIt

The Trump administration said Saturday it’s freezing payments under an “Obamacare” program that protects insurers with sicker patients from financial losses, a move expected to add to premium increases next year.

At stake are billions in payments to insurers with sicker customers.

In a weekend announcement, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the administration is acting because of conflicting court ruling in lawsuits filed by some smaller insurers who question whether they are being fairly treated under the program.

Risk adjustment

The so-called risk adjustment program takes payments from insurers with healthier customers and redistributes that money to companies with sicker enrollees. Payments for 2017 are $10.4 billion. No taxpayer subsidies are involved.

The idea behind the program is to remove the financial incentive for insurers to cherry pick healthier customers. The government uses a similar approach with Medicare private insurance plans and the Medicare prescription drug benefit.

Major insurer groups said Saturday the administration’s action interferes with a program that’s working well.

The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, whose members are a mainstay of Affordable Care Act coverage said it was “extremely disappointed” with the administration’s action.

The Trump administration’s move “will significantly increase 2019 premiums for millions of individuals and small business owners and could result in far fewer health plan choices,” association president Scott Serota said in a statement. “It will undermine Americans’ access to affordable coverage, particularly those who need medical care the most.”

Serota noted that the payments are required by law, and said he believes the administration has the legal authority to continue making them despite the court cases. He warned of turmoil as insurers finalize their rates for 2019.

America’s Health Insurance Plans, the main health insurance industry trade group, said in a statement that it is “very discouraged” by the Trump administration’s decision to freeze payments.

“Costs for taxpayers will rise as the federal government spends more on premium subsidies,” the group said.

Conflicting rulings

Rumors that the Trump administration would freeze payments were circulating late last week. But the Saturday announcement via email was unusual for such a major step.

The administration argued in its announcement that its hands were tied by conflicting court rulings in New Mexico and Massachusetts.

Medicare and Medicaid Administrator Seema Verma said the Trump administration was disappointed by a New Mexico court ruling that questioned the workings of the risk program for insurers.

The administration “has asked the court to reconsider its ruling, and hopes for a prompt resolution that allows (the government) to prevent more adverse impacts on Americans who receive their insurance in the individual and small group markets,” she said.

More than 10 million people currently buy individual health insurance plans through HealthCare.gov and state insurance marketplaces. The vast majority of those customers receive taxpayer subsidies under the Obama-era health law and would be shielded from premium increases next year.

The brunt of higher prices would fall on solid middle-class consumers who are not eligible for the income-based subsidies. Many of those are self-employed people and small business owners, generally seen as a Republican constituency.

The latest “Obamacare” flare-up does not affect most people with employer coverage.
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From: MeNeedIt

Nano technology researchers at the University of Cambridge are developing an intelligent toilet that might change the nature of medicine. It automatically analyzes a user’s urine to capture valuable medical data. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

Fifty-three men slung their wives or partners over their shoulders and hurtled off on an hourlong race in the small Finnish town of Sonkajarvi on Saturday, as thousands of fans cheered from the stands.

The World Wife-Carrying Championship, now in its 23rd year, draws thousands of visitors to the town of 4,200 and has gained followers around the world.

There are official qualifying competitions in countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden and Estonia. On Saturday, 53 couples from 13 countries joined the competition, organizers said.

The idea of wife-carrying as a sport was inspired by the 19th-century legend of Ronkainen the Robber, who tested aspiring members of his gang by forcing them to carry sacks of grain or live pigs over a similar course.

The championship is also said to stem from an even earlier practice of wife-stealing — leading many present-day contestants to compete with someone else’s wife.

On Saturday, Lithuanian parents of two, Vytautas Kirkliauskas and Neringa Kirkliauskiene, won the race, which involved running, wading through a slippery pool and getting through an obstacle course. The two defeated six-time world champion Taisto Miettinen, a Finn.

“It’s my wife,” Kirkliauskas shouted happily after the race. “She’s the best.”

The couple first competed in Sonkajarvi in 2005.

Finland, which straddles the Arctic Circle and goes through long, dark winters, is no stranger to strange sports. It has also given the world the world boot throwing, air guitar and mobile phone throwing competitions, to name a few.

“I think because we have only three months of light, we need to come up with nice stuff to do during the summertime, and we want to show everyone we have a great sense of humor,” said Sanna-Mari Nuutinen, a volunteer at Saturday’s event.
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From: MeNeedIt

Amid the very real hardships Syrian refugees face, little has been said about another major health and humanitarian issue: What to do with the massive accumulations of trash and waste. But one refugee camp in Jordan is doing something about it. With the help of an international nonprofit group, the residents of the Zaatari Refugee Camp launched a recycling program to eliminate the trash left by the tens of thousands of refugees who live there … and provide jobs. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

The political squabbling between China and the United States over trade and other issues affect the world’s two largest economies through a variety of mechanisms with unpredictable results. 

For example, prices of stock in both nations have been hurt as some shareholders sold their shares and other investors were reluctant to buy shares of companies that might be hurt by rising tariffs. These actions cut demand for certain stocks, making prices fall. Shareholders are part-owners of companies who hope to profit when the company prospers and grows. Rising tariff costs make growth less likely, and that hurts investor confidence.

World Trade Organization spokesman Dan Pruzin told Reuters that worries about trade are already being felt.

“Companies are hesitating to invest, markets are getting jittery, and some prices are rising,” he said, adding that further escalation could hurt “jobs and growth,” sending “economic shock waves” around the world. 

Confidence

Trade squabbles can hurt business confidence, because managers are less willing to take the risk of buying new machines, building new factories or hiring new workers. Less expansion means less demand for equipment, and a smaller workforce means fewer people have the money to rent apartments, buy food or finance a new car. Less demand for goods and services ripples through the economy and sparks less economic activity and less growth.

​Agriculture

U.S. farmers are another group feeling the effects of this trade dispute, as Beijing raises tariffs on U.S. soybeans. Higher tariffs raise food costs for Chinese consumers, so demand falls for U.S. farm products, a key American export. Anticipating slackening demand for U.S. soybeans, market prices dropped even before the tariffs were imposed. That means U.S. farmers can no longer afford to buy as many tractors and hire as many workers. Fewer workers mean fewer people with the money to buy products, which slows economic growth in farm states. 

Consumers

Meantime, new U.S. tariffs hit Chinese-made vehicles, aircraft, boats, engines, heavy equipment and many other industrial products. China’s Xinhua news agency said new U.S. tariffs are an effort to “bully” Beijing. The agency says the new tariffs violate international trade rules, and will hurt many companies and “ordinary consumers.” 

Experts say Washington tried to avoid tariffs on China that would directly raise costs to U.S. consumers. Economists say increasing taxes on products that help create consumer goods will still raise costs to consumers, fuel inflation and hurt demand. 

​Currency

PNC Bank Senior Economist Bill Adams, an expert on China’s economy, says one step China could take, but has not, would be to let its currency value drop. A weaker currency would mean Chinese-made products are cheaper and more competitive on international markets. Adams says China has taken steps recently to prop up the value of its currency. While a weaker currency helps exports, it can fuel inflation by raising the costs of imported products like oil or other raw materials needed by Chinese companies.

In the meantime, uncertainty fueled by trade disputes puts upward pressure on the value of the U.S. dollar, because investors see the United States as a safe haven in times of economic strife. But a stronger, more expensive dollar means U.S. products are more expensive for foreign customers, which hurts American exports and economic growth. 

All of this means it is hard to predict how this trade dispute will play out. Experts say it will depend in large measure on how many times the two sides raise tariffs in response to each other, how high the tariffs go, and how long the bickering lasts.

William Zarit, the chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, writes that this is the biggest trade dispute between China and the United States in 40 years.

The two sides must work something out, Zarit says, because a “strong bilateral trade and investment relationship is too important to both countries for it to be mired in verbal and trade remedy attacks and counterattacks.”

He says a new agreement would “significantly benefit both economies.”
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From: MeNeedIt

Singer Chris Brown walked off stage after his concert in Florida and into the hands of waiting deputies, who arrested him on a felony battery charge involving a nightclub photographer last year. 

Tampa police released more details about the battery warrant Friday after Brown posted $2,000 bond to be released from the Palm Beach County Jail.

The warrant accuses Brown of hitting Bennie Vines Jr., who was hired by a club in Tampa to take pictures during an event hosted by Brown in April 2017.

Vines told officers Brown punched him while he was snapping photos. Brown was gone by the time officers arrived that night. Vines refused medical treatment, but he told the officers that he wanted to prosecute over a minor lip cut.

Emails to Brown’s agents weren’t immediately returned.

The entertainer is in the middle of his “Heartbreak on a Full Moon” tour and was scheduled to perform in Tampa Friday night.

Brown has been in repeated legal trouble since pleading guilty of assaulting his then-girlfriend, singer Rihanna, in 2009. He completed his probation in that case in 2015.

In 2013, Brown was charged with misdemeanor assault after he was accused of striking a man outside a Washington, D.C., hotel. He was ordered into rehab but was dismissed for violating facility rules.

Brown spent 2½ months in custody, with U.S. marshals shuttling him between Los Angeles and the nation’s capital for hearings.

After he completed court-ordered anger-management classes, Brown was accused of throwing a brick at his mother’s car following a counseling session.

After Brown posted a picture to his 44 million Instagram followers in January showing his 3-year-old daughter, Royalty, cuddling with a pet monkey, California fish and wildlife agents seized the capuchin monkey named Fiji from his home in Los Angeles. Agents said then that Brown could face a misdemeanor charge carrying up to six months in jail for lacking a permit for the primate.
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From: MeNeedIt

Weak infrastructure and a national shortage have made water costly all over India, but Sushila Devi paid a higher price than most. It took the deaths of her husband and son to force authorities to supply it to the slum she calls home.

“They died because of the water problem, nothing else,” said Devi, 40, as she recalled how a brawl over a water tanker carrying clean drinking water in March killed her two relatives and finally prompted the government to drill a tubewell.

“Now things are better. But earlier … the water used to be rusty, we could not even wash our hands or feet with that kind of water,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in Delhi.

India is “suffering from the worst water crisis in its history”, threatening hundreds of millions of lives and jeopardising economic growth, a government think-tank report said in June.

From the northern Himalayas to the sandy, palm-fringed beaches in the south, 600 million people – nearly half India’s population – face acute water shortage, with close to 200,000 dying each year from polluted water.

Residents like Devi queue daily with pipes, jerry cans and buckets in hand for water from tankers – a common lifeline for those without a safe, reliable municipal supply – often involving elbowing, pushing and punching.

On the rare occasions water does flow from taps, it is often dirty, leading to disease, infection, disability and even death, experts say.

“The water was like poison,” said Devi, who still relies on the tanker for drinking water, outside her one-room shanty in the chronically water-stressed Wazirpur area of the capital Delhi.

“It is better now, but still it is not completely drinkable. It is alright for bathing and washing the dishes.”

Water pollution is a major challenge, the report said, with nearly 70 percent of India’s water contaminated, impacting three in four Indians and contributing to 20 percent of the country’s disease burden.

Yet only one-third of its wastewater is currently treated, meaning raw sewage flows into rivers, lakes and ponds – and eventually gets into the groundwater.

“Our surface water is contaminated, our groundwater is contaminated. See, everywhere water is being contaminated because we are not managing our solid waste properly,” said the report’s author Avinash Mishra.

Loss of livelihood

Meanwhile, unchecked extraction by farmers and wealthy residents has caused groundwater levels to plunge to record lows, says the report.

It predicts that 21 major cities, including New Delhi and India’s IT hub of Bengaluru, will run out of groundwater by 2020, affecting 100 million people.

The head of WaterAid India VK Madhavan said the country’s groundwater was now heavily contaminated.

“We are grappling with issues, with areas that have arsenic contamination, fluoride contamination, with salinity, with nitrates,” he said, listing chemicals that have been linked to cancer.

Arsenic and fluoride occur naturally in the groundwater, but become more concentrated as the water becomes scarcer, while nitrates come from fertilisers, pesticides and other industrial waste that has seeped into the supply.

The level of chemicals in the water was so high, he said, that bacterial contamination – the source of water-borne diseases such as diarrhoea, cholera and typhoid – “is in the second order of problems”.

“Poor quality of water – that is loss of livelihood. You fall ill because you don’t have access to safe drinking water, because your water is contaminated.”

“The burden of not having access to safe drinking water, that burden is greatest on the poor and the price is paid by them.”

Frothy lakes and rivers

Crippling water problems could shave 6 percent off India’s gross domestic product, according to the report by the government think-tank, Niti Aayog.

“This 6 percent of GDP is very much dependent on water. Our industry, our food security, everything will be at stake,” said Mishra.

“It is a finite resource. It is not infinite. One day it can (become) extinct,” he said, warning that by 2030 India’s water supply will be half of the demand.

To tackle this crisis, which is predicted to get worse, the government has urged states – responsible for supplying clean water to residents – to prioritise treating waste water to bridge the supply and demand gap and to save lives.

Currently, only 70 percent of India’s states treat less than half of their wastewater.

Every year, Bengaluru and New Delhi make global headlines as their heavily polluted water bodies emit clouds of white toxic froth due to a mix of industrial effluents and domestic garbage dumped into them.

In Bengaluru – once known as the “city of lakes” and now doomed to go dry – the Bellandur Lake bursts into flames often, sending plumes of black smoke into sky.

The Yamuna river that flows through New Delhi can be seen covered under a thick, detergent-like foam on some days.

On other days, faeces, chemicals and ashes from human cremations float on top, forcing passers-by to cover their mouths and noses against the stench.

That does not stop 10-year-old Gauri, who lives in a nearby slum, from jumping in every day.

With no access to water, it is the only way to cool herself down during India’s scorching summers, when temperatures soar to 45 Celsius (113 Fahrenheit).

“There usually is not enough water for us to take a shower, so we come here,” said Gauri, who only gave her first name, as she and her brother splashed around in the filthy river.

“It makes us itchy and sick, but only for some time. We are happy to have this, everyone can use it.”

 
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From: MeNeedIt

The year 1968 marked a time of great social and political upheaval in America. The Vietnam War had reached a turning point, the Civil Rights Act was signed into law, and TV viewers followed everything from the Olympic Games to the first manned orbit of the moon.

The times they are a changin’

Newsmakers included President Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Richard M. Nixon.

1968 was also the year the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington opened to the public.

To celebrate its 50th anniversary, the museum is presenting a time capsule of that important year and the cultural icons who shaped it, with a one-room exhibit packed with history.

“One Year: 1968, An American Odyssey” offers 30 images — from photographs and paintings, to prints, drawings and magazine covers that represent that tumultuous period.

Museum director Kim Sajet says the exhibit is especially timely as the nation once again grapples with political and social turmoil.

“This [was] a year when we get two assassinations; we of course have the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and then later, Senator Bobby Kennedy. America is in Vietnam and it is not going well; President Lyndon Baines Johnson — who of course assumed the presidency because of the assassination of John Kennedy three years earlier — was having very bad approval ratings…and he announces that he’s not going to re-run for the presidency.”

Bring the troops home

A large part of the negative public opinion was the contentious issue of Vietnam; a war that most Americans increasingly opposed.

The unpopularity of LBJ, who had advocated passionately for that war, was reflected in a caricature by David Levine that depicts the president as King Lear, the title character of the Shakespeare tragedy, who gradually descends into madness.

Other social and political issues were seeping into American culture.

Sajet sees many parallels between 1968 and today…especially where the political merges into the cultural.

“So for example there is a very dramatic cover that was put on Time magazine in June to describe a story that they were doing about the gun in America, and it’s very confrontational because the gun is literally pointed at you, the reader, viewer,” she said. “This is of course a conversation that continues in America today.”

There’s also a photo of Shirley Anita Chisholm of New York. She was the first African-American woman elected to the House of Representatives and the first African-American woman to compete for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.

“We continue to have conversations about our electoral process and how women in politics are faring,” Sajet noted.

Black power

Another powerful image is the photograph of track and field athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who each raised a single gloved fist on the medal platform at the summer Olympics in Mexico City to protest the mistreatment of African Americans and racial inequality.

“So whether it’s MeToo or the Black Lives Matter…there was a sense at that time — that I think we can see now — of young people stepping forward and saying, ‘We want something different, we want a change, we want to be part of the conversation,’ and I think that is tremendously interesting,” Sajet said.

The National Portrait Gallery went through a careful process to select images from 1968 that best represented that era, said James Barber, the art museum’s historian and curator. “We were also looking at major newsmakers from that year,” he said, all of which had to be culled from a vast collection.

“People remember 1968. It has not been forgotten. There was no other year in the last 50 years that I know of that could compare to 1968,” he said.

Many images are presented alongside each other to make a point, Barber explained. The photo of Shirley Chisholm hangs near one of George Wallace, an American politician best remembered for his segregation policies. And the striking, close-up image of a gun is placed next to a poignant portrait of Robert F. Kennedy, who was of course slain by a gun.

Cultural icons

The exhibit offers representations of great cultural icons as well. They include American football luminary Vince Lombardi; figure skating champion Peggy Fleming, the only U.S. competitor to win an Olympic gold medal for America that year, and tennis great Arthur Ashe, who captured the first U.S. Open men’s championship in 1968, becoming the first African American to win a major title.

Musical giants also made headlines that year, including Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. They are both present in a legendary black and white picture taken by well-known photographer Irving Penn.

“Janis Joplin takes up the left side of that photograph and Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead are on the right of that,” said Barber. “So he managed to get these 10 band members from two different groups for this iconic photograph.”

Movie stars are also represented in the exhibit: they include an image of Barbra Streisand from the movie Funny Girl, for which she won an Academy Award, and a full-length poster of actor Sidney Poitier. “Sidney Poitier was called the Martin Luther King of the movies,” Barber said. “He had that humility, if you will.”

Barber has included works by other prominent artists as well, including a poignant photo of Robert Kennedy with American labor activists Helen and Cesar Chavez by Richard Darby and a version of a colorful collage titled Hippies that was used as a Time magazine cover a year earlier.

Blue marble

One of the most compelling images of 1968 was taken on Christmas Eve by astronaut William Anders, one of three Apollo 8 crew members — the first manned mission to orbit the moon… providing a never-before-seen view of Earth.

“This is a moment, I think, when suddenly not just America but the world realizes how small we are; we’re all on this little blue marble and it is the start of really thinking about international cooperation,” Sajet said. “So this orients the globe, the citizens of the world, in a way that almost no other picture has done since that time.”

That historic space mission brought a more hopeful note to the end of one of the most turbulent years in American history.

“I want people to recognize that history is an arc, that what you do matters. So whether you protest or you vote or you’re an athlete, there are all sorts of motifs and stories this year in this exhibition that apply very much to people today.”

 
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From: MeNeedIt

Uganda’s government has called the country’s doctors unprofessional, selfish, unpatriotic and enemies of the people, after they called for a sit-down strike in 2017 demanding better pay and improved working conditions. Halima Athumani spent a night at an Ugandan hospital and shows us the challenges doctors face.
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From: MeNeedIt

Hey, did my congressman really say that? Is that really President Donald Trump on that video, or am I being duped?

New technology on the internet lets anyone make videos of real people appearing to say things they’ve never said. Republicans and Democrats predict this high-tech way of putting words in someone’s mouth will become the latest weapon in disinformation wars against the United States and other Western democracies.

We’re not talking about lip-syncing videos. This technology uses facial mapping and artificial intelligence to produce videos that appear so genuine it’s hard to spot the phonies. Lawmakers and intelligence officials worry that the bogus videos — called deepfakes — could be used to threaten national security or interfere in elections.

So far, that hasn’t happened, but experts say it’s not a question of if, but when.

“I expect that here in the United States we will start to see this content in the upcoming midterms and national election two years from now,” said Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. “The technology, of course, knows no borders, so I expect the impact to ripple around the globe.”

When an average person can create a realistic fake video of the president saying anything they want, Farid said, “we have entered a new world where it is going to be difficult to know how to believe what we see.” The reverse is a concern, too. People may dismiss as fake genuine footage, say of a real atrocity, to score political points.

Realizing the implications of the technology, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is already two years into a four-year program to develop technologies that can detect fake images and videos. Right now, it takes extensive analysis to identify phony videos. It’s unclear if new ways to authenticate images or detect fakes will keep pace with deepfake technology.

Deepfakes are so named because they utilize deep learning, a form of artificial intelligence. They are made by feeding a computer an algorithm, or set of instructions, lots of images and audio of a certain person. The computer program learns how to mimic the person’s facial expressions, mannerisms, voice and inflections. If you have enough video and audio of someone, you can combine a fake video of the person with a fake audio and get them to say anything you want.

So far, deepfakes have mostly been used to smear celebrities or as gags, but it’s easy to foresee a nation state using them for nefarious activities against the U.S., said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., one of several members of the Senate intelligence committee who are expressing concern about deepfakes.

A foreign intelligence agency could use the technology to produce a fake video of an American politician using a racial epithet or taking a bribe, Rubio says. They could use a fake video of a U.S. soldier massacring civilians overseas, or one of a U.S. official supposedly admitting a secret plan to carry out a conspiracy. Imagine a fake video of a U.S. leader — or an official from North Korea or Iran — warning the United States of an impending disaster.

“It’s a weapon that could be used — timed appropriately and placed appropriately — in the same way fake news is used, except in a video form, which could create real chaos and instability on the eve of an election or a major decision of any sort,” Rubio told The Associated Press.

Deepfake technology still has a few hitches. For instance, people’s blinking in fake videos may appear unnatural. But the technology is improving.

“Within a year or two, it’s going to be really hard for a person to distinguish between a real video and a fake video,” said Andrew Grotto, an international security fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University in California.

“This technology, I think, will be irresistible for nation states to use in disinformation campaigns to manipulate public opinion, deceive populations and undermine confidence in our institutions,” Grotto said. He called for government leaders and politicians to clearly say it has no place in civilized political debate.

Crude videos have been used for malicious political purposes for years, so there’s no reason to believe the higher-tech ones, which are more realistic, won’t become tools in future disinformation campaigns.

Rubio noted that in 2009, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow complained to the Russian Foreign Ministry about a fake sex video it said was made to damage the reputation of a U.S. diplomat. The video showed the married diplomat, who was a liaison to Russian religious and human rights groups, making telephone calls on a dark street. The video then showed the diplomat in his hotel room, scenes that apparently were shot with a hidden camera. Later, the video appeared to show a man and a woman having sex in the same room with the lights off, although it was not at all clear that the man was the diplomat.

John Beyrle, who was the U.S. ambassador in Moscow at the time, blamed the Russian government for the video, which he said was clearly fabricated.

Michael McFaul, who was American ambassador in Russia between 2012 and 2014, said Russia has engaged in disinformation videos against various political actors for years and that he too had been a target. He has said that Russian state propaganda inserted his face into photographs and “spliced my speeches to make me say things I never uttered and even accused me of pedophilia.”
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From: MeNeedIt