A tool like this would be very handy for him.
And most likely a bit of both, i.e. some extra laws and some extra awareness.
[1]: https://www.threads.net/@jazzdispensary/post/DFdXpC2SLqU
On the other hand, if tools like these don’t get out into the wild and show the dark arts potential, then it remains a straw man argument against unchecked distribution and use cases.
Things are going to get ugly and it remains to be seen how much weight a check-box legal liability waiver will hold up.
This used to be an ideological stance but increasingly recently it's the only pragmatic thing to do from a stance of security and safety. The playing field is increasingly hostile and if someone asks you to install their software on you machine and let it record your face and voice but refuse to show what it actually does, that is a red flag. Reasonable exceptions could include video games (which run on dedicated untrusted devices and IMO the IP aspect makes the closed-source stance more understandable there). On the other hand, this app is inherently sensitive and trusted because of its function. I don't see the reason why it needs to be closed-source.
Malware is commonly distrubuted in all app stores. I reported some obviously pretty bad stuff that is still up a year later on Play Store, for example. Google simply doesnt bother if the case is too messy.
> hmm not sure yet on the open source thing
You could start with just go source-available by sharing the source with your users without going full Open Source, if you want to take the time and think about what license to use.
sure thing, just gotta download and execute it.... WAIT A MINUTE. YOU ALMOST GOT ME! YOU SOB
> you can also view the source code easily
can just as easily throw it on github, if your intentions were legit
Although I personally deplore it and try to stay away from software that requires it, or even opts me in, I nonetheless think that it's reasonable for a developer to impose telemetry as a requirement for people to make use of their freely available software.
It is a straightforward set of rules written in simple language and it’s not very long either. It’s not necessary to rely on third party readings or interpretations of it. Just go ahead and read it yourself and you will be well equipped to apply and argue about it.
Wouldn't using this software constitute a crime if using it to "appear as literally anyone"?
IIRC, the have been news stories in the EU about people receiving prison sentences for creating deepfakes, although maybe it was related to adult material. But impersonation and defamation is likely covered similarly. I'd assume that all it takes is for single viewer to believe it, to legally qualify as an act of impersonation.
If it does work better, I’m sure people will just say the market picked up as opposed to validating my life experience, but as long as I’m collecting bigger paychecks believe whatever you want
Back in the old days, before 2014, people used to make computers do things just for fun. We'd write code because writing code is enjoyable, and hack on projects just to see if we could. If it made something that other people wanted to use that was a bonus, but hacking and experimenting was an end in itself. (The same, incidentally, went for writing blogs and for making YouTube videos).
In the last ten years most of us have lost sight of that in favor of everything needing to have an "audience" or a "use case"—if there's no path to monetization then we struggle to see the point. But some of us still build things just because we can, so from time to time you'll see a project like this that hearkens back to the old school hacker spirit and has no point besides to see if we could.
But why this? Why make a tool for anyone to impersonate another person on video calls? I apologize for the cynicism, I actually really hate that my first thought was that this is a tool for scams. But, it’s hard not to see how useful this would be for deceiving people.
I get the concern, but squelching fun use cases isn't going to prevent people from building the bad ones or even slow them down.
So the way to not be impersonated is to use the same tools to be a fake person!