Gary Huestis is the owner and director of Powerhouse Forensics, a licensed private investigator, a Certified Data Recovery Skilled (CDRP), and a member of InfraGard. He has conducted a whole lot of forensic investigations across a various range of cases.
These cases have included theft of knowledge/mental property, enforcement of non-compete clauses, disputes in mergers and acquisitions, identification of data-centric assets, criminal charges, and network damage assessments. Gary has served because the lead investigator in over 200 cases which were presented in court.
Powerhouse Forensics follows the trail and deciphers the data no matter whether the evidence is digital, resembling electronically stored information found on computers, mobile phones, or other devices, or if the investigation requires traditional private investigative services. Powerhouse Forensics has access to industry-leading private investigator tools and techniques, including surveillance, undercover work, and detailed record searches.
What initially attracted you to computer science?
I used to be enthusiastic about computers at a really young age. Computers as we all know them today weren’t even around back then, they were more like gaming consoles. My first “computer” was an 8-bit Atari 400 that I got in 1980 on the age of 11. By the point I used to be 13, I used to be writing programs for the Atari company through the Atari Program Exchange (APX), and my interest in computers continued to grow from there.
Are you able to discuss your personal journey and the way you ultimately became a digital forensic investigator?
I had an IT Support company within the 1990’s, and a number of other of my clients were attorneys. As court cases moved from paper and printouts to computers and digital, I’d help the attorneys with the pc and digital data related cases. As I started to testify as the pc expert in those cases one among the attorneys suggested that I look into getting certified in the brand new field of digital forensics, in order that’s what I did.
Do you remember the primary time you encountered a deepfake? What was your initial response to it?
The term deepfake doesn’t have a transparent definition, and I feel that many images that were called photoshopped several years ago can fit that category. I feel the primary time I saw deepfake technology was the movie Forrest Gump where Forrest meets John F Kennedy. I remember pondering that was cool and about how the technology can grow to the purpose where movies can replace human actors and actresses with digital versions.
With Generative AI deepfakes have gotten increasingly convincing, what are a few of the associated cybercrimes?
Using deepfakes to commit cybercrimes is nearly limitless. Because the technology gets higher and easier to make use of, deepfakes may be used to “show” people doing things that didn’t occur, change the identity of individuals and persuade individuals that trusted friend, colleague or member of the family they’re interacting with is definitely a deepfake. Now we have seen cases where the audio technology of deepfakes was used to make the CFO of an organization think his boss asked him to transfer a big sum of cash to a checking account when it was actually a cybercriminal.
DeepFakes and disinformation are also going to be an enormous concern for manipulating elections, how should social media firms reply to this societal threat?
Implement deepfake detection technology to try and detect videos which might be deepfakes and either clearly mark them as fake or block them from being viewed. There must also be an option for users of the social media to report videos as fake. Depending on the content, perform some fact checking to see if the video is real.
What are your views on AI transparency, and the necessity to properly discover deepfakes?
There are some scenarios where deepfake technology is used for entertainment purposes and humor that I don’t think it’s mandatory to discover deepfakes. But in deepfakes intended to misrepresent an individual or scenario, my view is that deepfakes must be identified and labeled as manipulated or fake.
What are some ways in which AI is getting used to help in detecting DeepFakes?
AI technology is getting used to help in detecting deepfakes by analyzing features of videos which might be caused by utilizing deepfake technology resembling inconsistent shading or artifacts between the topic and the background. That is consistently changing because the deepfake technology is recuperating.
Are you able to share some insights on what exactly is Deepfake forensics?
Deepfake forensics is the evaluation of media with the goal of determining if the media has been created or altered using deepfake technology.
What are the deepfake forensics solutions which might be currently offered at Powerhouse Forensics?
At Powerhouse Forensics we provide services to research photos, audio and video to find out if the media has been edited, altered or manipulated from its original source.