Goof Trooper David Cameron Does Fake Video Call with Deepfake of Former Ukraine President

This doesn’t seem to have been Vovan and Lexus, the main Russian pranksters who call politicians and get them to say crazy shit. They’ve been doing this bit for years, though they obviously got the phone numbers from, you know, someone.

Now I guess anyone can just do this bit.

The Guardian:

The UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, has been the victim of a hoax video call with someone claiming to be Petro Poroshenko, the former president of Ukraine, it has been revealed.

A number of text messages were exchanged followed by a brief video call between Lord Cameron and someone purporting to be Poroshenko, the Foreign Office said in a statement.

Poroshenko served as Ukrainian president between 2014 and 2019 and has remained a prominent figure in Ukraine since leaving office.

…

Explaining why the statement had been released, the Foreign Office said manipulation of the “information environment is becoming ever more present”.

“Whilst regretting his mistake, the foreign secretary thinks it important to call out this behaviour and increase efforts to counter the use of misinformation,” it said.

There isn’t much information on this.

It seems like it wasn’t for the purpose of a prank, but rather someone was just messing with Cameron, trying to work him towards some even more hilarious purpose than simply a silly call.

Whoever did it apparently didn’t release the video. I can’t find it.

By the way, just to be clear: this is not illegal. At least not in America. So, I mean, if you’ve got someone who can get your phone numbers… I wouldn’t advise anything. But things would be possible. Deepfake video is really easy at this point.

Impersonating a law enforcement officer is illegal, and it might be illegal to impersonate a local politician (I don’t know). But I’m pretty sure it’s not illegal to impersonate a foreign politician, especially one who isn’t even holding office currently.

Cameron and Poroshenko.