Original story

SatWeb 19.12.2009

Video tattoos eat into virtual jewellery market - police investigate links with Cyberpunk radicals

** China and India on full military alert as guerilla group infiltrates Indian media stations with forged “Chinese Cabinet Session” advocating Chinese takeover - UN demands inquiry **

Sources in Delhi have revealed that for some 36 hours last week India and China were on the verge of all-out war. The reason for the flare-up was a bogus report screened on Indian TV channels. Members of the outlawed SAIT Freedom Front broke through media security walls and fed stations with a recording of what purported to be “a high-level meeting of the Chinese leadership”, which had actually been fabricated using virtual reality technology. Before the hoax was discovered both sides went to full alert, with thousands of troops mobilized in the remote border regions of Jammu and Ladakh.

In the recording, which was described as “filmed secretly”, carefully modelled computer avatars of “senior Chinese politicians and military officers” were shown in a meeting where they discussed ways of crippling the Indian economy and bringing it under their control. The virtual video was so cleverly forged that even the Indian cabinet and counter-intelligence services regarded the tape as genuine.

India placed all troops and missile personnel on full alert, moving to DefCon 3, the equivalent of a Red Alert. The Indian government was also prepared to cut cables and links for all Chinese Internet connections, and to destroy Chinese datanet satellites using ground-to-air laser weaponry. On the northern frontier, orders were given to ready India’s controversial miniature destructor robots, based on nanotechnology, which the country has kept in defiance of repeated UN calls for a worldwide ban on these highly effective anti-personnel devices. The threat of war only receded when the embarrassed Chinese were able to show that one of the ministers attending the so-called “meeting” had in fact been chairing a UN Economic Affairs Committee session in New York at the time - in person.

UN Secretary General Thea Otan immediately called an emergency meeting of the Security Council when the news of the crisis came through. After the troops on both sides had been stood down, the Security Council demanded a full inquiry into the matter and issued a note to the General Assembly demanding that all virtualization programmes and virtual cameras be henceforth fitted with some form of ID tag, in order that virtual figures could not be confused with real personages. The tag could be in the form of an identifying amulet on the virtual character, or a badge to be worn on the chest. The Senegalese representative even suggested that “virtuals” should always be given green hair as a means of instant identification. In any event, the recognition device on cameras and programmes should be of such a type that it is impossible to remove.

Dr. O.S. Warp, Chairman of the United States Information Technology Forum, nevertheless declared after the UN demands that it would be quite impossible to develop any add-ons to software or cameras that were completely resistant to determined efforts to remove them or by-pass them using another programme.

Despite these warnings, Secretary-General Otan set up a working group to devise an ID programme to be put before the next plenary session of the General Assembly in just three weeks.

Hannula I. & Linturi R. 1998: 100 Phenomena. Yritysmikrot Oy, Helsinki 1998. Copyright notices ISBN 952-9508-18-2

Toteuma-arvio 2026

Toteuma lyhyesti

  • Ilmiön toteuma: 4/5
  • Toteuma viiden vuoden tarkkuudella: kyllä; arviointi-ikkuna on 2004–2014
  • Toteuma väljemmällä aikahorisontilla: kyllä, erittäin vahvasti
  • Ilmiön ydin: väärennetty poliittinen video tai murrettu mediajakelu voi synnyttää vakavan kansainvälisen kriisin ennen kuin huijaus ehditään todistaa.

Manipuloitu kuva, hakkeroidut lähetykset, valeuutiset ja myöhemmin syväväärennökset ovat tehneet uhasta todellisen. Yksittäinen tunnettu väärennös ei ole vienyt Kiinaa ja Intiaa sodan partaalle, mutta turvallisuuspoliittinen riskiluokka on toteutunut.

Johtopäätös: ydin uskottavan synteettisen median kriisiriskistä toteutui, vaikka kuvattu tapaus ei.