Robocalls: How scammers trick you with phone numbers you recognize

New York CNN Business — It’s a scene from a modern-day horror movie: The call is coming from inside the house. They could even one day use voice manipulation technology to impersonate that person.. Tarun Wadhwa, founder of tech advisory firm Day One Insights, argues that it’s easy for strangers to find out who is close to you and what their personal details are from social media or other websites. “It’s going to be like Photoshop — something so easy, widespread, and well known that we stop tracking how it’s being used against people personally and don’t find it surprising,” said Wadhwa, who’s spent years studying issues related to identity, forgery technologies and cybersecurity. “If I wanted to build one that sounded like you, for example, I’d need to get a ton of samples of you saying specific phonemes, and train a computer model on that.” He argues easier, yet still sophisticated, spoofing might entail getting a call from a friend’s number saying they’re in jail and you need to bail them out. “You’re not blocking your own number, and you are more likely to answer numbers that look local.” The FCC’s efforts to crack down on robocalls have been slow moving.