When Seeing and Hearing...

[JoJo]

When Seeing and Hearing Isn't Believing

Bill Arkin

By William M. Arkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, Feb. 1, 1999

"Gentlemen! We have called you together to inform you that we are going to overthrow the United States government." So begins a statement being delivered by Gen. Carl W. Steiner, former Commander-in-chief, U.S. Special Operations Command.

At least the voice sounds amazingly like him.

But it is not Steiner. It is the result of voice "morphing" technology developed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

By taking just a 10-minute digital recording of Steiner's voice, scientist George Papcun is able, in near real time, to clone speech patterns and develop an accurate facsimile. Steiner was so impressed, he asked for a copy of the tape.

Steiner was hardly the first or last victim to be spoofed by Papcun's team members. To refine their method, they took various high quality recordings of generals and experimented with creating fake statements. One of the most memorable is Colin Powell stating "I am being treated well by my captors."

The rest:

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/dotmil/arkin020199.htm

[Jai Guru Deva]

Well you know what the obvious question is everyone here? Whereas Sir Faulonious is concerned, I think such technology may be a double edged sword. It's rather diabolical to think he could take his masquerade and historical revisionism to another level by creating an album which sounded exactly like JPM singing. On the other hand, it may backfire on him too-- especially if he redid old songs--then questions might be raised about the vocal qualities in the original and new recordings.

[LOVELYRITA]

jaigurudeva said:

Well you know what the obvious question is everyone here? Whereas Sir Faulonious is concerned, I think such technology may be a double edged sword. It's rather diabolical to think he could take his masquerade and historical revisionism to another level by creating an album which sounded exactly like JPM singing. On the other hand, it may backfire on him too-- especially if he redid old songs--then questions might be raised about the vocal qualities in the original and new recordings.

Makes me ask the question, although the technology was not as good in the late 60's, that this voice morphing could not have been used by Bill like on Sgt Pepper recordings where people think it's JPM's voice but may actually be Bill?

It was not quite convincing enough for PID'ers, but fooled most of the people for 40 years....

[CoconutFudge]

It's really great to hear about something like this being confirmed! Thanks for the interesting read, JoJo.