Japanese researchers at Nagoya University and Fujitsu have developed software that detects when someone is trying to scam you over the phone. The software, which runs locally on your mobile phone, has a 90% success rate at detecting remittance phishing (think Nigerian or fake anti-virus) and other similar scams.
To achieve such accuracy, the researchers attacked the problem from two angles. First, by parsing recordings of real phone scams, the researchers identified keywords that regularly pop up, such as “indebtedness” or “compensation.” The caller’s conversation is scanned for these keywords using voice recognition software.
The other approach is the detection of overtrust in the voice of the victim. Basically, when you are stressed out, you are more susceptible to scams — and this is why phone scammers use distressing phrases like “your computer is full of viruses” or “your distant relative has died.” By analyzing your voice pitch and volume, the researchers can detect when you are overtrusting whoever’s on the other end of the line.
If a scam is detected, the victim is alerted, along with a family member or “objective third-party member” (which is probably the police). The entire process is so effective that the National Police Academy and the Bank of Nagoya are now moving forward with real-world trials. Eventually, this software could be built into every smartphone.
It’s also worth mentioning that the software runs entirely on the phone, and according to Fujitsu it “ignores everything except the keywords on the pre-registered list.” In other words, phone calls aren’t recorded (or transmitted anywhere), and the overtrust detection is limited to analyzing the waveform of your voice, rather than the actual words.
Presumably it wouldn’t be too hard to implement this software on the telecom network itself, too, and track scammers to their physical location. It’s very similar to the infrastructure-level snooping that governments use to pick up mentions of “bombs” and other sensitive keywords on telephone calls.
Read more at Fujitsu