Many Korean female college students fell into the abyss of deep fake pornographic images

Before dawn in the morning, Jin Can's phone vibrated. She opened it and saw that it was a deepfake pornographic picture based on her photo. Before she could react, the other party sent a message through the social platform Telegram: "Hello, this is interesting, right?" Jin Can was shocked and her hands trembled. She tried to hold the phone tightly, and the phone kept vibrating, and one after another obscene pornographic pictures and several videos came. "Reply quickly, reply to me, and I will tell you who I am." Lying on the bed, she felt like she was falling into a bottomless abyss. It was the summer of 2021, and 28-year-old Jin Can was preparing to study in the United States. The sudden mobile phone message disrupted her life. After being bombarded with terrifying messages for nearly two hours, Jin Can trembled and typed keywords such as "Telegram" and "synthetic photos" on the Internet. She found that many Korean women have encountered similar situations. Jin Can called the digital sex crime victim support center she searched for, and the other party told her that if the perpetrator continued to send messages, it was recommended to call 112 to report the crime. The police operator told her: "Collect as much evidence as possible and go to the nearest police station to report the crime."

Jin Can was restless. Her mother got in the car and accompanied her to the Seodaemun Police Station in Seoul.

"Call the police? Even if you call the police, you can't catch me!" Another message came on the phone, as if the perpetrator was watching everything. Sitting in the passenger seat, Jin Can fumbled around to find out if there were any hidden cameras. "I feel like I'm in a noose and can't escape."

"Do you have a grudge against anyone?" The police officer asked Jin Can, and she shook her head. After registering the information at the police station, the message on her phone came again. After leaving the police station, Jin Can felt chest tightness and shortness of breath. She knew that this was not just because the temperature in Seoul exceeded 30 degrees that day.

Back home, Jin Can recalled carefully. The photo used by the other party was her old avatar on the social media KakaoTalk that she had changed two years ago. This may mean that the perpetrator "has been in her address book for more than two years."

A month later, the Seodaemun Police Station called and asked Jin Can to provide a more detailed statement. This time, her father accompanied her to the police station. They asked the police officer what progress had been made in the past month, but the other party did not answer, but asked Jin Can a few questions.

"Do you know the source of the photo of the composite picture?" Jin Can replied that she did not know, it was just an avatar on social media. "Are there any other clues to identify the perpetrator?" Jin Can did not know, the only thing she knew was that the other party's nickname was "Kim T". "Is this all the clues you can provide?" Jin Can nodded.

Jin Can had hoped that the police would be able to find more clues to identify the perpetrator. But she found that they had done nothing for a month. The police also reiterated what she had heard many times before: "Investigations involving Telegram are difficult."

Telegram is a cross-platform instant messaging software that supports users to exchange encrypted and self-destructing messages with each other, and send all types of files such as photos and videos. The program has a strong privacy protection function that prevents anyone (including law enforcement agencies) from accessing encrypted data and user information stored on servers or transmitted over the network.

At the end of August 2021, Jin Can returned to the United States to continue studying. Because it was difficult to get rid of anxiety and fear, Jin Can was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and received treatment locally.

In December of the same year, the police sent a notice to Jin Can's parents' home that "the investigation was suspended due to lack of clues." Jin Can had expected such a result, but when she really received the notice, she still felt desperate and angry. "If even the police can't handle it, who can I turn to for help?"

In the beginning, Jin Can often thought about a question: "Why is this person (the victim) me?" She changed her mobile phone number that she had used for 15 years, narrowed her social circle, and forced herself to forget everything she had experienced. Later, she even deleted the evidence photos and the email account she used to send messages to the police. "I don't want to leave any traces of my composite photos on the Internet." She thought that this way, the world would be quiet.

In June 2022, Jin Can returned to Seoul. In a cafe, she met another female alumnus of Seoul University and learned that three Seoul University alumni had encountered similar "trouble."

The scenes that Jin Can tried to forget reappeared in her mind. Their faces were superimposed on naked women, awkward smiles, chaotic scenes that looked like gang rape... By comparing the form of the photos and the tone of the other party's speech, they speculated: This may be the work of the same person, and it is very likely that it is someone they know.

Including Jin Can, the four victims decided to continue to report to the police station. They acted separately and reported to the Seodaemun Police Station, Gangnam Police Station, Sejong Police Station, and Gwanak Police Station. They thought that the number of victims had reached 4 people, and the police station might be able to launch a joint investigation, but that still did not happen.

From "Room N" to "Acquaintance Humiliation Room"

The summer of 2022 is still hot. After finishing a full day's work, Yuan Endi opened her mailbox as usual. A report email kept her awake all night.

The content of the email was the information about Jin Can and other four women who suffered online sexual assault. After reading the email, Yuan Endi was cold all over, "the feeling of anger and collapse came again."

In 2020, the "Nth Room" incident broke out in South Korea, causing an uproar. But few people know that the two girls who first discovered "Nth Room" and eventually pushed it to be exposed were two girls who were still in college at the time. Yuan Endi was one of the two. At that time, she used the alias "Huo" and Park Ji-hyun, who used the alias "Dan", formed the "Spark Tracking Group" and went undercover in "Nth Room" for 5 hours every day to collect key evidence and criminal information for the police.

In this process, Yuan Endi has noticed the risk of deep fake technology being abused. She found that compared with the "Nth Room" incident, deep fake digital sex crimes seem to be more terrible. In the "Nth Room" incident, the perpetrators had a process of abuse and intimidation. They took photos or videos of the victims and there was physical violence. But in deep fake sex crimes, the physical boundaries disappear, and the victims often don't know when and how they became victims.

"Even daily life can become someone else's criminal target." Yuan Endi said.

Farid, associate dean of the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley and consultant to the Center for Cybersecurity, told China Newsweek: "Deep fakes are inherently potentially dangerous, in part because they pave the way for the so-called 'cheater bonus.' In a world where everything can be faked, nothing is necessarily true. Anything can be faked: news reports, pictures, audio, video..."

But at the time, few people took this digital sex crime seriously. Yuan Endi recalled to China Newsweek that when she spoke as a witness to the "Nth Room" incident in 2020, some people present did not even understand the concepts of "deep fakes" and "digital sex crimes" she spoke of. In the same year, the Korea Communications Commission launched a survey on the perception of digital sex crimes. 29% of adults and 5.7% of minors said they had encountered digital sex crimes, but among these people, 9% of adults and 16% of minors believed that digital sex crimes were not a problem at all.

At a meeting to discuss the revision of the Special Act on Punishment of Sexual Violence Crimes, some members of the National Assembly even described deep fake images of others as their private imaginations in their diaries, and publicly questioned, if even imagination is punished, what else can we men do? Yuan Endi felt helpless: "This is the pitiful cognition of some members of the National Assembly at that time."

When the impact of the "Nth Room" incident became more and more serious, the South Korean government also made some responses. The then South Korean President Moon Jae-in asked the South Korean police and prosecutors to thoroughly investigate the case, not only to severely punish those who directly participated in the crime, but also to investigate all those who indirectly participated in or helped to spread it. The South Korean National Assembly also passed an amendment to the Special Act on Punishment of Sexual Violence Crimes, stipulating that criminals who produce or distribute deep fake pornographic videos shall be sentenced to up to 5 years in prison or a fine of 50 million won. For the purpose of profit, the maximum sentence is 7 years in prison.

However, Yuan Endi found that in reality, because the amendment clearly stipulates the "purpose of dissemination". If there is no evidence of dissemination of photos and videos, it is difficult to be punished for "simple production" alone. In addition, it is even more challenging to prosecute users who simply enter such chat rooms to watch, because it is difficult to collect enough evidence.

Not only that, Park Ji-hyun, who later chose to enter politics, also noticed when he served as co-chairman of the Emergency Countermeasures Committee of the Democratic Party of Korea that perpetrators often use the two tools of "first offense" and "repentance" to reduce penalties. Even among the 378 participants convicted in the "Nth Room" incident, only 12.4% were sentenced to prison, and the probation rate was as high as 69.1%.

By 2022, after Yoon Seok-yeol, who has male voters as his base, took office as president, law enforcement against sexual crimes became less urgent. When the "Nth Room" incident gradually faded out of people's sight, on the Internet, the "acquaintance abuse room" based on deep fake technology became a new hotbed of evil.

Use the Telegram chat room program to generate deep fake data, submit at least one clear facial photo, and generate a synthetic photo in as fast as 5 seconds, the cost is about 2,650 won (about 2 US dollars), less than the price of a cup of coffee. In less than 25 minutes, you can get a 60-second video, which costs about 13,260 won (about $10).

Using the theme function of the software, users can also see a menu where they can find chat rooms of different categories such as "Teacher's Room", "Nurse's Room" and "Sister's Room". In these special "humiliation rooms", some users are required to share the names, ages, dates of birth, personal information, and even places of residence of these women in addition to providing synthetic photos or videos.

Yuan Endi found that chat room members uploaded deep fake images of acquaintances, even their own classmates, sisters, wives... She felt incredible, and it was a feeling that the world she knew was collapsing.

When Yuan Endi received the report email in the summer of 2022, she knew that "Seoul University Girls" had become the new protagonist of the "Humiliation Room".

Hunting down the "real murderer"

The perpetrator's path of crime gradually became clear. First of all, the victimized women were all female alumni who attended Seoul University about ten years ago. In addition, the photos they were used to make deep fake pornographic images were all from personal information in KakaoTalk.

After mastering these two clues, Jin Can and other victims began to focus on male classmates, seniors or juniors from college, but they found that it was still difficult to identify the perpetrators. There was more than one common "Seoul University KakaoTalk friend" in their address book. Not only that, the number of perpetrators was also difficult to determine.

During that time, Jin Can felt extremely painful. She had to suspect everyone, from those who had not contacted for a long time to those who had only contacted in the past two years.

Constant comparisons made no progress, and the investigation was interrupted again and again. At this time, a senior of the victim received a call from an anonymous man on Telegram, and sent a deep fake synthetic image containing several Seoul University alumni, inviting "to humiliate them together." The other party also sent multiple chat room links.

Yuan Enji received the message forwarded by the victim and decided to pretend to be a friend of the senior and go undercover in the chat room. She created a virtual identity of a man in his 30s who had a beautiful wife who graduated from Seoul University and liked to watch online pornographic images, and sent a message to "Kim T". During the chat, the other party was very cautious and even threatened from time to time at first.

"If you play with me, I will chase you to the end of hell and kill you."

In order to gain the trust of "Kim T", Yuan Eun-ji went online every night at 11 o'clock. During the communication, "Kim T" was very interested in Yuan Eun-ji's virtual "Seoul University Beautiful Wife". He kept asking her about the occupation, interests, company and coffee shops frequented by "Seoul University Beautiful Wife" to fantasize and make up various pornographic stories.

When he was undercover in "Room N" in the past, Yuan Eun-ji created some links that the other party could click to get location information, but this time, the other party was very cautious and always avoided mentioning his identity and would not click on any links at all.

In order to catch the perpetrator, Jin Chan also began to look for different ways out. "I studied the support measures that victims of sexual crimes can take and called all possible places. In this way, I contacted Zhao Yunxi, a lawyer at the Korean Sexual Violence Crisis Center." Together, they appealed to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office and the Seoul High Prosecutors' Office, but both were rejected.

In December 2023, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency reopened the investigation and advised Yuan Eun-ji to keep in touch with the perpetrator, because if the suspect could not be locked, the police would not be able to conduct an on-site search. In the disgusting and unpleasant conversations, Yuan Eun-ji and the victims felt that this might be the only way to catch the perpetrator.

"It's exhausting to have these conversations. Many times, I have to walk into a cafe with a nice view, open my notebook, and send a few words. Look at the beautiful scenery, send a few more words, and then look up at the window." Yuan Eun-ji often can't suppress the nausea in her heart.

Until this spring, "Kim T" asked Yuan Eun-ji if he could show him a photo of the "beautiful wife" in underwear. When Yuan Eun-ji sent a photo, the other party further asked: "Can you give me the underwear?"

Yuan Eun-ji realized that the opportunity to lead the suspect from online to offline had come. At this time, the police also told her that if she could take this opportunity to arrest the suspect, then the subsequent reporting and search would also have opportunities.

Yuan Eun-ji agreed to the suspect's request. Considering that the "humiliation room" is aimed at female alumni of Seoul National University, she also suggested that it would be better to take over in a building near the Seoul National University subway station. On April 3 this year, when a man in black took a paper bag containing women's underwear, he was surrounded and arrested by the police.

Yuan Endi sent a message to the other party: "Did you get (underwear)?" But never received a reply.

The moment she saw the news of the suspect's arrest, Yuan Endi suddenly felt at a loss. "I find it hard to believe that such a cautious criminal suspect was caught just because of a piece of underwear, not cutting-edge technology."

According to preliminary statistics from the police, from July 2021 to April 2024, the main culprit Park (40 years old) and four other perpetrators used deep fake technology to replace faces and synthesize pornographic photos and videos, and established nearly 200 deep fake chat rooms on the social media Telegram, participating in the production and dissemination of more than 1,800 illegal photos and videos. There are as many as 61 victims, including 12 Seoul National University alumni including Jin Chan.