cypher

makes the invisible scammers visible

Duration

15 Weeks

Jan. - Apr. 2022

roles

Product design
Speculative design
Research
Strategy
Video production

Link

MFA thesis →

A speculative device used to authenticate calls made by legitimate businesses.

Why is this content?

This project is part of my MFA thesis →, in which I aimed to explore “how might we stop phone scam in the future”.

Countless imposter scams specifically target vulnerable immigrant populations because they lack access to institutional resources. I saw the closely connection between spoofing calls and fraudulent calls while designing the corresponding solutions for before/during/after scam call happens. I also saw that number spoofing remians a huge problem as an opportunity worth exploring and wanted to dig deeper into why it can’t be solved.

Aim

Our battle with scammers is always based on digital systems. Through technological development, scammers can easily hack the digital system, that’s why we have no way to fundamentally solve the problem. With this project, I start to wonder, in the future, might there be a better tool for intercepting scam calls with confidence?

Outcome

CYPHER is an intelligent device that emits audio tones (think the sounds of the computer modem) that are encrypted. It is used to authenticate calls made by legitimate businesses.

Every CYPHER device has its own serial tone and is encrypted before being played out. Since the encryption method constantly changes, the tone played will sound different, making it impossible to be hacked. When this encrypted tone is propagated through the phone, the device on the other end can decrypt its serial tone. If this tone matches the one in the database, CYPHER will light up blue.

Since the government authorities and well-known companies will hold the critical tone emitter, the consumer CYPHER device can be freely distributed and will provide another layer of safeguard for immigrants against scam calls.

Methodology

The methodology is to conceive of a speculative future and see some speculative product design from that future as the good/bad consequences. Delve deeper to design a more realistic, but equally critical, product offering for today's market that will help move us along a path toward the proposed future.

In other words, is to design for the now based on speculated, future consequences rather than on researched, past precedents.

Future mapping

Utopian Future newspaper

Caller ID authentication is critical for protecting people against scam calls, both now and in the future.

I envisioned a futuristic utopian, zero-scam call world. Everyone's cell phone needs blood authentication to ensure real identity. People can query the basic information of the caller on the network as long as they provide call records, so there is no way to pretend to be someone else on the phone. If someone tries to defraud, it can be easily debunked.

Opportunity

How might we authenticate the caller's identity through a more reliable and unhackable source?

References

the dial-up tone is unique

During my research, one notable tidbit from the history of phones are the audio tones used by grounded or landlines, like the dial tone. What really caught my interest was the sound of dial-up modems and how those sounds made the connection between a computer and the Internet. It is the dial tone that establishes the physical connection between the two devices over the line.

the sound is unhackable

I discovered that phone hackers in the 1980s actually used these unique audio tones to make otherwise expensive long distance calls worldwide for free! No telecom company could stop them because they were able to exploit the way telephones made connections, recreating the tones to match the frequency of a given number from 0 to 9 on the dialog.

a cipher system making the sound unrepeatable

Although the sound is unhackable, it can be easily copied. So the problem is how to make the sound cannot be easily copied? I found a cipher device called the Enigma machine during World War II. The Enigma has an electromechanical rotor mechanism that scrambles the alphabet. The security of the system depends on machine settings that were generally changed daily, based on secret key lists distributed in advance, and on other settings that were changed for each message. It seems possible to create a mechanism similar for encrypting and decrypt sound by using the same principle.

Speculative design fiction

How does the system work?

Every device has its serial tone and comes with a database storing the trustable tones.

1. The serial tone is encrypted before being played out. Since the built-in chip will continuously change the encryption method every 30 minutes, the tone played each time will sound different.

2. When this encrypted tone is propagated through the phone, the device on the other end can decrypt in the same way.

3. After decryption, the device can obtain the serial tone of the other party. If this tone matches the one in the database, it will light up blue.

Design process

refined Product design brief

Within this scenario, I want to design a product that is portable, easy to use, and easy to hold. It must have a clear indicator light, be able to play and pick up sound, and look safe and secure.

thoughts & Takeaways

Cypher is the most challenging project in my thesis. During my research, it was difficult for me to understand telephony technology that has long since been obsolete. It was a world I had never seen before. As far back as I can remember, the Internet has become widespread, and the use of wired telephones has dramatically declined. Although these ancient technologies are not as convenient as our current electronic world, phone scams rarely occur. It also made me think about the pros and cons of technology. I hope that one day, the advantages of technological development will outweigh the disadvantages.

→

scam booth

Experience design / Data visualization

→

Call detector

A iOS plugin to spot scam calls

→

Trace

An information exchange platform that help track the changing scam trends

View all works →