#FactCheck - Viral Claim of Highway in J&K Proven Misleading

Pretext

The Army Welfare Education Society has informed the Parents and students that a Scam is targeting the Army schools Students. The Scamster approaches the students by faking the voice of a female and a male. The scamster asks for the personal information and photos of the students by telling them they are taking details for the event, which is being organised by the Army welfare education society for the celebration of independence day. The Army welfare education society intimated that Parents to beware of these calls from scammers.

The students of  Army Schools of Jammu & Kashmir, Noida, are getting calls from the scamster. The students were asked to share sensitive information. Students across the country are getting calls and WhatsApp messages from two numbers, which end with 1715 and 2167.  The Scamster are posing to be teachers and asking for the students’ names on the pretext of adding them to the WhatsApp Groups. The scamster then sends forms links to the WhatsApp groups and asking students to fill out the form to seek more sensitive information.

Do’s

• Do Make sure to verify the caller.
• Do block the caller while finding it suspicious.
• Do be careful while sharing personal Information.
• Do inform the School Authorities while receiving these types of calls and messages posing to be teachers.
• Do Check the legitimacy of any agency and organisation while telling the details
• Do Record Calls asking for personal information.
• Do inform parents about scam calling.
• Do cross-check the caller and ask for crucial information.
• Do make others aware of the scam.

Don’ts

• Don’t answer anonymous calls or unknown calls from anyone.
• Don’t share personal information with anyone.
• Don’t Share OTP with anyone.
• Don’t open suspicious links.
• Don’t fill any forms, asking for personal information
• Don’t confirm your identity until you know the caller.
• Don’t Reply to messages asking for financial information.
• Don’t go to a fake website by following a prompt call.
• Don’t share bank Details and passwords.
• Don’t Make payment over a prompt fake call.

Executive Summary:

Old footage of Indian Cricketer Virat Kohli celebrating Ganesh Chaturthi in September 2023 was being promoted as footage of Virat Kohli at the Ram Mandir Inauguration. A video of cricketer Virat Kohli attending a Ganesh Chaturthi celebration last year has surfaced, with the false claim that it shows him at the Ram Mandir consecration ceremony in Ayodhya on January 22. The Hindi newspaper Dainik Bhaskar and Gujarati newspaper Divya Bhaskar also displayed the now-viral video in their respective editions on January 23, 2024, escalating the false claim. After thorough Investigation, it was found that the Video was old and it was Ganesh Chaturthi Festival where the cricketer attended.

Claims:

Many social media posts, including those from news outlets such as Dainik Bhaskar and Gujarati News Paper Divya Bhaskar, show him attending the Ram Mandir consecration ceremony in Ayodhya on January 22, where after investigation it was found that the Video was of Virat Kohli attending Ganesh Chaturthi in September, 2023.

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The caption of Dainik Bhaskar E-Paper reads, “ क्रिकेटर विराट कोहली भी नजर आए ”

Fact Check:

CyberPeace Research Team did a reverse Image Search of the Video where several results with the Same Black outfit was shared earlier, from where a Bollywood Entertainment Instagram Profile named Bollywood Society shared the same Video in its Page, the caption reads, “Virat Kohli snapped for Ganapaati Darshan” the post was made on 20 September, 2023.

Taking an indication from this we did some keyword search with the Information we have, and it was found in an article by Free Press Journal, Summarizing the article we got to know that Virat Kohli paid a visit to the residence of Shiv Sena leader Rahul Kanal to seek the blessings of Lord Ganpati. The Viral Video and the claim made by the news outlet is false and Misleading.

Conclusion:

The recent Claim made by the Viral Videos and News Outlet is an Old Footage of Virat Kohli attending Ganesh Chaturthi the Video back to the year 2023 but not of the recent auspicious day of Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha. To be noted that, we also confirmed that Virat Kohli hadn’t attended the Program; there was no confirmation that Virat Kohli attended on 22 January at Ayodhya. Hence, we found this claim to be fake.

• Claim:  Virat Kohli attending the Ram Mandir consecration ceremony in Ayodhya on January 22
• Claimed on: Youtube, X
• Fact Check: Fake

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Amid the popularity of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s announcement of introducing its own Artificial Intelligence chatbot called Bard, there has been much discussion over how such tools can impact India at a time when the country is aiming for an AI revolution.

During the Budget Session, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman talked about AI, while her colleague, Minister of State (MoS) for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar discussed it at the India Stack Developer Conference.

While Sitharaman stated that the government will establish three centres of excellence in AI in the country, Chandrashekhar at the event mentioned that India Stack, which includes digital solutions like Aadhaar, Digilocker and others, will become more sophisticated over time with the inclusion of AI.

As AI chatbots become the buzzword, News18 discusses with experts how such tech tools will impact India.

AI IN INDIA

Many experts believe that in a country like India, which is extremely diverse in nature and has a sizeable population, the introduction of technologies and their right adoption can bring a massive digital revolution.

For example, Manoj Gupta, Cofounder of Plotch.ai, a full-stack AI-enabled SaaS product, told News18 that Bard is still experimental and not open to everyone to use while ChatGPT is available and can be used to build applications on top of it.

He said: “Conversational chatbots are interesting since they have the potential to automate customer support and assisted buying in e-commerce. Even simple banking applications can be built that can use ChatGPT AI models to answer queries like bank balance, service requests etc.”

According to him, such tools could be extremely useful for people who are currently excluded from the digital economy due to language barriers.

Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister for Communications, Electronics & IT, has also talked about using such tools to reduce communication issues. At World Economic Forum in Davos, he said: “We integrated our Bhashini language AI tool, which translates from one Indian language to another Indian language in real-time, spoken and text everything. We integrated that with ChatGPT and are seeing very good results.”

‘DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD’

Sundar Balasubramanian, Managing Director, India & SAARC, at Check Point Software, told News18 that generative AI like ChatGPT is a “double-edged sword”.

According to him, used in the right way, it can help developers write and fix code quicker, enable better chat services for companies, or even be a replacement for search engines, revolutionising the way people search for information.

“On the flip side, hackers are also leveraging ChatGPT to accelerate their bad acts and we have already seen examples of such exploitations. ChatGPT has lowered the bar for novice hackers to enter the field as they are able to learn quicker and hack better through asking the AI tool for answers,” he added.

Balasubramanian also stated that CPR has seen the quality of phishing emails improve tremendously over the past 3 months, making it increasingly difficult to discern between legitimate sources and a targeted phishing scam.

“Despite the emergence of the use of generative AI impacting cybercrime, Check Point is continually reminding organisations and individuals of the significance of being vigilant as ChatGPT and Codex become more mature, it can affect the threat landscape, for both good and bad,” he added.

While the real-life applications of ChatGPT include several things ranging from language translation to explaining tricky math problems, Balasubramanian said it can also be used for making the work of cyber researchers and developers more efficient.

“Generative AI or tools like ChatGPT can be used to detect potential threats by analysing large amounts of data and identifying patterns that may indicate malicious activity. This can help enterprises quickly identify and respond to a potential threat before it escalates to something more,” he added.

POSITIVE FACTORS

Major Vineet Kumar, Founder and Global President of CyberPeace Foundation, believes that the deployment of AI chatbots has proven to be highly beneficial in India, where a booming economy and increasing demand for efficient customer service have led to a surge in their use. According to him, both ChatGPT and Bard have the potential to bring significant positive change to various industries and individuals in India.

“ChatGPT has already made an impact by revolutionising customer service, providing instant and accurate support, and reducing wait time. It has automated tedious and complicated tasks for businesses and educational institutions, freeing up valuable time for more significant activities. In the education sector, ChatGPT has also improved learning experiences by providing quick and reliable information to students and educators,” he added.

He also said there are several possible positive impacts that the AI chatbots, ChatGPT and Bard, could have in India and these include improved customer experience, increased productivity, better access to information, improved healthcare, improved access to education and better financial services.

Reference Link : https://www.news18.com/news/explainers/confused-about-chatgpt-bard-experts-tell-news18-how-openai-googles-ai-chatbots-may-impact-india-7026277.html