Yes, we should not underestimate plain old social solutions. I remember when you used to answer the phone every time because caller id didn't exist. Who answers their phone now? This just mainstreams exceptional validation workflows that exist in finance for establishing identity and preventing phishing and other forms of identity attack.

We just won't be able to trust anyone is actually saying anything except after confirmation via non-repudiable channels.

I think this is a regional thing.

I'm from a rural community in Canada, and of course we answer the phone.

Just floors me to visit my mother-in-law in Texas; when we visited eight years ago, she'd answer the phone; now she doesn't answer her cell or her home phone unless it makes a distinctive ring. I'd hate to need to get ahold of her using someone else's phone.

Obviously I'm not your mother-in-law, but I also don't answer my phone unless it shows it's someone I know because 95% of calls I get are spam. However, I will check my voicemail. So far every legitimate caller has left one to my knowledge.

That is pretty strong selection bias however...

I don't think detection would really help even if we had it. Even now, most fake-news stories are obviously fake. They have no subtlety; they don't fool anybody paying even the faintest shred of attention.

They'll be used on people who are already perfectly happy to believe fake printed quotes from obviously unreliable sources. When challenged, they'll refer to conventional partisan media citing those sources as proof. Ordinarily showing video would increase their certainty, but they're already absolutely certain. It'll just be a more entertaining way of delivering it to them.

Detection, no matter how definitive, can't deter that. They're already perfectly happy with their trusted sources.

I wonder how long it will be before someone stuffs a crypto module into the same package as a PDM microphone to provide a digitally signed audio stream.