Why Every Family Needs a Code Word (wsj.com) Posted in GD for wide applicability, namely everyone. [View all]

[usonian]

Archived at: https://archive.ph/v7hpJ#selection-464.0-551.88

I just shared with my family here. We're going to work out a code word.

By
Julie Jargon
Nov. 1, 2025 5:30 am ET

Criminals increasingly use generative AI to mimic real people’s voices and con their loved ones out of money.
There’s a simple solution to this high-tech problem: a code word.

If you receive a call from someone who sounds just like your grandson and says he needs money or a gift card, the best thing to do is hang up and call your grandson. But if the voice is so convincing that you can’t bear to do that, ask for your family code word. If the caller can’t produce it, hang up. Likewise, if you are legitimately in trouble and need to call a loved one for help, say the code word so your relative knows it’s really you.

People who haven’t implemented a family code word have been burned by bad actors. I wrote earlier this year about a Colorado woman who received a call from a young woman who she said sounded just like her daughter. Only after wiring $2,000 to protect her daughter from danger did she learn the whole thing was a scam.

It’s easy to see how someone can be fooled. My colleagues recently created deepfakes of several Wall Street Journal staffers’ voices, including my own, and it was hard to tell the human voices from the clones.

Note: Only share the code word with close and trusted family members, and do it in person or over the phone.

Related article (linked in the above, but not in my excerpt)
https://archive.ph/HC2CB (WSJ)

I guess that the default is to ask the caller a question that only a family member would know, even if you didn't have a code word, subject to limitations of memory, or getting a new Son-In-Law. That just advances possible questions forward in time.

BE SAFE, EVERYONE!