
Hunting the Con Queen of Hollywood - l33tbro
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/hunting-con-queen-hollywood-1125932
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analog31
An interesting thread in this story is the "pay to play" nature of the
businesses that people were getting conned in. My only exposure to that
business has been in small time music performances, and I instinctively steer
clear. In my world of regular tech-industry employment and (for that matter)
as a freelance musician the "opportunity" to front my own money in return for
a job would be an instant red flag and polite no-thanks response.

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daveguy
The perpetrator(s) are very shrewd about getting the mark significantly
involved by the time they are asked for money. They are alone in a foreign
country with a flight paid for and the promise of work before they are asked.
Still like to think I would spot it, but in the situation I am sure a lot more
difficult.

I wonder if is definitely a single voice impersonator or a deep-voice
application. I don't hear any glitches and you'd have to have a lot of voice
samples and confidence there wouldn't be glitches during the conversation.

Also probably a single impersonator, because if they were successful with
synthetic simulation they probably wouldn't stick to impersonating just one
gender.

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konschubert
> I wonder if is definitely a single voice impersonator or a deep-voice
> application.

Technology can't do that yet.

~~~
daveguy
Yes. Technology can do that. Voices can definitely be simulated. Even _faces_
can be simulated with the voice if you want to do video calls. (More artifacts
there)

Claims are from seconds to 20 minutes of the original speaker's voice to creat
a model that can be made to say anything:

[https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/24/15406882/ai-voice-
synthes...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/24/15406882/ai-voice-synthesis-
copy-human-speech-lyrebird)

[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/3k7mgn/baidu-
deep...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/3k7mgn/baidu-deep-voice-
software-can-clone-anyones-voice-with-just-37-seconds-of-audio)

[https://www.npr.org/2017/05/05/527013820/new-software-can-
mi...](https://www.npr.org/2017/05/05/527013820/new-software-can-mimic-
anyones-voice)

Definitely artifact-y with less source material, but it is very possible.

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brobdingnagians
A good example of why trust validation is important and why social engineering
is one of the most difficult threat vectors to protect against. Hacking the
human brain to get trust is a lot easier in most cases than cracking a lot of
digital defenses (although it seems a lot of people neglect basic digital
defense too...). With some companies I've worked for, I've realized how
sometimes customer support could be easily duped, because they want so badly
to help the person who is obviously having difficulties and paying us so much
money... :P

~~~
zipwitch
I once worked for a large telco, and although there were some basic security
and verification processes in place internally, they were not rigorously
enforced. An imposter or social engineer with malicious intent and the level
of company-specific inside knowledge this scammmer had about their chosen
targets for impersonation could wreck havok at my old employer, or I suspect
many other large companies.

~~~
wallflower
Reminds me of the story about a hacker who got in by pretending to be an
interior decorator for an office revamp

[https://motherboard.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/qv34zb/how-i-...](https://motherboard.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/qv34zb/how-
i-socially-engineer-myself-into-high-security-facilities)

~~~
wallflower
Previously discussed. Thanks jsnell

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15516526](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15516526)

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hn_throwaway_99
That recorded phone call sounds very much like a man impersonating a woman's
voice to me.

~~~
tqkxzugoaupvwqr
In my mind it is defintely a male voice. Telling his victims he is a woman
could be the very first con. If they believe it, it tells the scammer they are
gullible. Like scam emails being obvious about being a scam so that if anyone
seriously replies it must be a terribly gullible person … which makes a great
victim.

~~~
whatshisface
It's not even close to socially acceptable to tell someone on the phone that
they "sound like a man," or "sound like a woman." If they didn't believe you,
you'd never find out.

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iamleppert
It’s really sad that our government is so dysfunctional that they can’t do
anything to help. It’s pure laziness, dysfunction and mismanagement as to why
when you call the FBI and they brush you off. What good are they?

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gcb0
> "There is an important element of social engineering going on with these
> victims," says Snezana Gebauer, K2's head of investigations and disputes
> practices, who has worked on the case with Kotsianas. "They know everything
> about their victims' personal lives and use the necessary pressure points,
> and they use publicly available information about the executives they are
> impersonating."

So it seems Google/Alphabet finally found how to monetize their new
robocaller!

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tqkxzugoaupvwqr
Fascinating read. My hypothesis why the scammer knows intimite/non-public
quirks of impersonated people: The scam seems to be a larger operation, e.g.
local people in Thailand surrounding the victim. So why shouldn’t they also
have inside people in the industry working near those impersonated people? The
spies relay everything to the shared scam database/wiki and the scammer on the
phone plays his role and pretends to have experienced it first hand.

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keithpeter
OA says in several places that the FBI said when contacted that the amount of
money involved was too small to warrant an investigation. Just wondering (as
an interested Brit) if the FBI would get around to looking at the whole series
of scams as a single case and begin to think that the _total_ would be enough
to meet the threshold? As the scam escalates, the likelihood of someone
getting into trouble abroad increases.

~~~
keketi
Using common sense, it should be the total sum of money that matters. I can't
imagine the FBI not being interested in someone stealing 1 dollar from 1
billion people in separate criminal acts.

~~~
keithpeter
Exactly, but the FBI (or whoever) has to recognise that the billion crimes are
connected and to do that you need record keeping and some keywords/criteria
applied to each case/report. Just wondering if they do that...

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duxup
>A designated Indonesian "moneyman" arrives on a moped to collect the funds.

Do people working in Hollywood or documentaries usually hand over sums of cash
to anonymous guys on mopeds?

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olivermarks
Reminds me of Frank Abagnale's book 'Catch me if you can'

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georgecmu
Previous submissions:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Hunting%20the%20Con%20Queen%20...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Hunting%20the%20Con%20Queen%20of%20Hollywood&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)

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dang
Users get ornery if you link to previous submissions that don't have comments.

