
Frank Abagnale: “Catch Me If You Can” – Talks at Google [video] - ludlu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsMydMDi3rI
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jstanley
Some of his closing remarks about the future of technology are hard to
believe. I highly doubt passwords will entirely disappear in favour of
"Trusona". I personally will not be submitting to any authentication scheme
that can "100% identify the person remotely". It sounds like a bigger
vulnerability than the one it solves.

I also find it hard to believe that the FBI can remotely disable a car's
engine in the general case. I drive a car which has no ECU. And even cars
which do have ECUs don't all have the ability for the ECU to receive radio
signals. And even cars that do have the ability to control the ECU with radio
signals probably aren't _all_ vulnerable.

Edit: but, aside from that, I thoroughly enjoyed the talk. I intend to watch
the film.

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sharpercoder
A great story. What I do not understand (I am a European) is that he uses a
credit card, but not a credit card. I just did an AirBnB and I was prohibited
by the system to use my debit card. I was outraged. I still am. I had to buy a
separate debit-credit-card to be able to use AirBnB services. AirBnB supports
iDeal (Dutch payment system), but only for bookings >6 days.

From my point of view, using a debit card is far superior to using a credit
card. Why would I want to debt myself to pay stuff? I have enough on my
account to pay for a mere AirBnB. I don't want to indebt myself. yet, there is
a system which _forces_ me to.

~~~
abritinthebay
From a general point of view: using a credit card responsibly will improve
your credit rating.

A debit card won’t.

I had to explain this to a school friend recently as he has never owned a
credit card and avoids loans - preferring to save first, then spend.

When it came time to get a mortgage he couldn’t get good rates - or a large
enough loan - as his credit history was so lacking.

He was infuriated but I pointed out to him that it makes sense from a lenders
point of view: they gave no record of him being able to _manage_ debt
responsibly.

So that’s one reason to use a credit card, though likely not any reason Frank
would suggest (he’s going with their better protection and coverage)

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skrebbel
In other words, American banks extort their customers to go into debt with
them early and often.

~~~
barrkel
Credit cards are more like a delayed bill than debt, if you pay off the amount
in full every month (and I don't know why you wouldn't, credit cards are a
poor way to borrow money).

~~~
ryanwaggoner
And yet, most credit card users do NOT pay off the amount in full. Why do you
think banks push these cards so hard?

~~~
barrkel
Don't they? Everyone I know does, who I've talked to about it.

Seems a bit like Trump supporters.

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Daviey
"I don't often talk about my life, but $company has asked me to"

The talk seems identical to one he gave at Fed Talks 2013, and probably a
bunch of other venues:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJIc16aqpO8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJIc16aqpO8)

It is a well practiced speech he gives.

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fatjokes
> It is a well practiced speech he gives.

You can tell he pretty much has it memorized. Still a great story.

~~~
Daviey
Yeah! I didn't mean to imply I thought it wasn't. :)

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akhilcacharya
I had never seen him give a talk before - is this one of his first that's
publicly available? He's a phenomenal storyteller.

~~~
shoover
That’s what I was thinking. It’s also great PR for the FBI to demonstrate
competence and an optimistic outlook in a time when DOJ is taking hits from
the executive branch and the rank and file get no public defense from the AG.

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rev_null
Coincidentally, Catch Me If You Can was showing at the Brattle Theater in
Cambridge, MA tonight. It was part of Hanksgiving (Tom Hanks series).

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shoover
He draws interesting lessons from his life that you don’t hear all the time
from famous people. One example is the ultimate priority of family
responsibilities over money, skills, work, etc. He comes out strongly against
divorce due to the lifelong effect on kids (which I think undercuts his point
that his own father loved his children more than anything—he may have never
missed a bedtime kiss, but he still let his kid be put in that horrific
position at the courthouse).

Secondly, his admission that he did not see the light or get rehabilitated in
prison but found purpose in family and work afterward is worthy of
highlighting given the mandate for US politicians to be tough on crime.

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dannylandau
The book is wonderful as well.

~~~
hudibras
I picked the book up for a dollar at a used bookstore, not expecting much. I
then proceeded to tear through it in less than a day. It's a phenomenal story.
The book includes everything in the movie, of course, plus a lot of fine
details of how he pulled off his scams (I think a lot of HN users would like
these; very hacker-like), PLUS an extraordinary section expanding on his time
in French and Swedish prisons. The French prison is mentioned in the movie,
but they, if anything, downplayed what it was like.

I've since learned that maybe much of it was embellished, but I still
recommend it.

BONUS Frank Abagnale story-slash-rumor: I heard from a friend of a friend
that, soon after the movie came out, Courtney Love was tripping out on
"something" and started screaming that she needed to speak with Frank Abagnale
--somebody who she had never spoken to nor had ever mentioned before. Her
agent called somebody, who called somebody else, who called somebody else, and
within 30 minutes Frank was on the phone having a long conversation with
Courtney, calming her down. No real point to this story, other than it's neat
how the six-degrees-of-separation works in show business circles.

