
Frank Abagnale on the death of the con artist and the rise of cybercrime - cryptozeus
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/frank-abagnale
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jml7c5
Where have people landed with regards to Frank Abagnale and the veracity of
his past exploits? I know there's a section on his Wikipedia page about it[1],
but I don't know if there have been any recent corroborations that cleared
things up. (On a personal note: I was quite let down to discover some of the
stories were — at the least — exaggerated. Though if it turns out it's all
fake, it would be an entertaining story on its own: a con man who cons people
into believing he was a con man!)

[1]:[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Abagnale#Veracity_of_cla...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Abagnale#Veracity_of_claims)

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rapind
There's a Google talk that he did I found fascinating (on YouTube). Didn't
seem to toot his own horn much (long con?!?).

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LunaSea
If he did a Google Talk ... that's kind of already tooting his own horn

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caseysoftware
No, watch the talk. He doesn't toot his own horn at all.

He was the closing keynote at our annual conference (Okta's Oktane) last year
and it was the same way. He was open and clear about what he did, how much he
regretted it, and why he did it. Fundamentally, it came down that he was young
(16), scared (parents getting a divorce), and stupid. He reacted out of fear
and total disregard for other people. He also talked about coming through the
other side and learning what mattered and why.

I sat down in his keynote as a fan of his exploits and finished as a fan of
the man himself.

Watch the Google talk.

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reilly3000
I was there for his Oktane talk and was just thinking about it yesterday. I
was hacking on Solid, and recalled Sir Tim’s talk, then Frank’s. Two days
before I attended Oktane I had spoken at my father’s memorial service. Frank’s
comments on the importance of family were incredibly poignant. I found him to
be credible and prescient on many fronts; his intelligence was obvious and his
understanding of cybersecurity was deep and nuanced. It’s definitely among the
top talks I’ve ever heard at a conference. Huge props to Okta for having him,
and getting me there. It was a great gift to have a reprieve from grieving,
and to take in all things identity. Especially from a man that has tried on so
many.

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cromwellian
There’s literally thousands of Indian call center scammers that are fleecing
people of money purely be convincing them that they’re fixing their computer
when they’re doing nothing or that they’re due a refund but got too much money
and need to pay some back.

Or there’s the IRS scammers who call you and tell you that you owe taxes.

Most of these involve really pathetic attempts at impersonation and the only
reason people fall for it is ignorance.

So con artists are by no means dead and YouTube is full of channels where con
artists con the scammers.

IRLRosie and Kitboga in particular are hilarious.

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topspin
I just received a scam call a few minutes ago; your social security number has
been "suspended." Call us immediately.

I think of all the elderly these people are terrifying and my civility slips a
bit. Kitboga is great and all but that's not a solution.

> the only reason people fall for it is ignorance

That's not correct. Mental faculties deteriorate with age; mindful people that
would never have fallen for this nonsense become vulnerable every day.
Ultimately no amount of 'education' can fix that. That's what these scammers
are really preying on.

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thaumasiotes
>> the only reason people fall for it is ignorance

> That's not correct. Mental faculties deteriorate with age; mindful people
> that would never have fallen for this nonsense become vulnerable every day.
> Ultimately no amount of 'education' can fix that. That's what these scammers
> are really preying on.

On this analysis, the problem could be solved by organizing society into large
family groups instead of a bunch of small independent households. When "the
family finances" are a thing and several different people can see them, this
is a pretty unlikely failure mode.

You can achieve something similar in the US, but first you have to notice the
problem and then you have to have the victim legally declared mentally
incompetent.

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tremon
This assumes that families are always safe and trustworthy, and that every
individual is content with sharing their life details with their family. We're
moving away from the model you propose because that assumption is not
universally true.

That said, many banks (at least in EU) already offer shared accounts or
multiple-reader accounts to consumers, though multiple person transaction
sign-off is reserved for business accounts.

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simonebrunozzi
Obligatory link [0] to his amazing talk at Google a while back.

[0]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsMydMDi3rI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsMydMDi3rI)

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slumdev
He's delivered that talk at many different companies. I had the opportunity to
see it last year. I was surprised at how consistent his word choice and
cadence were between the two instances of the talk.

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dredmorbius
Very common in public speakers.

YouTube often offers the opportunity to catch different stops on speaking
tours.

Talking heads in multiple TV soundbites, or candidates in stump speeches as
well.

~~~
pottertheotter
It's the same with podcasts when someone comes out with a new book.

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Uhhrrr
> Today you can call any corporation in the world and tell them you are
> getting ready to wire them money and they will tell you the bank, the wiring
> number, the account number. You can then ask for a copy of the annual report
> and on page three are the signatures of the chairman of the board, the CEO
> and the treasurer. It's all on white glossy paper with black ink – scanner
> ready art. You then just print it onto the cheque.

Banks know about websites and printers so there's no way this would work...
er, right?

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WalterBright
My bank cashed a check against my account where:

1\. the payer name was not mine

2\. the payer address was not mine (and was in another state)

3\. the signature was that of another person

4\. the checks were not issued by my bank

Jeez.

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Merrill
In the normal course of check processing, a device reads the MICR line of
characters at the bottom of the check and the amount. The name, address,
signature and other features are usually not processed unless the amount is
high, the account has specific services, or some other indicator is tripped.

~~~
WalterBright
These days there's no excuse for not OCR'ing the payer name and address.

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pupppet
>What I did was almost 50 years ago and it's about 4,000 times easier today to
con people than when I did it. To forge a cheque 50 years ago, you needed...

The thing is back in the day, if you put in the work, your con was all but
guaranteed. I don't think you can make that same claim today.

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Spooky23
Sure you can. Checks were harder to get rid of 50 years ago.

On the street we have a legit smalltime money-laundering industry in terms of
retail gift card availability. A real common racket these days is targeting
immigrant business people pretending to be the utility company/IRS/etc and
demand gift cards to settle some matter, for example. There is a huge
underground economy out there.

Off the street, the complete lack of security controls around ACH is an even
more extreme risk. Just rob a mailbox and steal account info from checks.

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joering2
It shocked me that Bank of America would deliver box of checks that were just
dumped on my porch. I found them 3 days after I got email they were delivered
in the bush next to front door. I remember years ago I had to be present home
and DHL came and required ID/signature to receive those. That was 2014. In
2020 I guess they saving extra money. Fun fact - there is over $8MM in the
corp account that these checks could cover.

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toast0
It would seem to worth looking into positive pay --- the idea is you send a
daily file with the checks written, and BofA will automatically clear anything
in the file, and exceptions would be sent to you for review (or maybe just
rejected). It's a common feature for corporate accounts, because it eliminates
check modification fraud.

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cafard
Every couple of months the Washington Post covers the arrest of conviction of
somebody who has been swindling people out of houses or many, practicing law
without a license, etc. They may not have the style of Frank Abagnale, but
they are far from extinct.

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ChrisArchitect
please add (2017)!

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appleiigs
At the bottom of the article, it says a reprint from 2013!

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extempore
Patch Me If You Can

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heavymark
I literally just watched Catch Me if You Can last night. Haven't in a while.
Have noticed before where I just watched or did something and the next day see
a news feed item aligning with that. Is it just a coincidence? Something like
this seems just too much to be a coincidence. Some how ad targeting? Though I
watched through AppleTV, can't remember if through HBO, Amazon Disney+ or
Netflix as I use all the apps all the time interchangeable. Ad targeting would
seem most likely but unlike when viewing in a browser where I'd expect to be
target seems odd when the interaction wasn't in a browser. Or I suppose it
could be that these articles are appearing coincidentally, and just having
watching/done something very recently my mind recognizes much more than it
would otherwise?

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chrisco255
The phenomenon you mention last, is called reticular activation. It's the same
thing that occurs when you buy a new car, and suddenly you notice the model
you picked has become more popular on the roadways. It's not that sales picked
up after you bought it, it's just that your brain now plucks it out of the
environment automatically and effortlessly.

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dmoy
It's the same thing that causes people to think their phones are always
listening to them and serving ads or whatever based on that.

"Well I was _just_ talking about <insert popular movie> and then I got an ad
for it!"

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cma
What actually happens there usually is whoever you were talking with googles
it, they know you were together and might have talked about it through fine
grained location data, so now they target ads at you about it as well since
the other person’s search immediately after an interaction with you is a good
indicator you may have discussed it or you may be interested in it.

No need for the mic.

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DaniFong
Big if presently true.

Ultimately people are going to spy on everything they can get away with, more
data for the neural network to make you buy things...

