Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How does one create a fake identity?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 117 posts

Re: Ask HN: How does one create a fake identity?

#71

Post by [deleted] »

UVB-76 wrote: post #60
lampooned wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given today's software, it's trivial to fake a "photocopy" of an ID. How would one even go about doing this? Sounds rather difficult to make a fake ID convincing. Can anyone share some links on the subject?

It's difficult to make a convincing fake ID, but trivial to make a fake "photocopy" of an ID. Photocopies are low quality, often black and white. They bypass most, if not all, security features on physical ID documents, can be digitally altered, etc.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How does one create a fake identity?

#72

Post by pjscott »

timbre wrote: post #24
gregw134 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh come off it--he's just using quotation marks to emphasize sarcasm.

It is frustrating that quotation marks have come to have two, almost perfectly opposite meanings (the traditional "words someone actually said" and the new "words no one actually said"). I guess the battle against the new usage is lost though.

Strictly speaking, "I said everything in these quotation marks."

Re: Ask HN: How does one create a fake identity?

#73

Post by falcolas »

sneak wrote: post #64
falcolas wrote: post #53

On the flip side of these fine folks, you can obtain a real new identity with relative ease, and totally legally. Of course, this will not prevent someone truly dedicated to locating you, but it will make it much more difficult. 0) Pay off all of your debt 1) Go to a small town 2) Legally change your name 3) Regenerate all of your essential documents, with your new name 4) Move to a big city 5) Change your lifestyle…

This doesn't really work, as your SSN will be the same, and your credit reports will show your name change and full address history.

If you don't apply for credit, it's harder to pull a credit report on you. The public record portion of a credit report is also not comprehensive - they only obtain easily gathered public information (and are usually only interested in bankruptcy and felony findings). For example, my wife's name change is not recorded in her credit report. Hence the small city, and the recommendation to use cash, not debt. The alternate names section typically relies on you obtaining credit under the new name, using the same SSN.

Your SSN is only going to really be used for a very specific set of instances - most frequently job related (and then protected by a number of laws).

There will always be a trail for someone to follow, but as long as you don't have someone with the resources of the government looking for you, the trail will be very hard to follow.

Re: Ask HN: How does one create a fake identity?

#74

Post by majelix »

onetimeonly wrote: post #28

Source: at 17 I was running a black-hat hacker collective and had, through a series of bad choices, got pretty deep into the 'real-world' side of that business: fraud. The day after my 19th birthday my house was raided by the US Secret Service and the UK Serious Organised Crime Agency in a worldwide coordinated swoop that took in dozens of loosely affiliated people. I have since completely rebuilt my life, so I don't…

> Sadly, making driving licenses is not too hard

The hard part, I imagine, is testing that's a good-enough fake. Standing in front of the passport agent or getting pulled over are probably the worst possible times to learn your print was an eighth of an inch off in the wrong place.

Re: Ask HN: How does one create a fake identity?

#75

Post by lifeisstillgood »

I would suggest the following (it's definitely not a one off ala day of the jackal, but it seems feasible.

* Start with modern world bribe money (say 500k) * find out who works at mid-level of the passport office * approach them with the following (true) story - we are MI6, or at least a small department of it. We have to travel to various countries, but these days once my iris is scanned as Joe it's very awkward coming in 6 months as Frank on a different job. So we need people like you to swap in and out iris scans as we need them, no traces left.

We will show you how to steal your bosses password.

* if you chosen correctly, she is already working for a different agency and is happy to increase the salary again.

Ask for new passport in new name.

Re: Ask HN: How does one create a fake identity?

#76

Post by medde »

Ovid wrote: post #23

Source: a long time ago I read several books on this topic because I collected odd books and I found three of them in an estate sale. The instructions below are how this was done in the early 90's and earlier, but today, with increased security and faster records access, the information is probably well out of date. Traditionally, the best way to do this has always been to establish a solid "breeder document". This i…

Can't you just use any legit SSN?

Re: Ask HN: How does one create a fake identity?

#78

Post by yesplorer »

Havoc wrote: post #52
Ovid wrote: post #23

Source: a long time ago I read several books on this topic because I collected odd books and I found three of them in an estate sale. The instructions below are how this was done in the early 90's and earlier, but today, with increased security and faster records access, the information is probably well out of date. Traditionally, the best way to do this has always been to establish a solid "breeder document". This i…

>for the right price (a couple of hundred thousand, last I heard), will get you a diplomatic passport from a dodgy country I don't buy this. Sure you'll be able to buy a passport, but a diplomatic one - I doubt it. And if by some miracle you do pull it off then the country issuing the passport will be so dodgy that nobody recognizes it anyway.

Actually it's quite possible. some (all that I know of actually) African countries issue diplomatic passport not only to foreigners acting on behalf of government but those who work for multinationals so if someone can get you signed up as an 'employee' of a multinational, getting a diplomatic passport gets easy from there

Re: Ask HN: How does one create a fake identity?

#79

Post by yesplorer »

medde wrote: post #76
Ovid wrote: post #23

Source: a long time ago I read several books on this topic because I collected odd books and I found three of them in an estate sale. The instructions below are how this was done in the early 90's and earlier, but today, with increased security and faster records access, the information is probably well out of date. Traditionally, the best way to do this has always been to establish a solid "breeder document". This i…

Can't you just use any legit SSN?

whose legit SSN? You are hiding your identity so why start with using your SSN, then what are you hiding?

Re: Ask HN: How does one create a fake identity?

#80

Post by anthuswilliams »

Sukotto wrote: post #18

Traditionally there are five methods to get a fake identity: 1) Work for a governmental agency that has a reason to give you one. [ https://www.cia.gov/careers ] 2) Enter a witness-protection program by testifying against murderous criminals 3) Buy one on the black market. This can be as simple as a barely-passable driver's licence for underage drinkers, or as sophisticated as a complete set of papers (birth cert, et…

Aren't these children's birth certificates usually marked deceased?
Post reply on HN