A fraudster got $12M out of a Canadian university • Hacker News Board

Re: A fraudster got $12M out of a Canadian university

#61

Post by extrapickles » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 6:54 PM UTC

warent wrote: post #47

Retric wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the worlds 'state of the art'. You don't need a lot of space for dance halls and music studios for under 2000 students. People add sound insulation to existing rooms at relatively low cost and it's cheaper when your starting from scratch. So, in terms of education they really could have done the same thing for under 50 million, but why build a utilitarian box when you want to attract students.

I think they meant it's enough space for 1800 students simultaneously , which is actually quite a large number.

$180m is still $90k/student. If the building lasts 30-40 years without major maintenance, that’s still $2-3k per student year, which is a healthy chunk of what tuition should be.

A building that has studio space for 1800 should be much cheaper, building costs should be on the order of $500/student/year to keep tuition reasonable.

Re: A fraudster got $12M out of a Canadian university

#62

Post by JamesCoyne » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 6:55 PM UTC

tacostakohashi wrote: post #30

rwmj wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This scam has been going on in the UK for a few years. It's called "authorised push payment (APP) fraud". Typically you're having some building work done (or any other large project or purchase), and an email will arrive from the builder saying they've changed their account details, could the purchaser please send future bank transfers to the new account. Of course the email is fraudulent and usually happens because…

As much as people make fun of the widespread use of checks in the US, it actually seems much better for this use case, for at least two reasons: 1) the check will be handed over in person to someone you've met before, or at least mailed to a known postal address which is harder to spoof than email. 2) If you present a check for $12m to a bank, it will get the scrutiny it deserves, and won't clear immediately.

To your second point, my anecdotal experience has shown that once a check makes it past the receiving bank clerk into the electronic clearing system, all manner of errors are allowed. E.g. dates in future, wrong payee, garbage signatures. The simplest way to pass a check with an error is to deposit it with 9 other "good" checks.

Has anyone had a check bounce due to a bad signature?

Re: A fraudster got $12M out of a Canadian university

#63

Post by markandrewj » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 6:55 PM UTC

drewg123 wrote: post #27

MacEwan was in the midst of constructing the $180-million Allard Hall: a state-of-the-art building boasting music studios and dance halls with room for 1,800 students Why does a college need a building that costs a large fraction of a billion dollars? Early this week we had an article about college education costs being one corner of the "Bermuda triangle" of personal finance. Out of control spending on new, shiny th…

I am not sure if this completely answers your question, however as a Edmontonian I can give a little feedback. The school has a very active arts and music department. These programs used to be taught in a separate building from the main campus, that was aging, and in a not so nice part of the city. For this reason I think it was consolidated to the main campus, and upgraded. You can read a bit about it here: https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/end-is-nigh-for-...

So although some may think that things like music studios are not a necessity, they are in this case.

Re: A fraudster got $12M out of a Canadian university

#64

Post by browsercoin » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 6:57 PM UTC

steal money from Canadian university and buy real estate in Vancouver...only in BC folks

Re: A fraudster got $12M out of a Canadian university

#65

Post by ezis-wheezy » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 6:58 PM UTC

walrus01 wrote: post #14

This is why all staff, whether at a corporation, nonprofit or government that handle money should be put through a two hour anti-phishing training course. There's lots of good free training material out there. There are also services which you can hire. You give them a list of staff emails, and they send test phishes to everyone. Those who respond or click on links (there's a GUID in each phish) can be sent for furth…

While my mother was in the hospital several weeks ago for an elective surgery, I was walking the halls and noticed the screen savers on the nurse's terminals. There was a rotating screen that warned against phishing and gave a website to report any possible fraudulent inbound emails.

Re: A fraudster got $12M out of a Canadian university

#66

Post by siruncledrew » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 7:01 PM UTC

walrus01 wrote: post #19

Scoundreller wrote: post #16

> Yangjiang City Jixie Zhulu Engineering made four payments to the Mas totalling ¥6.7 million, which would have been worth approximately $1.2 million. In August, Hoi Fu Enterprises received three wire transfers totalling $1 million. Interesting to see that a dollar in Canada is worth 16.7% more than the same dollar in China. And that was for a deal that was too good to be true. I wonder what the real going rate is fo…

China has really strict controls on the amount of money that a Chinese citizen can legally wire transfer out of the country, to a foreign domestic bank account, per year. People have come up with all sorts of "creative" grey and black market things involving Vancouver real estate and BC casinos. Google "china money laundering BC" for news about it.

I know it's fiction, but the show "Ozark" on Netflix shows as interesting adaptation of money laundering through casinos and real estate.

Re: A fraudster got $12M out of a Canadian university

#67

Post by dsfyu404ed » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 7:03 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #44

wk_end wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not clear to me that $180 million is an unreasonable amount of money to spend on a state-of-the-art building with multiple music studios and dance halls, necessary for music or dance programs that the school (presumably) offers. Between the tuition the students pay, grants from government, and potential commercial use of the space (for concerts, shows, etc.) it’ll likely pay for itself soon enough. Also bear in…

The problem is the worlds 'state of the art'. You don't need a lot of space for dance halls and music studios for under 2000 students. People add sound insulation to existing rooms at relatively low cost and it's cheaper when your starting from scratch. So, in terms of education they really could have done the same thing for under 50 million, but why build a utilitarian box when you want to attract students.

This. The overwhelming majority of machinists learned the trade on clapped out old Bridgeports. Competition shooters started out on 10/22s that had a bajillion rounds put through them. There's no reason to give a student something nice if the student's ability is not yet limited by their resources. Even with crappy facilities and equipment the student's ability is almost always the bottleneck.

Re: A fraudster got $12M out of a Canadian university

#68

Post by dsfyu404ed » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 7:05 PM UTC

grecy wrote: post #34

drewg123 wrote: post #27

MacEwan was in the midst of constructing the $180-million Allard Hall: a state-of-the-art building boasting music studios and dance halls with room for 1,800 students Why does a college need a building that costs a large fraction of a billion dollars? Early this week we had an article about college education costs being one corner of the "Bermuda triangle" of personal finance. Out of control spending on new, shiny th…

It's the way our "Developed World" functions now - growth above all else. My brother recently built a house, and the taxes and fees from the local city council are sky high. Of course, the city council did just build themselves a lavish new office building for $20M that looks like it belongs in a contemporary art museum. It's no secret if they had just built a nice and functional building with the same office space f…

The year to year vehicle excise tax increases where I used to live almost always were on the same order of magnitude as whatever boondoggle project the taxpayers were refusing to fund.

Re: A fraudster got $12M out of a Canadian university

#69

Post by caymanjim » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 7:05 PM UTC

alaskamiller wrote: post #50

drewg123 wrote: post #27

MacEwan was in the midst of constructing the $180-million Allard Hall: a state-of-the-art building boasting music studios and dance halls with room for 1,800 students Why does a college need a building that costs a large fraction of a billion dollars? Early this week we had an article about college education costs being one corner of the "Bermuda triangle" of personal finance. Out of control spending on new, shiny th…

A building is meant to last for awhile. Say it's 20 years. $180MM / (20 yrs x 1800 people) = $5000/yr/person Is that unreasonable?

It's unreasonable for a building to last only 20 years regardless of price. I work in a nearly 100 year old building and live in a 120 year old house. Even a modestly-priced building of that scale should last many decades.

Re: A fraudster got $12M out of a Canadian university

#70

Post by wmf » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 7:06 PM UTC

nerdponx wrote: post #53

They quickly discovered that while the email appeared to have been sent by “accounts.recievable@clarkbuilders.com” the email address had been “spoofed.” The display name of the email was different than the actual originating account. Isn't this glaring security issue trivially fixable from the perspective of an email client developer?

No, because SMTP "accounts" are trivially spoofable as well. (Edit: Although you wouldn't want to spoof that if you need to get replies, so maybe there is something the client can do here.) Maybe you could try to do some kind of trust-on-first-use on the chain of Received headers but that's going to generate false positives.