One has to wonder what legal frauds, asset grabs, and impersonations have transpired that were never discovered. Some perspective on this is the story of Alves dos Reis ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alves_dos_Reis ) who in 1924 stole ~1% of Portugal's GDP in bank notes printed under forged orders. The scheme may have never been uncovered had Reis succeeded in maintaining a controlling interest in the Bank of Portug…
Having someone else do your prison time was fairly common. Now with more cooperation between organizations and improved biometrics it has dropped. Different people would be arrested, show up to court, or enter the prison. Impossible for organizations downstream to detect or assume a switch had happened.
Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself
151–160 of 336 posts
Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself
#152Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself
#153A prisoner was wrongly released after a fax was received from a grocery store stating that the Kentucky Supreme Court had demanded his release
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/24/65#subj7.1
https://web.archive.org/web/20070426034707/http://www.cnn.co...
There are numerous examples in news reports.
"Who are you?" is the most expensive question in information technology. No matter how you get it wrong, you're fucked.
Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself
#154archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20201028172931/https://www.union...
Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
One could argue the internal barriers are unnecessary if "trust but verify" works. In this case, it worked; she was able to play the system until verification identified something was wrong, and now she gets to go to jail over it. (Technical systems often need more stringent protections because "screw around and go to jail" isn't a threat that, say, Facebook can bring to bear).
The mistake here is messing with the legal system itself. Lots of scams and schemes can fly under the radar, but as soon as you start committing fraud against the court , you're done . Just ask the con artists at Prenda Law how lying to federal judges went: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenda_Law https://www.popehat.com/tag/prenda-law/
Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
How many times have people gotten away with something similar without every being discovered, though? It could be very many.
There's no such thing as a perfect crime.
-- Balzac
Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself
#157Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself
#158I guess this brings up and interesting issue -- once someone knows the ins and outs of a system, sometimes there are very few barriers internally to check that an order/paperwork is legit. There was a story in WSJ like last week about how the Japanese red stamp / seal still survives and is a barrier to them adopting new technology for practical every day speeding up of tasks. And keeps things like faxes around unnece…
> once someone knows the ins and outs of a system, sometimes there are very few barriers internally to check that an order/paperwork is legit. It sounds to me like they are using security-by-obscurity, as well as easily forgeable proofs such as "signatures" or drivers licenses (they're only as secure as your ability to spot a forgery). Hence why anyone who is knowledgable and determined enough, can easily crack the s…
Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself
#159One has to wonder what legal frauds, asset grabs, and impersonations have transpired that were never discovered. Some perspective on this is the story of Alves dos Reis ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alves_dos_Reis ) who in 1924 stole ~1% of Portugal's GDP in bank notes printed under forged orders. The scheme may have never been uncovered had Reis succeeded in maintaining a controlling interest in the Bank of Portug…
> By chance, a co-worker recognised him on July 10, 1997, forcing him to go into hiding. At that time, an appointment was already set for an interview with Hans Geisler, then Saxony's Minister of State for social affairs, health and family, on the occasion of Postel's appointment to a professorship and to the position of chief of medicine at Saxony's hospital for psychiatry and neurology at Arnsdorf near Dresden.
In another case, a former barber worked for 20 years as a doctor, eventually becoming chief physician in a children's hospital [1].
Back in the 2000s there was a case of a medical student who failed her final exams 3 times, and instead of leaving university as she had to, she just continued her studies without the possibility to take any exams. After a few years, she printed a fake license and a fake diploma and secured a job as an assistance doctor in the children's hospital of the Hamburg University Hospital, eventually becoming a respected colleague (she was, after all, actually trained to be a doctor). After a few years, she failed to hand in the original license and her fraud came to light [2].
Last year, a fake anesthesiologist was uncovered in Fritzlar. She had no formal training and had handed in a fake diploma to get the job [3]. No one noticed until last year, at which time she had already accidentally killed 4 people.
Given that there are several such cases each year, chances are very high that there are still some fake doctors practising here.
We also had the famous Captain of Köpenick [4], an ex-convict who in 1906 put on a uniform, rounded up a few soliders, occupied a city hall in Berlin, arrested several employees, had them transported to the main Berlin police station for interrogation, ordered to block all local telephone calls for an hour, confiscated 4000 marks and disappeared. It took 10 days to arrest him.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gert_Postel
[1] https://www.aerztezeitung.de/Panorama/Hochstapler-im-weissen...
[2] https://www.welt.de/welt_print/article1142757/Falsche-Kinder...
[3] https://www.fr.de/hessen/hessen-drei-falsche-aerzte-einem-ja...
Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having someone else do your prison time was fairly common. Now with more cooperation between organizations and improved biometrics it has dropped. Different people would be arrested, show up to court, or enter the prison. Impossible for organizations downstream to detect or assume a switch had happened.
Jeez I’m wondering what the going price would be for that today.