The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn’t a Crook — He’s an Artist • Hacker News Board

Re: The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn’t a Crook — He’s an Artist

#21

Post by jessriedel » Thu, Jul 05, 2012, 1:34 PM UTC

yock wrote: post #17

jablan wrote: post #4

Does anyone else have difficulties reading articles written this way - structured as Hollywood movies, with artificially built-up suspense and all? I feel patronized all the time, trying to get to the "meat" of the article, just finding "next page" link instead.

No. Long-form journalism is about keeping the reader engaged in a story they didn't know they wanted to hear. You wouldn't write fiction with a strict focus on the sequence of events, why should this be any different? While you're feeling patronized I find that I enjoy the engagement. Frankly, your way sounds boring.

I'm glad to know that at least someone enjoys this style, because I am with jablan; I hate it. To me, it suggests that the author doesn't expect me to find the content interesting, and that instead this content has to be packaged with (predictable) human-interest intrigue just to get me to read it.

To me, it's very analogous to trying to teach students math with colorful, picture-laden textbooks: it might be necessary for students who will never learn much math in order to just get them to pass the grade, but insofar as it works such students are not getting deep appreciation for the concepts.

Re: The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn’t a Crook — He’s an Artist

#22

Post by jessriedel » Thu, Jul 05, 2012, 1:38 PM UTC

AYBABTME wrote: post #10

jablan wrote: post #4

Does anyone else have difficulties reading articles written this way - structured as Hollywood movies, with artificially built-up suspense and all? I feel patronized all the time, trying to get to the "meat" of the article, just finding "next page" link instead.

I feel the same. I don't care about the biography of the person being investigated, I just want to know the stuff related to the meat of the article. For instance, I don't want to know about this man's passion for Andy Warhol. Or that previous article about a woman who stood up against Citibank: I really didn't care about her love for horses and that she's a cowgirl or whatever. But that's just a pointless rant, and…

Eh. I think there's value in making people cognizant of this style by discussing the way it works. It certainly took my a few years before I could pinpoint exactly why I disliked this stuff.

Also, there's so many magazine authors out there that keeping track of their individual styles it pretty hopeless for me. The best I can do is remember that Wired is written like this.

Re: The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn’t a Crook — He’s an Artist

#23

Post by its_so_on » Thu, Jul 05, 2012, 1:43 PM UTC

mmcconnell1618 wrote: post #18

its_so_on wrote: post #15

If you read this article and have a halfway decent model of the world in your head, you will realize that police entrapment was the proximate cause of this real, talented artist low on his money becoming a counterfeiter: i.e. they made him do it, and he wouldn't have done it without them, and a judge released him early on probation for this reason (from the article). But the damage was done. Still without any money,…

I disagree. In the article Kuhl had a legitimate buyer who backed out. The bills where printed and Kuhl needed a buyer. The police decided to become the buyer but the counterfeit bills had already been created and the artist would have found a buyer eventually.

The reason I added that EDIT is because I actually hadn't read that far down yet - I was just referring to his first counterfeiting gig when I first posted the comment: inline search the article for "Kuhl’s counterfeiting career had begun a decade earlier" and read from there.

Of course you have no basis for your claim that he would have eventually found a buyer. This is a "manufactured criminal" and the police certainly got fed up with waiting for an actual market for his work to materialize. Entrapment is so insidious because when you turn a good guy, maybe there's no market for "good guy's evil works" anyway. (Who knows why, maybe he looks like an informant/plant/mole because he's a real artist and normal, genuine, good guy, who only got into 1 single crime - and no corresponding culture or connections, no other crimes, nothing - through an entrapment operation.)

Please read the article more carefully and you'll see exactly what I mean.

Re: The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn’t a Crook — He’s an Artist

#24

Post by yock » Thu, Jul 05, 2012, 1:48 PM UTC

jessriedel wrote: post #21

yock wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Long-form journalism is about keeping the reader engaged in a story they didn't know they wanted to hear. You wouldn't write fiction with a strict focus on the sequence of events, why should this be any different? While you're feeling patronized I find that I enjoy the engagement. Frankly, your way sounds boring.

I'm glad to know that at least someone enjoys this style, because I am with jablan; I hate it. To me, it suggests that the author doesn't expect me to find the content interesting, and that instead this content has to be packaged with (predictable) human-interest intrigue just to get me to read it. To me, it's very analogous to trying to teach students math with colorful, picture-laden textbooks: it might be necessar…

But, this isn't math! It's a story, with characters and a plot. The intrigue is baked-in because it makes for an enjoyable read. Sure, the details are interesting, but there's nothing wrong with telling an interesting story with interesting details in an interesting way. "First this happened and then this happened and then this happened..." is not how you tell a story, regardless of whether or not the story happens to be factual.

Re: The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn’t a Crook — He’s an Artist

#25

Post by zitterbewegung » Thu, Jul 05, 2012, 2:01 PM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #13

Good at making counterfeits, bad at making counterfeiting work. Saw a trashy Discovery channel doc on counterfeiters. They printed using laser printers, and had a good process for aging the money. That was all that was needed... people just don't look that closely at money most of the time. They got away with it for years, even though they were pretty foolish (spent their own fakes, used the same spot every time to p…

I used to work at my dad's currency exchange. You know why they get away with it? Telling fakes from real requires WEEKS of training. We would get information from the US Mint, Treasury and the Secret Service. The capital investment required probably will outrun the training cost for most retailers.

Re: The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn’t a Crook — He’s an Artist

#26

Post by throwaway_lop2 » Thu, Jul 05, 2012, 2:10 PM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #13

Good at making counterfeits, bad at making counterfeiting work. Saw a trashy Discovery channel doc on counterfeiters. They printed using laser printers, and had a good process for aging the money. That was all that was needed... people just don't look that closely at money most of the time. They got away with it for years, even though they were pretty foolish (spent their own fakes, used the same spot every time to p…

Totally. A friend in I tried this (not in the US) using bills approximately $20 in value. We had a mediocre Epson printer and just did the approach of scan+print. We'd then handle the bills and throw them with dirt. Nothing fancy; just two kids playing around to get some extra beer money and also just to see if we could pull it off.

Out of the 10 times we tried using the fakes, we only were noticed once. It's very, very easy to do if you aren't trying to make a living at it.

I would imagine these days, it's even easier to pull off, _because_ of the high-tech protections. If you can replicate a single high-profile piece (like a hologram or something), then folks will probably just assume it's good. Most people don't know the tens of different protections, and anything flashy and difficult looking would work. They don't know the details - hell, I'd bet a bill with a holographic mark could be counterfeited using one of the holograms Microsoft uses on their products.

Re: The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn’t a Crook — He’s an Artist

#27

Post by jessriedel » Thu, Jul 05, 2012, 2:16 PM UTC

yock wrote: post #24

jessriedel wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad to know that at least someone enjoys this style, because I am with jablan; I hate it. To me, it suggests that the author doesn't expect me to find the content interesting, and that instead this content has to be packaged with (predictable) human-interest intrigue just to get me to read it. To me, it's very analogous to trying to teach students math with colorful, picture-laden textbooks: it might be necessar…

But, this isn't math! It's a story, with characters and a plot. The intrigue is baked-in because it makes for an enjoyable read. Sure, the details are interesting, but there's nothing wrong with telling an interesting story with interesting details in an interesting way. "First this happened and then this happened and then this happened..." is not how you tell a story, regardless of whether or not the story happens t…

If I want an artistic short story in magazine form, I'll read the New Yorker. But this is Wired, and the material facts of this story are the only interesting part.

I guess it's possible that a gifted author could wrap these fact with a human-interest element in a way that is worthwhile while still communicating an essential idea ("The Last Question" by Asimov comes to mind). But, by experience, this just isn't within the abilities of most magazine writers. And it doesn't need to be, because the material facts are plenty interesting on their own.

Edit: I can't reply to vacri, so I'll follow up to his comment here. Vacri: human interest pieces have been around for decades. Furthermore, the newspaper format of most journalism (one sentence paragraphs, most important facts at the top regardless of sensible narrative order, negligible artistic flourishes) were set a century ago. I'm pretty young (26), but I've read newspapers from before the internet and they did plenty of bad human-interest stories. I'm pretty skeptical that the internet had much of an impact in this respect. Maybe you have a more specific source, or I misunderstand your claim?

Edit 2, reply to fiatpandas: I think the distinction between an AP-style newspaper article and a human-interest short story is a false dichotomy. Instead, there is a middle option of a fact-focused piece designed to clearly communicate the essential ideas without relying on artistic/narrative devices to keep the reader's attention. (See my reply to jablan http://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=4203567) Wired can choose whatever style it wants, (and I certainly have no doubt they've done this plenty in the past) but my claim is that the human-interest style is almost always poorly executed. If the facts are interesting enough, then it's unnecessary, and if they aren't, then it's a waste.

Re: The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn’t a Crook — He’s an Artist

#28

Post by Jun8 » Thu, Jul 05, 2012, 2:25 PM UTC

Never ever do this, esp in the US, even as a joke. I know of cases in my college where students counterfeited $20 bills as a drunk joke: what they found out is that irrespective of the amount federal agents and the goddam CIA got involved and they got persecuted to the maximum degree. My prof was called as an expert witness in the case.

Re: The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn’t a Crook — He’s an Artist

#29

Post by GFischer » Thu, Jul 05, 2012, 2:33 PM UTC

rdl wrote: post #5

I am amazed that paper banknotes have remained even vaguely counterfeit-resistant for so long. It seems like a very difficult problem, given modern technology; the capital costs of an intaglio press and great plates are high, but some kind of CNC milling should be able to produce equivalents at some point. The NK superbills are still as far as I know the best quality.

The superdollar article on Wikipedia is very interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar

Re: The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn’t a Crook — He’s an Artist

#30

Post by GFischer » Thu, Jul 05, 2012, 2:35 PM UTC

StevenRayOrr wrote: post #2

TL;DR version: an after-the-fact account of how a man counterfeited millions all in the pursuit of "art". It makes for a romantic story, if nothing else -- although it certainly is not as sexy as the Leonardo DiCaprio/Tom Hanks Catch Me If You Can version.

The book by Frank Abagnale is a pageturner too. I've always liked reading those "social hacking" books, like Catch Me If You Can, or Kevin Mitnick's story The Art of Deception.