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U.S. Arrests Paul Ceglia for Multi-Billion Dollar Scheme to Defraud Facebook

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Re: U.S. Arrests Paul Ceglia for Multi-Billion Dollar Scheme to Defraud Facebook

#41

Post by unreal37 »

leoh wrote: post #5

Did this line strike anyone else as pathetic? In today’s press release, USPIS Inspector-in-Charge Randall C. Till added: “When Mr. Ceglia allegedly decided to take advantage of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, he underestimated the resolve of the Postal Inspection Service to bring him to justice for illegal use of the U.S. Mail.” Ceglia is probably in the wrong and unethical. But the self-righteousness and pompadour of…

This comment really comes off sounding bad. You don't think a multi-billion fraud was that serious? The people that arrested him are pathetic for being proud of that?

Ceglia faked a contract, faked several emails, wasted $100,000's of Facebooks money, wasted $100,000's of the courts time, experts were testifying as to the thickness of the paper and the age of the ink and the staple hole locations... all with the goal of getting a $20 Billion payday. A huge attempted fraud by any standards.

Good for the USPS for stopping one more fraud. They probably do this all the time for all sorts of frauds, and they don't get the credit they deserve.

Re: U.S. Arrests Paul Ceglia for Multi-Billion Dollar Scheme to Defraud Facebook

#42

Post by tptacek »

defen wrote: post #23

Perhaps a stupid question, but if this guy had hand-delivered all the documents to the court, he'd be totally in the clear with regard to criminal activity? Why isn't he being charged with providing fabricated evidence to a federal court?

Presumably because it was easier for the DoJ to make the same case using mail fraud as the vector, just like it was easier to take out Capone with tax fraud. The heart of the actual case will still be the deceptions Ceglia used to attempt to scam a billion dollars out of Facebook.

Re: U.S. Arrests Paul Ceglia for Multi-Billion Dollar Scheme to Defraud Facebook

#43

Post by seivan »

Is it me, or does it seem like his combined stupidity and incompetence (two different things) is what caused him to not realise the shit he pulled of leaves a trace?

Take it from a non developer scumbag thief "wannatrepenur" to not have the God damn decency to read up on how email works before trying a stunt like this.

Re: U.S. Arrests Paul Ceglia for Multi-Billion Dollar Scheme to Defraud Facebook

#44

Post by ZachPruckowski »

pacaro wrote: post #26
SonOfLilit wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no technological problem with creating a "contract bureau" - just demand contracts to be in a somehow-digital format (scanned handwritten document counts) and have everyone send [SHA1(document) + names of entities signed on the document] to the bureau. Only problem with demanding this is that you /want/ people to be able to sell their car without access to a computer. That, and authentication.

Ok, I've now seen reference to both MD5 and SHA1 w.r.t. digests which would have long shelf lives. Please either talk in generic terms, or suggest the use of an algorithm that doesn't have known collisions and/or suspected weakness. I do understand that people are using these as a mental shorthand for "A one-way cryptographic hash", but when your instinctive exemplar of a digest algorithm is in the "not-recommended"…

While I agree that stronger is better (and thus someone founding a contracts bureau for this should use the latest/greatest hash), I'm not sure collisions are a real risk here, since my understanding is that a collision is going to include a lot of junk to make the collision work. So any collision-based forgery is going to include large instances of complete gobbledegook so that it'll be really obvious in court that there was tampering.

Re: U.S. Arrests Paul Ceglia for Multi-Billion Dollar Scheme to Defraud Facebook

#45

Post by anigbrowl »

domainregistry wrote: post #36
grellas wrote: post #21

A few thoughts: 1. When Ceglia first filed his claims, I called it a "lawsuit full of holes [that was] built up by sensationalist reporting into a supposed major threat to Facebook and to Mr. Zuckerberg" and concluded that, "in the courts, this thing is going nowhere." ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1537158 ) My sense of this had nothing to do with any fraudulent tampering with evidence as alleged now in the c…

"and retained the prestigious firm of DLA Piper" What are your thoughts on the pox on DLA Piper's house as a result of taking him on as a client? Doesn't it speak to their naiveté after reviewing the materials he was able to present? Or?

I wonder about that too. As a firm with a reputation to guard, I assumed they had vetted their client to some degree, and relied heavily on what I assumed was their good judgment in trying to guess the future progress of the case. I wonder if they simply got $ signs in their eyes?

Re: U.S. Arrests Paul Ceglia for Multi-Billion Dollar Scheme to Defraud Facebook

#46

Post by onetwothreefour »

anigbrowl wrote: post #45
domainregistry wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"and retained the prestigious firm of DLA Piper" What are your thoughts on the pox on DLA Piper's house as a result of taking him on as a client? Doesn't it speak to their naiveté after reviewing the materials he was able to present? Or?

I wonder about that too. As a firm with a reputation to guard, I assumed they had vetted their client to some degree, and relied heavily on what I assumed was their good judgment in trying to guess the future progress of the case. I wonder if they simply got $ signs in their eyes?

If he's presenting them with what looks to be evidence, then what's the problem? Hindsight is 20/20.

Re: U.S. Arrests Paul Ceglia for Multi-Billion Dollar Scheme to Defraud Facebook

#48

Post by akgerber »

mtgx wrote: post #6
fleitz wrote: post #4

Mail fraud... looks like some AG spent too much time watching "The Firm"

They can arrest people whenever they want with "loopholes" like these, and yet they can't seem to do a damn thing about any of the bankers who helped bring down the economy. Yeah, I just don't buy that.

The same Preet Bharara did just come out with a suit against Bank Of America: http://www.businessinsider.com/bank-of-americas-hustle-progr...

Not that more oughtn't be done.

Re: U.S. Arrests Paul Ceglia for Multi-Billion Dollar Scheme to Defraud Facebook

#49

Post by Evbn »

danielweber wrote: post #35
joezydeco wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wondered if there was a need for a cheaper, worldwide document certification system. Of course you can get a notary to stamp a document or file it with the county clerk in your jurisdiction. But what about taking an MD5 of a PDF and printing it in the newspaper? Would that work?

A long time ago I posed md5's to usenet test groups when I wanted to prove I wrote something. You have to worry about people breaking things. Raw MD5 is considered useless today, since there are tools that make two documents with the same MD5. This would not necessarily invalidate all prior MD5s; if you published like that 10 years before people starting breaking MD5, that would be pretty good evidence you really did…

Spoofed MD5s are a vulnerability when you execute software blindly, but the padding is obvious if you examine the source data.

Re: U.S. Arrests Paul Ceglia for Multi-Billion Dollar Scheme to Defraud Facebook

#50

Post by Evbn »

nostromo wrote: post #11

I was struck when we incorporated our company and raised financing how much we still use ink and paper to keep track of things like corporate ownership. When signing so many documents I wanted to seal them with paraffin wax and send them to our lawyers via carrier pigeon. In the case of Facebook, a multi-billion dollar company, it seems amazing that someone can come out of the woodwork and with a little effort in doc…

It is called escrow, and it is a longstanding industry.
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