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Comment by princekolt | Hacker News Reader

> "Henderson-Spruce did not identify himself on the one-page form. At first, the initials 'HS' were written on the signature line, but the initials were then scratched out and replaced with 'UPS,' according to the charges"

Come on, this guy is a genius. The fact he managed to pull it off by literally using cartoon-level forgery is nothing but remarkable.

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I guess, that's pretty funny and clever by itself, but the fact that he left a trail of $58K of bank fraud pointing straight back to himself was pretty dumb. He's definitely doing time for that.

"I'll have thousands of letters delivered to my own house, I'm sure no one will notice" - Genius Guy, apparently

What I'm left wondering is why it took the employees at that UPS branch three months to notice that they weren't receiving any mail?

That just means the people who are supposed to ensure something like that aren't smart. Not that he's a genius.

Someone remotely close to being smart would instead route to someplace he doesn't live, for starters. And it doesn't say anything about credit card fraud, which would be much wiser rather than check fraud (in the context of breaking the law here) since there is much less recorded evidence.

And how does the postal worker delivering thousands of letters addressed to "UPS Headquarters ATLANTA" to a dude's apartment in Chicago not think it strange and report it?

Just an anecdotal data point, but, in the year and change I lived in Chicago (relatively recently) I experienced the local USPS quality of service to be... extraordinarily lacking.

May be they thought that it was strange, but is it really their job to report it?

They probably use their own services for important deliveries. Besides, if USPS don't report strange/dangerous USPS delivery activities, who else would?

I guess everybody who tried sending mail (including checks, apparently) to them and never got through would suspect something is wrong and report it...

Perhaps they don't receive anything relevant in the mail. I certainly don't outside of things I explicitly order.

you kind of answered your own question

If he gets a reduced sentence he should be a prime prospect for security analysis/social engineering consulting when he gets out.

I think you're giving him too much credit here... I have a feeling it has a lot more to do with luck, chutzpah, and USPS incompetence.

Note they're separate things, you'd almost wonder if USPS was intentionally messing up UPS. Probably not, but that's be nefarious lol.

excellent point, you would make a great defense lawyer

disagree, this guy is just a dumbass. deposited the checks to his own account?

if you want to learn the fundamentals of social engineering or educate a person who needs to be resistant to it, read mitnick's "art of deception" book.

>Come on, this guy is a genius

I don't it takes a genius to recognize the fragile parts of a seemingly secure system we live in. I'm sure there are people in every industry that know things that can be easily exploited for profit.

Of course it is. It's also easy to make money, if you're a total sociopath with no conscience. Fortunately, most people aren't like that.

It's fragile because the penalties for mail fraud are so steep. Only an absolute blockhead would attempt it.

That is a poor reason for such a glaring hole. Your argument is okay for how easy it is to steal from a mailbox.

This is about affecting businesses worth billions of dollars. Couldn't the same have happened to a Fortune 500 company?

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