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Comment by anonymouscowar1 | Hacker News Reader

So apparently the only thing this guy had going for him was that he could print checks with magnetic ink and fake a caller id. Both are trivial. Wow.

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The more interesting story here is how he was able to confuse authorities for years by creating a slew of fictitious identities online. A good chunk of the privacy debate focuses on anonymity, but stories like these suggest that increasing the noise-to-signal ratio may be even more effective.

This is why spies disguise themselves as average people rather than martini drinking playboys.

That, plus the fact that it was the social contacts that broke him.

If you could break all social and family ties, you could probably get away with a lot. But you'd also be alone and vulnerable in the world. Tough choice.

Maybe the master criminals build up separate identities with separate networks of social relationships.

That would make p̶s̶y̶c̶h̶o̶p̶a̶t̶h̶s sociopaths pretty much the créme de la créme, which doesn't come as a surprise, given their prominence among the world most grisly killers.

That makes sense. Psychopaths burn everybody close to them, so their relationships have a pretty short shelf-life anyway.

Yes, you're right. I mean, there's some stuff in the article about him being a master of disinformation, financial fraud, social engineering, social proofing, hacking the system and creating believable false identities, but those were nothing.

Ok, Sir Snark-a-lot. Yes, he was clearly good at other things. I don't mean to shit on this guy's skills. The article goes to a lot of trouble to claim that he has an "edge" over other con-men; but, it turns out that that edge is just be a few trivial tricks. I was underwhelmed.

Another big take-away is how easily a "fact" online can become an "official fact" in official databases.

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