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Catch Me If You Can
It has been said that success depends on three things: skill, luck, and timing. Had Bill Gates been born six hundred years ago, he'd be assistant shit-shoveler for the Duke of Silesia. Conversely, Charlemagne, if born today, would probably be an auto mechanic. Sometimes you read about somebody whose skills were so remarkably out of place that you marvel at the thought of what they could have accomplished if they had only been born in a different time and place. Charles Babbage was born 100 years too soon. John Law, given the chance, would have ruled Wall Street.
Catch Me If You Can is the apparently true story of a man named Frank Abagnale. In the mid-1970s, when still a teenager, he ran away from home and supported himself by forging checks. To call him a forger, however, is to call Frank Lloyd Wright a guy who builds houses -- a simplification that does injustice to his tremendous skills. Abagnale developed fully documented alternate identities, including that of a Pan Am pilot, a pediatrician, a public prosecutor, and a college sociology professor. In each case, he was able to forge authenticating documents, and in many cases, he was able to procure the actual certificates, passcards, uniforms, and other accountrements of the trade. He was so convincing that, when accused by airport officials of being a fake pilot, other pilots (some of whom had known him for years) rose to defend him!
Under these guises (but especially in his role as airline pilot), Abagnale forged millions of dollars in checks, and defrauded banks around the world. He was able to avoid capture in part because his persona was very convincing, but also because he revolutionalized the art of check-kiting, printing false routing information on the bottom of each check that would send them circling the United States for days or weeks before a human intercepted them and determined that they were fake. Also, as a 'pilot', he was able to ride for free around the United States, Europe, and Asia, spreading his fake checks over a huge number of different banks in different cities. This made him much harder to catch.
Why is this book appropriate for Slashdot readers? You can take it as a lesson in hacking for somebody who was never given the chance to use a computer. Abagnale hacked the banking system; he hacked airline industry procedures. He even hacked the Swedish penal system. He found and exploited fault modes that normal users had never noticed. You can also take the book as a primer in social engineering. Abagnale would never have been able to get away with his hacks, especially the early ones, if he had not understood how to charm a bank teller. In fact, his choice of airline pilot as his first alternate identity was driven in part by the realization that female bank tellers would swoon for a man in the pilot's uniform.
What's Bad?
As in any book by a rogue and con man, there is no way that 100% of this book is true, and you're never really sure when you are reading an anecdote that was made up. You will probably find yourself reading each chapter while sniffing for B.S. Personally, I found two episodes particularly suspect -- his pretending to be a stock broker (his grasp of the terminology was much to weak to fool anybody really in the financial markets), and his claim to have fooled eight college girls into travelling around Europe with him for a Summer, thinking they were working for Pan Am.
The most convincing stories were those in which he makes an error -- other people caught him making mistakes so subtle that an outsider would probably never have made them up. For example, airline pilots catching him in an error about which carriers served which cities, or a Harvard Law graduate catching him in an error about the professors with which he had studied.
What's Good?
I have no doubt that, had he been born in a slightly different environment, Abagnale would have been a fiersome computer hacker (in the positive or negative sense). His model is a valuable one, even if he used his creative skills to evil ends. Most people take for granted that barcodes are magic, that passcards separate real employees from the masses, and that anybody with the right jargon and the right clothing is in the right place. In some sense, we run our society (certainly our schools and businesses) like the insect hives that fiercely resist any outsider. Once the invader gets inside, it's treated like a member of the family. Read correctly, Abagnale's story can be both an inspiration and a warning. It inspires the reader to find the weaknesses in the systems around him, and it warns us to beware of our natural instinct to trust people who seem like us. Sometimes they're faking, and sometimes they do not have our best interests at heart.
By the way, Abagnale was eventually caught and served time for his crimes, but ended up running a secure-documents company in Washington, DC, and teaching courses on financial fraud for the FBI.
Stern is the president of Information Markets Corp.
You can purchase this book at ThinkGeek.
Ever read any Robin Hood?
For that matter, crime is an accepted fundamental part of our life--or at least our history. You're taught about it in school, how a bunch of terrorist revolutionaries seceded from their mother country over political issues. The Civil War? Heck no, the Revolutionary one.
Besides, it's a matter of degree. I don't think anybody would be lauding a book by a mass murderer, but this is a book about a clever fellow, the dashing rapscallion who never committed a violent crime. That's a very popular heroic archetype in our culture, going all the way back to the aforementioned Robin Hood, continuing with works like The Scarlet Pimpernel, Raffles, Arsene Lupin , Harry Harrison's The Stainless Steel Rat, and so on.
Heck, go all the way back to ancient Greek mythology and you'll find plenty of tales of clever tricksters who won the day through their trickery. Odysseus was a favorite character of this type. (Such cleverness was even more valued among the ancient Greeks than it is today, according to my Greek ancient history teacher. He said that as a coming-of-age ritual, a Greek lad was required to steal one of his neighbor's sheep.)
And when you think about it, even Jesus and his Apostles were regarded as dangerous revolutionaries by the authorities of their day. Paul once had to escape a city in a manner worthy of a thief, being lowered over the city walls in a basket.
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Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Crime is important.
What would you do if the law said you have to die? Would you let them kill you because it's the law?
Just because it's the law doesn't make it right.
Break The Law. I wrote this in 1998... maybe it will help you understand.
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[ approaching AI ]
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Quiquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
The company I work for provides Continuing Education to Securities and Insurance Brokers, and as the MIS director, I get to review the exams at my leisure. You wouldn't believe how many of these bozos don't know basic terms like Money Laundering and Annuity. It genuinely frightens me that these people are trading stocks and selling Insurance.
The course people fail the most: Ethics
The main reason Online CE is growing so fast in the Securities and Insurance Industries is because online exams can be taken until you pass, as opposed to paper exams that you take and retake, usually paying extra fees for each retake. It's amazing how many of these morons retake the exams five or six times before passing, and they're multiple choice exams with only four options per question!
One of our competitors (SEII) is even worse. You aren't allowed to move on to the next question until you've gotten the current question right.
"I'm sorry, 'A' is not the correct answer, try again"
"I'm sorry, 'B' is not the correct answer, try again"
"I'm sorry, 'C' is not the correct answer, try again"
"'D' is Correct! click the button to move on to question 5"
In short, I wouldn't doubt the character's authenticity as a broker just because he didn't know the terms. About 10% of those clowns know what's going on, the rest are the Business World Equivalent of AOL users.
http://www.matthewmiller.net
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
The only way anything gets fixed is when Big Corp has egg on it's face. If this guy would've simply identified the weaknesses he found in these companies, they would've just said "Thanks, now go away", and continued to operate, while putting YOU and I at risk. Risk of losing our money in the banks, risk of airport security, etc.
You really can't compare some psycho murdering twit with a guy who learns how to beat "The System".
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Surprise! You've been scammed!
I know this to be true, because I met him one time, and he told me that he's really just using the book to raise money for a liver transplant for his 12 year old little girl, who's waiting at the Shriner's Hospital in Houston. So do like I did, and send him some money, right now!
But don't believe his cockamamey stories about being able to fool people.
He didn't fly the jetliners (I assume, not having read the book), he just flew for free. Aircraft have jumpseats in the cockpit for trainers and FAA inspectors. You can ride up there if the seat isn't in use, if you're authorized to be in the cockpit. In the US, you have to be a commercial pilot, and airlines have courtesy agreements by which other airlines' pilots can jumpseat for free. So if you show up with a real-looking ID, you're in. (At least until an FAA inspector comes along and bumps you.) Even today, computers and all, I don't think an airline can check to see if a particular individual really is employed by another airline without calling up their Crew Scheduling department and asking... which they'd be highly unlikely to do unless they had a reason to suspect something.
In no case are you ever actually doing anything related to flying the plane (unless there's an emergency in which one of the on-duty crewmembers needs to be replaced). But he probably was convincing enough with his cockpit chatter that he convinced the pilots who were driving.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
I first read this one about 10 years ago, and keep a paperback copy for "reference". One recurring theme in the book is one that any Social Engineer learns early on: Act like you're supposed to be there/doing that.
The author of the book spent time spoofing as an airline pilot, doctor, lawyer, and other trades. In each case he managed to fool people in these trades into believing that he belonged. There are a lot of good Think On Your Feet examples in the book as well.
Excellent book, a must read, IMO.
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What is it with the current trend to romanticising criminals and their lifestyles, no matter what they do? Sure, this man isn't exactly a serial rapist, but there are other books out there which both allow criminals to attempt to justify and/or glorify what they did as well as profit from them. This is a pretty sad indication of today's culture.
And surely this sort of thing is just cruel to the victims of these criminals? If your loved one was murdered by some psycho and then you saw his book everywhere talking about how he did it you'd be both disgusted and upset? Why should people who have been victims of crime have to deal with this additional indignity?
Sorry, but criminals should not be lauded for their deeds. It's only a small step from there to a state in which crime becomes accepted as a fundamental part of life, not something which we should be attempting to get rid of.
He was caught
The really fascinating stories like this are the ones you never hear about.
Those are the people who go undetected hacking the system so to speak
Its unfortunate we wont hear about the people who are smart enough to never get caught, because they are the ones truly *above* the system
Jeremy
"Had Bill Gates been born six hundred years ago, he'd be assistant shit-shoveler for the Duke of Silesia."
Nah, I don't think so. Bill Gates' biggest trait is his weasel-like opportunism. Anytime, anyplace, any occupation, he would claw his way to the top on the backs of others.
Come to think of it, he's kind of like Blackadder, but without the personality or wit.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
I saw a bit on Talk Soup about a similar scam about 2 years ago. Basically a guy dressed up as a guard and told people the ATM was messed up but he could take their deposits, eventually the guy got busted. Of course the Talk Soup guys did a parody where their security guard ended up handing out a lot of his own cash to the people making withdraws....
Are we absolutely sure that Frank Abagnale is not pretending to be CmdrTaco?
Something else struck me as odd, though, which later led us to speculate that he was some sort of pathological liar. He'd said that flights of over eight hours require three pilots, while shorter ones are allowed only two, but several minutes later, he said something about being one of two pilots on a ten-hour flight. I asked him about the contradiction, and he smoothly got out of it, but I don't remember how.
Another time I was approached on the street by someone who I was immediately suspicious of, but I didn't feel physically threatened, so out of curiosity I played along for a while. It turned out to be a pretty straight-forward scam - this guy was pretending to be newly arrived in this country - he had, or affected, what seemed like an African accent. He claimed to have lots of cash but for some contrived reasons couldn't deposit it at a bank himself. Then he asked a "stranger" (an obvious accomplice) to confirm his fears of using the bank. His accomplice was a woman talking on a pay phone nearby - but it was pretty clear to me that she wasn't talking to anyone at all. Eventually, the meat of the scam came out - he wanted me to deposit his "money" into my bank account using my ATM card. At this point I ducked out because I didn't see any point in going further with their scam.
It sounds pretty obvious, but people fall for scams like this all the time. In retrospect, I wonder if, by stringing them along and giving them nothing, I prevented someone else from getting scammed... That's a pretty obscure way to justify what I did out of morbid curiosity/boredom; I suppose if I'd seen a cop, I would have gotten his attention. I'm sure that would have scared this pair off.
There is the question of the inherent rightness and wrongness of what he did. And this is the question that bedevils hackers and the culture of technology.
Given all of the possible justifications that someone could come up with [new college course: Improvisational Ethics 101], what *is* justified, and when are the excuses given just plain BS, no matter what jollies you get from the hack; well this all needs to be re-examined.
This might mean painful experiences like growing up, etc.
Sometimes the attitude does not translate well into other areas. [Psychosurgury or politics, for example.] This would tend to expose potential flaws in ethical arguments.
Hate to say it, but this calls for so serious self-reflection. [Kiddies need not apply]
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I think social engineering is a much needed skill. Those who have it will definately prosper.
Ways to use social engineering:
For good, for evil, for questionable, for illegal, and legal. Some of these overlap, but not always in the obvious way.
ie, using SE to get a company to use your services as a computer contractor, even though another may be cheaper and have better existing resources, is legal, good for your company, but questionable in the way you present yourself.
SE is simply convincing others to accept your projected view. A lawyer at a trial is social engineering the judge and jury. A salesman is social engineering customers so think they want a product. Its all just hacking the system called social interaction.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
Well, he is great if he is the same guy that I saw as a guest on various talk shows in the 1970's. Sounds exactly like the same guy.
If anybody has access to old Tonight Show archives, try to find one with Abagnale being interviewed by guest host George Carlin, from around 1975 or so (not kidding, younger readers). Abagnale tells a story of how he was able to pass a forged check to a very expensive prostitute/call girl (memory fuzzy on where it was) in a very pricy hotel, also paid for with a bad check. Oh yes, I think he got several hundred dollars US change back from her.
On interviews of the period, he covers how to use magnetic ink to forge deposit slips and place them in bank lobbies so that all deposits processed with those slips dump into an account of the forger's choice. Also how he created a fake night deposit box, stood guard on it all evening and had 2 rentacops or real cops (forgot) help him load it into his "security van" because it was too heavy for him to lift.
He never mentioned that many of these methods could be used for revenge too, i.e., how would you explain a couple million dollars in your bank account from forged deposit slips?
His stories are fantastic, excellent interview, excellent speaker too. Highly recommended, now I have to get the book!
Visit DC2600
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Come on. That's the kind of bail set for something more serious than aggravated assault, but less serious than rape or murder (which usually have no bail). Perhaps the judicial [quota] system is being corrupted by the corporate status quo. Sure, the things that Mitnick and Shapeshifter did weren't too serious, but they put in jeopardy the revenue flow for companies and campaigns. In the corporate world, that's considered treason. And you know the punishment for treason...
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Whether all or some of this is true or not the thing that creeps me out the most is that in many situations there is no qualitative difference between success and failure, between truth and bullshit, between having a skill and making it up. Sure we've all been in jobs over our heads sometime in our lives but what does it say when a guy can get behind the controls of an airliner and take off and land w/o screwing it into the tarmac?
So is everyone just an overvalued bullshit burger flipper? Does it really matter that your vascular surgeon went to school? Do you we all wear smocks and have our names stitched on our shirts only we don't know it? Stories like this in a small way convince me more and more to pay little if any attention to experts, professionals and specialists.
By example the third or fourth leading cause of death in America is apparently, if you believe the news in the last 6 months, medical malpractice and incompetance. And these are the people ostensibly trained to perform these jobs. And think about this the next time you have to power up your laptop in the patdown lane in the airport. Virtually every air traffic death since the inception of commercial air travel was the result of human error; either in the air on the maintenance floor or in the control tower, or, worse yet, the absolute refusal to heed weather warnings.
This guy ripped off banks. I won't be losing any sleep if I decide to buy and enjoy his book.
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It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
I saw this guy speak at a Chamber of Commerce banquet about 12 years ago. He generally assumed the identity of the profession but avoided the job. He claimed that as a pilot he only sat in the big chair once (with auto-pilot engaged) and as a doctor he let all the interns make their own diagnosis and decisions (luckily he wasn't called upon to fix any of their mistakes). How hard of a concept it that to handle? Your manager probably pretends to be an engineer/admin/programmer/tech but doesn't actually do any of those things.