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It's Easy To Steal Identities (Of Corporations)
jfruh writes "Two lawyers in Houston were able to exploit business filing systems to seize control of dormant publicly traded corporations — and then profit by pushing their worthless stock. In many states, anyone can change important information about a publicly registered company — including the corporate officers or company contact information — without any confirmation that they have anything to do with the company in the first place. Massachusetts requires a password to do this through the state registry's website, but they'll give you the password if you call and ask for it. Long focused on individual ID theft, state governments are finally beginning to realize that corporate ID theft is a huge problem as well."
As Munchkin said, this is just fraud. Corporations are NOT people, they can't have their ID stolen.
And given the way that the corps have been raping the public lately, I find it hard to be sympathetic.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
A corporation is a "legal entity" (a concept not unlike like a domain name or a handle) created through voluntary consent of the people who established a binding contractual agreement. Different individuals may be subject to different contracts and perform different functions: part-owners, partners, board members, employees of various levels of responsibility and compensation, and of course (usually quite informally) the customers.
Before investing in a company, an investor (or a consultant / broker acting on her behalf, or the institution facilitating the exchange, or an industry publication, etc) can investigate the company and see if it has sufficient policies to ensure secure operations, which would include preventing unauthorized individuals from issuing authoritative communications on behalf of the corporation. If the involved people fail to do this, it is their fault, and they are responsible for their losses.
The involvement of government bureaucrats in this process should not be necessary. Even the supposed benefits that governments provide to corporations (a centralized registry, undue liability limitations, etc) ultimately do more harm to the marketplace than good. The government currently exists as the default arbitrator and enforcer of contracts, but there's no need for this function to be a monopoly. In a sufficiently advanced society, multiple agencies can exist to protect Rights and enforce contracts - just as long as boundaries of their jurisdiction (which need not be geographical) are clearly and openly defined in advance.
Corporate law should be like programming - you have to think about security and implement appropriate restrictions yourself.
(Signed: AlexLibman's sockpuppet.)
Corporate Fraud? Deceptive conduct? Could the lawyers get disbarred?
I would hope so.
Either way, now that the Federal indictment has gotten through -- getting disbarred is the least of their worries right now.
Could the lawyers get disbarred?
Well, if a hacker can go to jail for hacking some online system then disclosing how they did it (to improve security, without even charging service fees), then Lawyers should face the same punishment too.
I hope you were joking.
Two people cannot use the same identity at the same time. Attempts to, say obtain two valid Driver's Licenses, Passports, and voter registrations simultaneously doesn't work too well. Not to mention the fun around tax time.