Slashdot Mirror
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."
Corporations are people too!
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
An unexpected side-effect of "corporations are people too" ?
Corporate Fraud? Deceptive conduct? Could the lawyers get disbarred?
Fraudulently taking control of a dormant corporation and defrauding investors is not corporate fraud. It's business ethics (which is different from business intelligence). Get your oxymorons straight... "corporate fraud" isn't even an oxymoron!
Obviously, corporations are not people are not companies are not businesses, otherwise we wouldn't make the point of distinguishing them with different names.
Also obviously, ID "theft" isn't really theft, because you aren't (fully) denying that person their own identity.
TFA (if you bothered to read it) is about "identity thieves" who masquerade as executives of the corporation, when they are in fact not. The point here, is that corporations are agreements (contracts) among people, and "corporate ID theft" causes illegitimate harm to very real individuals.
Overall, the point of TFA is better authentication is needed for government and other organizations who do business with the corporation (i.e., properly authenticating the members of the corporation as people with the lawful ability to make such decisions).
Wonder what the public key field is for?
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.
This is the dumbest comment I've ever read. Do you even think before spewing your hate? If your user id weren't so low I'd think you just came here from youtube.
This has nothing to do with whether corporations are people, even an IP packet has an ID. And packets can have their ID stolen. What sequence of logic did you go through to convince yourself that corporations can't have their ID stolen merely because they are not people?
Secondly, you have to understand that real people got ripped off here, in bad stock deals, etc. You're not supposed to feel sorry for the corporation, you're supposed to feel sorry for the people who got ripped off.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I'll accept that a corporation is people.
I will not accept that a corporation is a person (of its own).
There's a big difference there.
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
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'll accept that a corporation is people.
Even if it's the Soylent Corporation?
Set your phasers on "funky"!
There is a difference between "personhood" and being a legal entity. Corporations are legal entities, in that they can perform legal actions, but they are not natural persons, for obvious reasons. In most countries (such as those in Europe), the distinction between legal persons and natural persons is made. This because natural persons have additional rights (beyond the obvious human rights).
Simple example: consumer law applies to natural persons trading with a legal person, but not to trade between different legal persons (ie. business to business transactions). If you have your own one-man company, buying for yourself or for the company still matters.
I'm not sure what the US perspective is, but from the complaining on /., it seems that the problem is that rights intended for natural persons is attributed to legal persons (ie. corporations). That's not a good idea. Here's an example why:
Imagine that corporations would send money to politicians, hiding it by claiming "privacy". Obviously, privacy is a right intended for natural persons (some formulations of human rights include a definition of privacy). Corporations do not need a right to privacy*. And it is easily exploited for blatant corruption.
Okay, that is a huge hyperbole, but I think it clarifies the point.
* obviously, they do have the right to kick you off their property. Property is attributed to legal persons.
is a legal interface with traditional government-run courts that is too technical for most people to understand.
Fairly simple when I took law. What difficulty were you having?
A contractual agreement can exist in perpetuity as original founders sell out, die, etc
This is useful, but legal personhood is a disproportionate response to the need.
but ultimately a corporation exists based on the Rights of the contemporary shareholders / parties to contract.
No. A corporation exists based on the "rights" (lol@religious capitalisation) of contemporary shareholders not to be fully responsible for what they do. They get full enjoyment of profits but can, when shit and fan are in alignment, socialise their losses.
The root of the "corporations are not people" hysteria is socialists trying to deny Rights (speech, liberty, property, etc) to individuals they don't like or want to rob.
On the contrary, a capitalist would want to return rights to debtors, responsibility to tortfeasors, &c.
I'm the CEO of Lifelock and we're putting together a special package for corporations to prevent this kind of thing from happening. Additionally, if you'd like to invest in our company(whose stock will obviously be rising soon because of this great new service) I'd be more than willing to sell you a few shares right now.
Most corporations are small businesses and hundreds of thousands of corporations are 1 men shows that operate as contractors.
Are you sure? When I formed a corporation, there was a requirement that there be 3 or more shareholders. Otherwise it's an LLC for a one-man show, or a limited partnership for a 2-man show. I have a personal business license in multiple countries and multiple states within the US. But I'm not incorporated anywhere. I had to take out a business license to be a contractor, though my business has the same SSN and I do, and isn't a corporation.
so not allowing a corporation to have the rights of people means that people cannot use their money within their own full rights (for example without the right of free speech, the government could prevent a corporation that competed with a government protected monopoly from advertising
Sorry, I thought I was replying to a rational person. There's nothing in restrictions against a corporation that restricts a person. You can take your salary and donate it to a candidate or advertise with it. You can't direct a corporation to spend its money in a manner that violates law. Just because you, as a director, can't make your corporation do certain things doesn't mean you, as a person have the same restrctions, thus laws restricting a corporation do not restrict people at all (just the pool of money they use to fund their speech).
Learn to love Alaska
Here is your 'alternative Universe' with almost 30,000,000 corporations counted.
From your link, there were 5,847,000 total corporations in 2008 who filed returns. That's a lot, about one per 50 people, but well under 30,000,000 corporations.
Learn to love Alaska
There's a big difference there.
The grammar error? :)
Identity theft is not really a crime. It's like Music or Movie Piracy. You are just creating a copy of another person's identity. You are not depriving him of his identity. Once the copy of the identity has been made, both of them can use the identity.
Imagine that corporations would send money to politicians, hiding it by claiming "privacy". Obviously, privacy is a right intended for natural persons (some formulations of human rights include a definition of privacy). Corporations do not need a right to privacy*. And it is easily exploited for blatant corruption.
It's worth noting that corporations and businesses in general can have and can protect "trade secrets". But many actions such as the above campaign contributions/bribes aren't considered trade secrets and hence, aren't protected by this limited right.
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.
In which country? Or are we about to argue that America invented the corporation ("public company")?
Given that the whining is only about the status of US corporations, it's pretty obvious that we're only speaking of US corporations.
Sigh. Everything in America is about abuse from the gubmint, isn't it? Can you think of less severe responses to the concern that corporations were being disadvantaged?
The argument is sufficient. No need to go any further.
And the whole problem with modern shareholding is that the shareholders are typically neither experts in the corporations' interests nor deeply involved.
So wave that magic education wand so that investors are no longer ignorant. Capital rarely starts in the hands of the people who best understand the business.
"So it doesn't make sense to put such an investor on the hook when they typically don't want to be responsible enough to justify that level of responsibility."
That is the point. Investors don't want to be at that level of responsibility. Corporations provide a way to give capital to a business without assuming a high level of responsibility.
Yes, yes, this argument's been used to justify everything from censorship to slavery. "If you make the capitalists fully responsible for their losses then... uh... think about your jobs!" OK, I've thought about them, and I've decided that there would be greater employment if people couldn't hoard wealth with the protection of the law.
This is why I love competing governments. If one government gets a bad idea (say like supporting your "thought" above), then we can always move ourselves and our assets to other countries which haven't gone so insane.
"...the scammers took control of the companies and then obtained legitimate CUSIP numbers and stock trading symbols that were then used to push the worthless stock on unsuspecting investors...."
Hi, I have a stock to sell you. It's for a company that may appear to have been founded in 1975, but there is no history, no financial statements, no background, no product, and nothing really to back up what I'm telling you the stock is worth. How many shares would you like? But it has a legitimate stock trading symbol!
Seriously, this is only a tiny step away from selling the Brooklyn Bridge or land in Florida. If someone is so stupid that they would invest their cash in such a company with no research, I'd say they deserve to lose that money. If a hedge fund or something is stupid enough to invest in such a fund, that manager should lose his job at least, and the reputation of the fund should suffer by public announcement of their stupidity.
Really people, what part of 'caveat emptor' is too complicated to understand?
-Styopa
I registered an LLC a few weeks ago. After a few days I wanted to change the name of the LLC. All I had to do was agree that I had the legal right to change the business documents by hitting the okay button. No password. No identity check. Just had to hit the okay button.
This theft doesn't surprise me. Its way too easy to do.
Thats not MORE punishment, thats the same punishment we all face, loss of prospects.
Good-bye
This problem is related to "shelf corporations", ones with no activity that are still considered active. It's an abandoned account problem. What's probably necessary is to "lock" corporations that don't show any activity (annual report, tax return) in 18 months. Some countries and states mark corporations as "inactive" when they are, and may need to tighten up on how "inactive" status is ended.
Some US states, notably Nevada, don't require reports of a change in control. Those are especially vulnerable. Often, the "corporate officers" listed for a Nevada company are all an employee of some "Incorporate in Nevada" service that originally filed the paperwork. So there's no way the state of Nevada can validate that change requests come from a legitimate party.