Susan Crane’s book on Ritual, Identity and Clothing During the 100 Years War has a chapter on “Talking Garments”. In those days who people were was signified by what they wore. The inner was represented by the outer. The clothes made the man.
Today, we are beyond such sartorial nonsense. Who we are is represented by electronic entries on databases, card-sized pieces of plastic and of course, biometrics. Which makes the Strategy Page’s article “Fake Fingerprints for Sale” interesting.
January 11, 2009: Japan has admitted that its new biometric immigration control system has been breached. The first known incident occurred eight months ago, when a South Korean women, who had been deported in 2007 for overstaying her visa, slipped back in. She has been barred from returning for five years. She successfully got past the fingerprint system by purchasing a forged passport in South Korea, and getting with it a clear tape to put over her finger. The tape contained a fingerprint of someone who was not in the Japanese database. The tape worked, just as it has been shown working on TV shows and movies for years. The woman was later picked up inside Japan, and police figured out how she had evaded the emigration controls.
Chris Hoofnagle, writing in the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology in 2007 asserted that while most everyone agreed that identity theft was on the rise nobody quite knew how extensive it was.
There is widespread agreement that identity theft causes financial damage to consumers, creditors, retail establishments, and the economy as a whole. The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) has identified it as the fastest growing white collar crime; federal and state governments have enacted numerous laws to curb its incidence and
severity.The contours of the identity theft problem, however, are known unknowns: no one knows the prevalence of identity theft, the relative rates of “new account fraud” and “account takeover,” or the effect this crime has on the economy.
In the modern world nearly all great crimes are information crimes. Nearly everything of consequence in this world — authority, wealth, even identity — has been put in one to one correspondence with pieces of information. You don’t need the physical thing in itself; just the handle, just the token. Bernard Madoff, in pulling off the single greatest reported financial crime in history, didn’t cart single physical object from Point A to Point B. He just manipulated information. Hamas should have our sympathy because the newspapers say so. Global Warming is inevitable because everyone knows it is. Information is almost reality.
The sheer power of information is illustrated by the crime called synthetic identity theft, a curious term because the identities in question is stolen from no one. They are manufactured out of whole cloth. Computers and networks have given deceiving people a cheap way of playing God. New people, insofar as information systems are concerned, can be brought into this world. They may be men who never were, but they buy things, sell stuff, write letters, even offer marriage or promise to deposit vast sums in your bank acccount and often no one is the wiser.
A variation of identity theft which has recently become more common is synthetic identity theft, in which identities are completely or partially fabricated. The most common technique is combining a real social security number with a name and birthdate other than the ones associated with the number. Synthetic identity theft is more difficult to track, as it doesn’t show on either person’s credit report directly, but may appear as an entirely new file in the credit bureau or as a subfile on one of the victim’s credit reports. Synthetic identity theft primarily harms the creditors that unwittingly grant the fraudsters credit. Consumers can be affected if their names become confused with the synthetic identities, or if negative information in their subfiles impacts their credit.
In an impersonal, mobile and multicultural society, a person who loses the entire documentation of his life without the wherewithal to reconstruct it can be in trouble: imagine a natural born American recluse with mental problems: who is he? Anyone who’s lost a wallet full of credit cards and ID knows how hard it is to be temporarily without the tokens of who you are. Identity has become so important that companies have sprung up to manage your online reputation. For a modest fee they offer to expunge all derogatory references to you on the Internet. Are you skeptical? Don’t be. These online reputational management companies have impeccable online reputations. My first thoughts on reading Hoofnagle’s proposal to gather more information on information fraud was “that’s a good idea. Surely we can trust that study.”
But who are we really? All we know about about most people is what they betoken. Anyone want to buy a slightly used set of fingerprints?
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14 Comments
1. Steve J. Nelson:Synthetic identity theft – hmmm…sounds like Kim Zigfeld aka La Russophobe. A veritable tornado of sock puppets, all defending each other, all claiming insult and flinging charges of hypocrisy when anyone asks who the heck exactly this person is and why they’re an authority on Russia. All twisted fingers libeling others like fingers from the same demented hand.
But who knows. Maybe there really are a “Dave Essel”, “Leonard Daulton”, “Oliver Bronson”, etc. The Washington Post certainly gave Kim Zigfeld the benefit of the doubt, but suspiciously violated its own editorial guidelines by printing a letter to the editor about an article four months old that very few people read. Why? Here’s the link.
http://larussophobeexposed.blogspot.com/2009/01/washington-post-violates-own-guidelines.html
From the Post’s letter to the editor guidelines:
Either it was an innocent mistake, and a fake identity was presumed to be a real one, or the “Tblisi Post” is living up to its name as basically a broadsheet of Russia-bashing, some of it paid for by Saakashvili’s PR firms, and some of it just plain old Cold War habit.
Jan 11, 2009 - 9:01 pm 2. bob:Didn’t Jerzy Kosinski write up one of his characters as riding around Europe on trains dressed up in a fancy militay uniform, lots of stars and badges, and getting kowtowed to by one and all? That wasn’t so very long ago or far away.
Jan 11, 2009 - 9:18 pm 3. Lifeofthemind:@bob,
Even better I saw Kosinski on TV claiming that had a tailor make up a military type suit, with no specific armed force claimed. placed band-aids over the breast pocket and hung it in the widow so it faded a little and showed a mark where nonexistent ribbons had been pulled off. He then very meekly would ask if there was a table in a popular restaurant and he never claimed any privilege. Worked like a charm.
Yesterday the movie on WNET was North by Northwest. Cary Grant innocently signals to a messenger boy and gets mistaken for Mr Kaplan. The fact that he is taller than the clothes in the nonexistent Mr Kaplan’s closet would fit does not exonerate him.
Jan 11, 2009 - 9:41 pm 4. Lifeofthemind:What do we know? What do we need to know? Over 69 million people voted for Barack Obama knowing nothing about him. He could be a three dimensional Max Headroom, a gag contestant on some reality show that got loose. They voted for him because they want to “believe again.” In what is up to the viewer to decide. If they are disabused in their faith, if it turns out that they have Jerzy Kosinski when they had convinced themselves that they were getting a combination of FDR, Jefferson and Lincoln then their fury will be directed at the messenger of the bad news.
We know what we are told and it is terribly easy to tell lies. One reason for that is that it is relatively risk free. For 40 years now it has been considered routine practice for comedians to humiliate the self important and respectable in public. At first this was considered a harmless even useful window into behavior when done by Candid Camera. Later it was pushed by shock jocks like Howard Stern whose army of cretins perfected the technique of the prank call on bosses, and low level public figures. Now we have people insinuating themselves into communication with an American Vice Presidential candidate and the President of France. Real damage is being done here. Not just to reputations but in fact reactions or over reactions in response to false information or public offense could be triggered. State actors can take state actions, that is to say that wealth can be expended and violence can be unleashed.
If the reply had always been a disproportionate one to discourage anyone interjecting false information into the system then we would all be safer. Howard Stern and his minions should have been locked up enough to get the message out. The idea that real harm is harmless and responses should be proportionate or even rewards in the form of publicity, if the target was a social outcast, leads eventually to Hamas tossing “harmless” missiles at Israel.
Jan 11, 2009 - 10:05 pm 5. David L.:The idea of synthetic identity theft is even older than Kosinski’s claim. From Robert A. Heinlein’s “Revolt in 2100,” where the resistance is looking for a cover identity that will allow a new member to elude the secret police of an American theocratic dictatorship:
—-
Before the machine whirred to a stop there were five cards in in the basket.
“A nice assortment,” Dr. Mueller mused as he looked them over. “One synthetic, two live ones, a deader, and one female.” …
***
“What’s a synthetic?” I inquired.
“Eh? Oh, it’s a composite personality, very carefully built from faked records and faked backgrounds. A risky business – it involves tampering with the national archives.
—-
And before the protagonist is sent on his way “An opaque, flesh-colored flexible plastic was painted on my finger pads, then my fingers were sealed into molds made from Reeves’ fingertips.”
“Revolt in 2100″ was copyrighted in the early 1950s, but parts were written in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Jan 11, 2009 - 10:26 pm 6. Lifeofthemind:The film of the The Man Who Never Was was good but not rousing entertainment:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049471/
The book it is based on is a good introduction to true events, the Amazon search is left to the reader since PJM will send a comment with two links to another dimension. There was much Cold War literature about the mechanics of creating a false identity in the age before the Internet.
Jan 12, 2009 - 2:52 am 7. RWE:I think I saw evidence of this over 20 years ago. I started receiving bank statements and even a Mastercard from the Bank Of America in the name of “Plern Sonti” (unforgettable) to an address that would have been next door to my house, except that it did not exist. My address was 543 Mars, the house next door was 551 Mars and this stuff was addressed to 545. I finally sent the bank a note saying that no such address existed and no such person was at my address.
A friend then told me that people were taking out loans on houses they did not own and the banks were happily complying without even checking on the borrower. I suspect that the nonexistent house at the fake address had a nice mortgage on it.
Either that, or there really is something to this parallel universe business.
Jan 12, 2009 - 6:13 am 8. Ledger:Finger print ID technology can be a hit or miss thing.
I have heard of illegal aliens who have been picked up by the local police and slip by the criminal finger print data base by simply wetting their fingers with spit and wiping them on the floor (dust fills in the depressions) and then had their finger prints checked and found to be “clean.”
I would guess it is fairly easy to disguise a finger print from a finger print data base – but, it maybe much harder to adopt a full finder print of an existing person.
Now, the clear tape trick sounds interesting. I would think that someone placing a taped index finger on a scanner would draw some attention from the authorities – such as why the clear tape being on the finger – it has no medical use. Could this be a case of human error of the finger print scanner operator?
Jan 12, 2009 - 7:03 am 9. Stones Cry Out - If they keep silent… » Things Heard: e50v1:[...] Man and identity. [...]
Jan 12, 2009 - 7:05 am 10. Pseudo-Polymath » Blog Archive » Monday Highlights:[...] Man and identity. [...]
Jan 12, 2009 - 7:06 am 11. Larry Sheldon:“Today, we are beyond such sartorial nonsense.”
O, RLY?
’splain to me the “Redcarpet” thing all over the “news” world today. Body piercing, tattoos, and other defacments. Bizarre clothes, hair “do”s, strange gaits.
Jan 12, 2009 - 9:46 am 12. Old Chief:This, the problem of identification and re-identification, is to be endured, not solved. Serious identification in everyday use is made by men and can be simulated by other men, just as money is forged perfectly by any organization with the resources of the legitimate source. Consider the question of whether perfectly forged U.S. banknotes are not identical with the notes issued by your government. Be definition, there is no difference. If there is no operational difference, there is no difference, so the question of ‘authentic’ vs. ‘artificial’ fades away to nothingness.
I retired from the professional deception business before the widespread use of computers, copy machines, and digital ‘data bases,’ being more familiar with very large collections of 3×5 cards pawed through by bored GS3s looking for matches of name, date, and place of birth. Nevertheless, I suspect the principles remain the same: The purpose of identification is to elicit a desired response from a system, person, or organization. In theory it is impossible to provide perfect identification, but in practice it is certainly possible to provide the target (system, person, etc.) with enough data to get the desired response. This requires, as with all successful communication, rigorous audience analysis, as well as some technical resource.
To be more concrete, it was easy to get normally dressed, but ‘unauthorized,’ people through the Main Gate of the Naval Station on Key West, past an armed Marine Guard, with a picture of a dog on the identification card, at least in 1951, and as long as the otherwise correct form was laminated in plastic.
On the other hand, convincing a normally intelligent, German housewife in 1958 that a person was representative of the American, rather then the Soviet, government was nearly impossible, if she decided to be skeptical. After all, paper could be printed and laminated in all forms, any where, by anybody; accents could be taught; and clothing tags purchased. Pocket litter is cheap and ubiquitous, and she knew it.
But, would you be surprised by the number of claimed Doctoral Degrees out there that are not even backed up by the key punch entry of some underpaid university work/study student who would gladly do you a favor for the promise of love, and maybe a little money?
Americans are very trusting; middle aged German women in 1958 were generally not.
Altho the Middle Germans made much intelligence in the 60’s out of unmarried, middle-aged, female, West German clerks in the Defense ministry.
Identities, synthetic, misplaced, stolen, or otherwise, have always been created and used for specific purposes. Always will.
After all, isn’t your identity a mere creation suited to the purpose of the moment?
And who is Mr. Fernandez, delightful a persona as he is, but a collection willingly accepted identifiers?
I love it!
Jan 12, 2009 - 12:14 pm 13. Lifeofthemind:Once upon a time my ship was in Long Beach Naval Shipyard for an availability that became an extended nightmare when the boiler got damaged. The first day we had a Wardroom reception with the Yard Commander and our Captain gave him a plaque. He said in front of all of us “I know that these are usually given out at the end of a visit but we both know that by then we won’t be talking to each other.” He was correct, a couple of months into our captivity on Terminal Island it became difficult for sailors to get from the ship to the gate without getting busted. The icing on the cake might have been when the Admiral in command of our squadron sent out a message calling for the ships undergoing repair to use the time to undergo training by testing each others security. These tests were referred to by their designation in the Code Book. One of my friends went to the Master at Arms office and got a laminated ID made up with the serial number that matched the drill code, a stated purpose “To blow up your ship” in fine print and a photo of a basset hound. He then put on overalls and went to one of the other ships undergoing repair. Slowly he climbed up the gangway like regular worker hating a work day, He waved his ID at the Officer of the Deck and the Petty Officer of the Watch and asked “Where’s your boiler?” They were only to happy to give him directions and point out where the correct ladder down to the engineering spaces was. So he went down there and shoved a paper bag containing a bunch of red sticks and wire and an old clock under the boiler. Then he went back to the Quarterdeck and threw his orders onto the OODs podium. They had only one question, “When did you cross this Quarterdeck?” They needed to establish that he did it on the last watch before the current guys had taken over. We planning a return visit to put something in their COs toilet when we got a new message from the Admiral to the effect that in order to avoid interfering with shipyard operations the security drills would be suspended until further notice.
Jan 12, 2009 - 1:16 pm 14. Bill Befort:Not Kosinski, but Karl Zuckmayer wrote “The Captain of Koepenick,” based on a real incident in 1906 when a prankster in a Prussian officer’s uniform took over a German town at bayonet point. All about it at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Voigt
http://www.koepenickia.de/index_e.htm
Talking of synthetics, to my ear the segment of Susan Crane’s book at the link sounds uncannily like something from the Postmodernism Generator:
http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/
See if you don’t agree.
Jan 12, 2009 - 3:58 pmSorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.