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.

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!

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.

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?

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.

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.

—-

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.