Forwarded from: William Knowles <wkat_private> http://www.eprairie.com/news/viewnews.asp?newsletterid=4690 By ADAM FENDELMAN Editor-in-Chief adamat_private 6/20/2003 CHICAGO - Chicago caught "Catch Me If You Can" muse Frank Abagnale Jr. on Thursday night at the Four Seasons. A criminal-turned-celebrity, Abagnale now hails as one of the world's foremost connoisseurs of embezzlement, forgery and glut of other things no one - he says in retrospect - should ever do. Formerly an avid flier of the fraudulently "free" skies, the recovered con man flew to Chicago to expose to local security executives his real story, how today's high-tech crooks are winning and how they can be trounced. So reasoned the FBI some 25 years ago, who better could nab elusive thieves than one who cashed $2.5 million in fraudulent checks over a five-year period? Abagnale also posed as a PanAm airline pilot (he remembers thinking "equipment" meant a plane's engine rather than the plane itself), an attorney (he actually passed the bar exam in 10 weeks rather than two as depicted in the movie) and a pediatrician (initially answering just as a "medical" doctor and making certain to give cute girls thorough "exams"). So questioned this reporter, should convicted masterminds be released from penitentiaries and put to work for secret services like the FBI or CIA? Abagnale told ePrairie: "I can't think of many cases like mine. I am a bit of an exception." Whether or not Abagnale actually advocates releasing felons for the purposes of high-end anti-fraud work, Abagnale modestly asserted that the ways he duped our nation's systems were relatively simple and weren't necessarily rocket science. He has devoted the last 25 years to erect walls so like-minded swindlers can't pull off similar stunts. Known especially for his propensity to create fake checks that would fund his travels before they had a chance to bounce (some 1 million illegal air miles to 26 countries between the ages of 16 and 18 on every airline but now-defunct PanAm), one of Abagnale's tricks exploited a "big green calculator" at a bank. He moseyed into this bank and asked questions like he always would to detect the institution's loopholes. He began by opening a new checking account under a phony PanAm identity. He then asked for deposit slips. He was told to help himself to a community table with blank deposit slips. Most people would write their checking account numbers on them and turn them in. Always the inquisitive kid who likes a challenge, Abagnale used the calculator-like device to magnetically encode his account number on the bottom of lots of deposit slips. He then put them back on the lobby table. Everyone who made deposits that day ended up depositing money to his account. Abagnale withdrew some $40,000 shortly thereafter and disappeared. Catching Who He Can Now a turn-to man for some 14,000 financial institutions, corporations and law enforcement agencies (Abagnale says he has worked with 65 percent of the Fortune 500 and all 50 of the world's largest banks), he asserts that punishment for fraud and recovery of stolen funds are so rare that prevention is the only viable course of action. "I always knew I'd get caught," Abagnale said. "Though the law sometimes sleeps, it never dies." Most crimes today are committed internally, he says, adding that today's criminals have realized that it's more effective to hack people rather than computers. Sure, one could spend the time and resources to develop high-tech hacking systems to swipe cash from a bank, but why not befriend some bank workers through a few smokes and buy information rather than try to steal it? Abagnale says Novell, which produced Thursday's gathering of 166 registrants, is transitioning to managing the identities at large organizations to intelligently control who has access to what. As an example of a pain Novell is solving, it'd often take a company that just laid off thousands of workers months to revoke an employee's special privileges. Businesses lose an estimated $400 billion each year to fraud. While security is advancing, the massive and rapid flow of information is making the felon's job easier by the day, he says. Though Abagnale used $2 million machines that filled a room to print checks during his fraudulent heyday, today he says he could flip open a slim laptop, power up a small printer and have access to your personal and financial information within five or 10 minutes - all thanks to the Internet. But how? Though there are thousands of free and paid resources on the Web that can unsuspectingly be used especially for identity theft, Abagnale singled out FamilySearch.org, which he says operates one of the world's largest databases and includes death records from 10 days ago to 200 years ago. A free service of the Mormon church, simple searches reveal public information such as social security numbers, birthplaces and death dates. Sites such as NetDetectiveSoftware.com and DocuSearch.com also offer personal but public information - even what the FBI knows about you - for fees that range between $49 and $150. Many such sites are used malicilously to impersonate identities and steal money. "Identity theft is a huge problem today and is the crime of the future," Abagnale said. "It absolutely is the simplest crime. Anyone can find out at least 22 pieces of information about you instantly including your social security number, you mother's maiden name, someone who lives in your house who isn't related to you and who lives around you in your neighborhood." To protect himself, one tool Abagnale uses personally is called Privacy Guard. With 4.5 million paid members at $110 per year, Abignale says the software sends him instant e-mails or pages any time anyone requests his credit report. Best of all, he says, the company's own employees can't see the data. Lessons Learned Abagnale regrets his past as a cheat. He says what he did was immoral, illegal and unethical. Though he receives some 200 e-mails per day from "fans" surfing by Abagnale.com who rave about his brilliance, Abagnale says he was just a kid. He added: "If I really was brilliant, I wouldn't have broken the law." In retrospect, Abagnale says he learned at least four critical lessons, which are played out in Spielberg's movie starring Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio: * The 1960s were far more innocent. People believed you were who you say you were. * You must pay for your mistakes. * More amazing than what he pulled off as a liar and a thief, the movie was about redemption and the family man he transformed into. * A divorce can be devastating for a child. Why'd he do it all? Because he could. Would he do it all again? He vehemently says no. Abagnale says his life hasn't been glamorous. A lonely child on the run, he said he'd constantly cry himself to sleep through the age of 20. He never had a senior prom or went to a high school football game. He added: "I lost much more than I ever gained." In addition to the 1980 book "Catch Me If You Can" with reporter Stan Redding and Abagnale's 2002 book entitled "The Art of the Steal" (Abagnale sold the rights to his earlier book to Spielberg two decades ago and didn't profit from the 2003 movie), a "Catch Me If You Can" television series will debut in 2004 from the creators of ER along with a Broadway musical of the FBI hunt. Though many people think Abagnale's redemption draws from religion, immaturity or prison, he attributes it entirely to the family he created in Tulsa. Amazingly terrified, executives on Thursday were caught tearing as Abagnale spoke to his life's true legacy. "God gave me a wife. She gave me children," Abagnale said, noting that his oldest son is a third-year law student at Loyola University in Chicago. "She changed my life. Everything I am is in them. People don't truly understand love until they bring a child into the world. A real man loves his wife and is faithful. I've done nothing greater than being a good husband and great daddy." Finally nabbed in France at the age of 21 after an unidentifiable "John Doe warrant" was issued when he was 18, Abagnale ran out on his parents when he was 16 as they divorced. He didn't see his mother again for seven years. He didn't see his father ever again. *==============================================================* "Communications without intelligence is noise; Intelligence without communications is irrelevant." Gen Alfred. M. Gray, USMC ================================================================ C4I.org - Computer Security, & Intelligence - http://www.c4i.org *==============================================================* - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomoat_private with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.
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