After seeing "Catch Me if You Can" last Saturday, I began wondering about how a fraudster like the amazing Frank Abagnale, the subject of the movie, would be able to fare in this new technological age.

Has technology made the world a safer and more secure place? The answer, according to Abagnale, is "No".

In fact, technology has made it easier for the fraudsters, he argues he an interview he had with the radio arm of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (www.abc.net.au).

"No, the truth is what I did 30 years ago, is 200 times easier to do today than it was then, and five years from now will be 700 times easier than it is today, and that's because of one word, technology," Abagnale said in answer to the same question I wondered about. "Technology breeds crime, and it always has.

"When I did these things 30 years ago, if I had to make a cheque, I literally had to print the cheque, so I had to be a skilled printer, I had to know how to do colour separations, make negatives, make plates, and it was very time consuming and tedious.

"Today, sitting at home in an apartment with a PC, a scanner, a colour printer, an inkjet printer or a colour copier, you can reproduce just about any type of document, including currency and paper."

Through guile, ingenuity, charm and a skill at projecting an authoritative personality, Abagnale went on a five-year fraud spree that netted him $2.5 million. The shocking part is he did this all by the time he reached the age of 21, when he finally was arrested in France. During the five-year spree of forgery and fraud, he impersonated his way around the US, assuming identities as a doctor, lawyer, and a pilot.

He gained an early release in 1974 by agreeing to help the FBI catch fraudsters like himself and has since built up a successful business as a securities system consultant and designer.

The interview Abagnale gave in March 2000 was prescient, given that it occurred before the events of September 11 bred more of a focus on technology and systems to protect and detect nefarious activity.

Back then Abagnale was more worried about what encroaching technology would do to personal privacy. He argues that as technology encroaches on privacy and consumers are forced to give out more personal details and identifying features, identity theft will become easier.

"The crime of the future will be identity theft, and we're already starting to see where people assume other people's identity because they're able to get bits and pieces of information about that individual, their bank account, their social security or health card number, and then assume that person's identity," Abagnale says.

"And that's an awful crime, because in that crime, the criminal who's committing the crime is innocent until they're proven guilty, but the person who's the victim is guilty until they prove themselves innocent. So they're the ones that have to go out and convince the bank, the credit bureau, that they're not the person who made those charges or got that mortgage."

He noted that in 2000 banks in the US had already started asking customers for their fingerprints as a means of identification. "You open a bank account and they want your fingerprint, and they want your fingerprint they say of course, to protect you, that if someone forges a cheque or comes in the bank, they can identify whether it was you or not with the fingerprint.

But the bank already has all of the other information, your date of birth, social security number, all your pertinent information, and now they have your fingerprint. And then later on they tell you `Well if you're going to use the ATM machine, we might want to do an eye iris, where we scan your eye.' I mean when it does it all stop, when does it become a matter of you're giving away way to much information?"

He dismisses the idea that the technology will eventually become absolutely secure. "Every system has a flaw," he says "Sherlock Holmes said that best, `What one invents, one will discover.' There is no question if a man or a woman creates it, another man or woman will defeat it.

"I just have a hard time when someone, a marketeer says to me that this electronic system is foolproof, that you can't beat it, that it's impossible. That's a ridiculous statement to make. There is no foolproof system. Some man or some woman had to create it, so obviously some man or woman can defeat it.

"And if you start with that premise, then you can simply take the steps to try and make it as secure as you can."

Consumers also need to be alert to the possibility of identity theft if their personal information is available on systems that can eventually be broken into. "The police can't protect you, the government can't protect you, your bank can't protect you, only you can protect yourself," Abagnale says.

"While Abagnale's life of crime should be condemned, he should also be commended for turning his life around while at the same time making a lot of money as a security consultant to governments and businesses.

For example he is a consultant to the company that produces Australia's passports and credit cards. Of course the irony stands out all over this story. As a security systems designer, Abagnale is in a great position to create even bigger cons through the financial system. "I consider my past immoral, unethical and illegal," Abagnale says on his Internet site (www.abagnale.com). "It is something I am not proud of."

Still given his willingness to discuss easy cons, Abagnale's clients must be a nervy lot to trust him so much. In a sense, Abagnale, through his ability to fool people about his identity through faking a persona, was able to break through the softest parts of a bank's security systems.

Put in the language of the computer age, he hacked his way in through the psyche. Of course, like a good hacker, he is always thinking of ways to beat the system, any system.

"I think I was just somebody who was always looking for the creative, the simple way to do it," he explains "And that hasn't changed today. I mean I look at things today that I see and I realise myself how simple they would be to beat, and how easy it would be to beat. And sometimes, just out of fun, I try it just for curiosity.

I mean there are so many systems today that have so many loopholes in it, that you can do that. So I mean I still like to be creative and look at those loopholes, I just do it in an honest way and not go out and try to do anything that would be illegal." Okay, don't get any bright ideas.

@EDITRULE:

Tech Tattle deals with issues in technology.

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