Identity-Theft Humor

From The Onion:

Arizona Man Steals Bush’s Identity, Vetoes Bill, Meets with Mexican President

WASHINGTON, DC—Confusion and disbelief reigned at the White House after President Bush announced Monday that an Arizona man, known to authorities only as H4xX0r1337, stole his identity and used it to buy electronic goods, veto a bill, and meet with Mexican President Vicente Fox.

“This is incredibly frustrating,” Bush told reporters Tuesday. “Not only does this guy have my credit-card information, he has my Social Security number, all my personal information, and the launch codes for a number of ballistic intercontinental nuclear missiles. I almost don’t want to think about it.”

For those readers who don’t know, The Onion publishes fake funny news items.

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Posted on May 13, 2005 at 4:39 PM • 18 Comments

Comments

Stu Savory • May 13, 2005 11:18 PM

Seriously though, maybe that’s a way to get the gummint to do something ’bout ID theft, steal politicians IDs!

PS: Am I really posting before Israel? Or has he stolen the ID of “x” ?

Ian • May 14, 2005 12:08 AM

The Onion publishes fake news items, perhaps, but funny ones… Not so much.

As long as I’m taking cheap shots, only as fake as Faux News!

An English/European • May 14, 2005 2:08 AM

Speaking from the 51st state, its suits our humour quite nicely. Why do we see the international opinion in the UK, and not just the US view on things. Introvertive journalism, absolute wank. Cheap-shots = no sense of humour.

Harry • May 14, 2005 3:32 AM

Mr Bush doesn’t even have a ‘puter on his big White House desk, so I guess he’s not much for surfing the net and giving his CC to on-line merchants.

Cowboy Nick • May 14, 2005 7:57 AM

LOL, but i hope they didn’t give the real G.W. the real lauchcodes!

I imagine Rumsfeld hiding the code’s from G.W. , ROLF.

Here’s a translated conversation from the white house tapes:
— snip —
G.W. : “The rockets did not launch, are these the rights codes?”
Rumsfeld: “Yep, those a the real codes”. (Hehe, sucker, do you really think you get the real codes.)
G.W.: “Strange, wel then they are in luck today.
Damn.”
Rumsfeld: “Wel, there wil be enough oppertunity next time G.W. .”
— end snip —

YT,
Nick

x • May 14, 2005 9:46 AM

PS: Am I really posting before
Israel? Or has he stolen the ID
of “x” ?

Nope, I’m not Israel. But finally seeing him not respond 1.5 seconds after Bruce posted is why I said “Can it be?” 🙂

Zwack • May 16, 2005 10:14 AM

Mat Booth:>

I’m from the “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland” too and I would describe myself as European LONG before I would describe myself as English…

Not everyone from the UK is English. US Scots make up 10% of the population, the Welsh make up another 2% percent and then there is Northern Ireland and all those islands off the coast. In fact only 81.5% of the population is English. (Source CIA World Factbook 2005)

Besides I thought Canada was the 51st state… 🙂

Z.

Davi Ottenheimer • May 16, 2005 1:49 PM

Not trying to steal your thunder Bruce, but I see a theme here that others have mentioned before: comment on the blog one day, next day we read blog entry based on comment with no reference…

“Incidentally, here is a laugh from the Onion and CraigsList (two bastions of American freedom) regarding the Amish:
http://www.craigslist.com/about/onion.party.html

Posted by: Davi Ottenheimer at May 10, 2005 06:01 ”

I’ve seen you give credit to BoingBoing once, so perhaps you could start to include who/where you heard the tip from?

mud and flame • May 16, 2005 2:43 PM

Davi, you think Bruce’s entry about a recent Onion article was based on your comment about a page that reprints a totally different Onion article? When the page you mentioned doesn’t even contain a link to The Onion itself? And when Onion links are commonly passed around by seemingly everyone on the internet? Seems like a stretch.

Bruce Schneier • May 16, 2005 4:58 PM

“I’ve seen you give credit to BoingBoing once, so perhaps you could start to include who/where you heard the tip from?”

Sorry. I saw that article when I visited the Onion. I don’t even remember the blog comment.

Davi Ottenheimer • May 16, 2005 6:59 PM

@mud and flame

Correct. It is a stretch, especially compared to this blog entry:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/02/smart_water.html

I sent an email to Bruce about Smart Water and the next day found it became the blog entry of the day.

No big deal really, I was just curious if Bruce prefers to keep his sources anonymous for some reason, or if he is just super-busy and loses track of the data. His message above indicates the latter and he’s willing to give credit if you call it out.

Bruce Schneier • May 17, 2005 1:29 AM

Davi: Mostly I keep sources anonymous. I often get URLs from multiple people, I sometimes forget where I find something and iIt’s honestly too much of a pain to track down permission every time I use something someone emailed me.

If there’s a URL where I found something, I try to credit. But I’m not perfect about that either.

Anonymous • May 17, 2005 10:18 AM

Thanks Bruce! I’m usually worried about taking too much credit for people but in your case I really appreciate it. Nothing boosts my reputation like logs about security.

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