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Frank Abagnale: “Catch Me If You Can” – Talks at Google [video]
- akhilcacharya 9y agoI had never seen him give a talk before - is this one of his first that's publicly available? He's a phenomenal storyteller.
- shoover 9y agoThat’s what I was thinking. It’s also great PR for the FBI to demonstrate competence and an optimistic outlook in a time when DOJ is taking hits from the executive branch and the rank and file get no public defense from the AG.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- maxxxxx 9y agoGiven his history I would expect him to be an extremely charming and charismatic person.
- briankelly 9y agoHe spoke at my University and mentioned that he does talks regularly now - not sure if any other are recorded though.
- giosch 9y agoTalks yes, telling his own story I don't think so. He specifically say that he rarely tells his story at the beginning of this.
- Daviey 9y agoSee the link in my top level comment, he has had this recorded before.
- syotos2 9y agoIf you click around on youtube you can find multiple versions of this talk : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0fEA0MsiV8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0fEA0MsiV8 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X-LlwupIqc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X-LlwupIqc which are almost identical, though in the google version there is a part about him "being" a doctor missing which is in some other versions i have found. Even the answers to some off the questions are almost identical
- briankelly 9y agoWell specifically he gave his own story at said talk - it did not seem like a rare thing.
- sharpercoder 9y agoA great story. What I do not understand (I am a European) is that he uses a credit card, but not a credit card. I just did an AirBnB and I was prohibited by the system to use my debit card. I was outraged. I still am. I had to buy a separate debit-credit-card to be able to use AirBnB services. AirBnB supports iDeal (Dutch payment system), but only for bookings >6 days. From my point of view, using a debit card is far superior to using a credit card. Why would I want to debt myself to pay stuff? I have enough on my account to pay for a mere AirBnB. I don't want to indebt myself. yet, there is a system which forces me to.
- shoover 9y agoIt’s all about putting fraud liability completely on the bank and not on yourself for the duration of an investigation. And building credit.
- drspacemonkey 9y agoTo my knowledge, it's because if somebody steals money off your debit card, they've stolen YOUR money. You gotta fight with the bank to get it back. But thanks to consumer protection laws, if somebody steals money off your credit card, they've stolen the BANK'S money. It's up to the bank to get it back.
- tyingq 9y agoThey've stolen the merchant's money if it was an online transaction. Bank only takes the fall for card-present transactions.
- gvb 9y agoThe key is that it's somebody else's problem, not yours.
- tyingq 9y agoSure. As a merchant myself, though, I cringe at generalizations that the bank eats the cost. Personally, I think they should, because they have access to the aggregate data that could prevent more of it. Because they take no hit for online fraud, however, they do almost nothing to make things better.
- rev_null 9y agoCoincidentally, Catch Me If You Can was showing at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, MA tonight. It was part of Hanksgiving (Tom Hanks series).
- dannylandau 9y agoThe book is wonderful as well.
- hudibras 9y agoI picked the book up for a dollar at a used bookstore, not expecting much. I then proceeded to tear through it in less than a day. It's a phenomenal story. The book includes everything in the movie, of course, plus a lot of fine details of how he pulled off his scams (I think a lot of HN users would like these; very hacker-like), PLUS an extraordinary section expanding on his time in French and Swedish prisons. The French prison is mentioned in the movie, but they, if anything, downplayed what it was like. I've since learned that maybe much of it was embellished, but I still recommend it. BONUS Frank Abagnale story-slash-rumor: I heard from a friend of a friend that, soon after the movie came out, Courtney Love was tripping out on "something" and started screaming that she needed to speak with Frank Abagnale--somebody who she had never spoken to nor had ever mentioned before. Her agent called somebody, who called somebody else, who called somebody else, and within 30 minutes Frank was on the phone having a long conversation with Courtney, calming her down. No real point to this story, other than it's neat how the six-degrees-of-separation works in show business circles.
- shoover 9y agoI first heard of Frank Abagnale when adjunct professor Edward Amoroso told my information security class at Stevens that Catch Me If You Can was the best book he ever read. A few weeks later he jokingly berated the class when a quick poll showed no one had yet read it. “I said it’s the best book I ever read and no one reads it?!” I had queued it and later read it. I couldn’t agree it was the best I ever read but I did thoroughly enjoy it. Incidentally Amoroso was the most compelling speaker of all my professors at Stevens. It was a shame he only taught the one course.
- Daviey 9y ago"I don't often talk about my life, but $company has asked me to" The talk seems identical to one he gave at Fed Talks 2013, and probably a bunch of other venues: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJIc16aqpO8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJIc16aqpO8 It is a well practiced speech he gives.
- fatjokes 9y ago> It is a well practiced speech he gives. You can tell he pretty much has it memorized. Still a great story.
- Daviey 9y agoYeah! I didn't mean to imply I thought it wasn't. :)
- TazeTSchnitzel 9y agoHe's given it several times for sure. I guess he's saying he's more frequently talking about other things? Talking about his life story isn't his actual job.
- jstanley 9y agoSome of his closing remarks about the future of technology are hard to believe. I highly doubt passwords will entirely disappear in favour of "Trusona". I personally will not be submitting to any authentication scheme that can "100% identify the person remotely". It sounds like a bigger vulnerability than the one it solves. I also find it hard to believe that the FBI can remotely disable a car's engine in the general case. I drive a car which has no ECU. And even cars which do have ECUs don't all have the ability for the ECU to receive radio signals. And even cars that do have the ability to control the ECU with radio signals probably aren't all vulnerable. Edit: but, aside from that, I thoroughly enjoyed the talk. I intend to watch the film.
- shoover 9y agoHe draws interesting lessons from his life that you don’t hear all the time from famous people. One example is the ultimate priority of family responsibilities over money, skills, work, etc. He comes out strongly against divorce due to the lifelong effect on kids (which I think undercuts his point that his own father loved his children more than anything—he may have never missed a bedtime kiss, but he still let his kid be put in that horrific position at the courthouse). Secondly, his admission that he did not see the light or get rehabilitated in prison but found purpose in family and work afterward is worthy of highlighting given the mandate for US politicians to be tough on crime.