13 ms·

A forged Apple employee badge

952 points by ecliptik 2y ago

batmanthehorse 2y ago
Interesting but I wasn't entirely convinced that it's fake. There might be more to this story. Maybe the seller is the one who got scammed when they bought it 20 years ago.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- wetpaws 2y ago
  They did not cause their "invoice" was also fake
  - quink 2y ago
    With a price on the invoice of “3.000” Mark, with the decimal point being the thousands separator. Or about 1,500 EUR in today’s money. Yeah, I don’t think so.
    - ttepasse 2y ago
      In Germany the dot is the most used thousands separator. It is still a fake.
      - quink 2y ago
        I know that, I wasn’t expressing incredulity at that, I was expressing incredulity at the price of 3,000 DM… while also wanting to make clear that it wasn’t 3 DM.
        ttepasse 2y ago
        A then I seem to have misread. Sorry.
- ttmb 2y ago
  Maybe they did. Do you suppose they got scammed on eBay - which they "perfectly" remember buying it from - or from the Red Cross, which they have an invoice for?
- groby_b 2y ago
  That German Red Cross invoice is 100% absolutely a fake. Source: I'm a German who has donated to the red cross. That ain't it. (Also: There needs to be a a specific key phrase without which the German equivalent of the IRS will come down on you like a ton of bricks. It is missing)
  - cromulent 2y ago
    The date 8.12.2001 is a Saturday. This also seems off.
- alvah 2y ago
  I have a bridge for sale. Completely genuine, honest!
  - aix1 2y ago
    I can't tell if it's a reference to this but thought I'd mention as it's a fun story! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridge_(Lake_Havasu_City) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridge_(Lake_Havasu_Cit...
    - microtherion 2y ago
      The traditional bridge sale involved the Brooklyn Bridge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_C._Parker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_C._Parker
- simantel 2y ago
  Did you miss the part where Chris Espinosa said "That’s not Sherry Livingston"? Chris also has a follow-up post not shown in Cabel's blog where he says there aren't any photos of Sherry online: https://mastodon.social/@Cdespinosa/112391173495267599 https://mastodon.social/@Cdespinosa/112391173495267599
  - jandrese 2y ago
    Which is kind of amazing when you think about it. There's no "The Apple Team" group photo that includes employee #10 anywhere? No wonder the scammer chose her when making the fake, it would be impossible to verify the photo without tracking down either Sherry herself or someone who personally knew her back in 1977.
  - CamperBob2 2y ago
    That's an interesting thing to assert. How does he know there are no photos of a given person online? It's getting into Russell's Teapot territory.
    - quesera 2y ago
      Possibly an overstated version of "I know what Sherry looks like, and an image search for her name does not turn up any pictures of the real person". I might say the same for several of my friends.
philips 2y ago
Cabel, the post’s author, tells a similar story about someone trying to jump the line for a Playdate console preorder during this GDC talk. http://gdcvault.com/play/1034707/The-Playdate-Story-What-Was http://gdcvault.com/play/1034707/The-Playdate-Story-What-Was?
etchalon 2y ago
This post will ensure a better fake is up on eBay tomorrow.
- StrLght 2y ago
  Alternatively, it'll raise awareness. If only a few people learn to verify what exactly they're buying before paying relatively huge amounts of money — that would be a win in my book.
paxys 2y ago
The detective work was fun I'm sure but ultimately unnecessary. The burden of proof lies on the seller. Stuff like this is fake by default unless it comes with a certificate of authenticity issued by some trusted party. There's a reason that entire industry exists. Believe me there are much, much better fakes than this one sold online for pretty much every collectable in existence.
- op00to 2y ago
  Cmon, he had an invoice and everything!
- acchow 2y ago
  How does one... authenticate... the certificate of authenticity?
  - throwaway290 2y ago
    Call the body that issued it and ask
    - kelseyfrog 2y ago
      You're saying I could gain a lot of money by issuing fake certificates of authenticity and then answer, "Yes, it is authentic," to anyone who calls and asks?
      - FabHK 2y ago
        > issued by some trusted party
        saagarjha 2y ago
        What authenticates the trusted party?
        tedunangst 2y ago
raverbashing 2y ago
Here's the thing, I don't think the purchaser of that listing was worried it was fake. Though it's weird that Chris's typewriter part looks more fake than the faked card (it's supposed to be an IBM printer rather than a typewriter it seems)
- FabHK 2y ago
  Agreed. The "original" seemed to use a proportional font (with a very narrow "I"), while the fake seemed to use a mono-spaced non-proportional (with a wide "I"), which seemed more plausible to me (for a typewriter).
- floren 2y ago
  It's supposed to be typed with the "Orator" typeball for the IBM Selectric typewriter.
informal007 2y ago
Why people will pay much to buy those kinds of thing that can't identify?
- gosub100 2y ago
  They implicitly trust the facilitator of the transaction. It's a variation on the "greater fool" scam. They think it's the old days where the auction house had any skin in the game, they're not wise to the old (in this case almost 30 year old) silicon valley grift: we profit off a scam, but [ its such small amounts/backed by enormous VC capital/"safe" (for the scammer) harbor/ done across state lines/authorized by predatory ToS (with arbitration clause) ] that the victim is powerless. Thanks for playing, better luck next time :D
  - talldayo 2y ago
    Bingo. Some rich shmuck who's collecting Imagineering memorabilia and Avatar 3D movie cutouts will see that on Ebay and think it's a great deal. Maybe another 20 such people ignore it because it's sketchy (or because they read an article like this), but somebody less-informed will take the risk and give the seller a profit. When I first read the article, my knee-jerk reaction was that this is a victimless crime. If you pay $700 for a laminated square that has an Apple employee on it, you probably shouldn't get upset when your due-diligence fails you and it's a fake.
  - throwaway290 2y ago
    You sneakily jump from "victim is trusting" to "victim is powerless" Yes the victim is trusting because he probably won't think to authenticate the fake. The victim is not powerless, actually. the victim has all the power to get money back. many stories how very easy to get a transaction reversed with paypal/ebay and leave the seller holding the bag, even if the seller is legit.
    - gosub100 2y ago
      eBay sneakily allows the listing to be posted in the first place, even though they have access to the same information as the rest of us. They trust that there will always be a greater fool, they trust that they can claim "we didn't know! you assume the risk when you buy this stuff, we're just a third party ", again, SV shenanigans. Not innovation or even an honest business.
neilv 2y ago
I'm not going to speculate on the truth of allegations of fraud here, but two side points: * A few times skimming this, I didn't understand some of the assertions and logic. For example, I couldn't say just by glancing at the photos that the card wasn't filled out on an IBM Selectric II (introduced in 1971, before Apple was founded). For another example, I see people commenting on VAT tax missing on the receipt from the German Red Cross, and also the confusion over whether it was bought on eBay or from the German Red Cross, but no mention of whether that invoice might be something that the German Red Cross adapted to work with early eBay doing the payments (at least in the US, sales tax for online purchases was very murky, and eBay punted). Also, the author seems to be ignoring cross-cultural differences, in their psychoanalytic speculation about subtleties of seller's behavior, such as seller's perceived earnestness in composing a photo. * This article is going out of its way to publicly defame someone. If they have strong evidence of the counterfeiting and fraud that they allege, they should be going to a legal authority. Given that they decided to get Internet Points out of it, they'd better hope that their allegations are correct, and also that they can prove it sufficiently if sued in some jurisdiction. I would guess that glomming onto mob behavior ("We did it, Reddit!") won't be a good defense.
- anewcolor 2y ago
  The picture in the ID is not a photo of Sherry Livingston (says Chris, who knows Sherry)
- goosedragons 2y ago
  If you look at the employee #8 badge it has an issue date of 3/17/77. So how is employee #10's 3/10/77? There's lots of holes.
  - neilv 2y ago
    > * If you look at the employee #8 badge it has an issue date of 3/17/77. So how is employee #10's 3/10/77? There's lots of holes.* For "lots of holes", I think that's not a great one to single out as an example. This is a tiny company, in California, in the 1970s..., and we're assuming, ahem, German precision, around when they can get a nerd to sit for a photo to laminate an ID card? Again, like I said upfront, I'm not commenting on the truth of the allegations -- just commenting on the weak Internet detective work. The article says: > When in doubt, Engage The Internet® The Internet can be dumb as snot. Have doubt.
art3m 2y ago
More likely that seller truly purchased this on Ebay before and just resisting to admit (or investigate) that he bought fake item.
- nardi 2y ago
  I would agree, except the seller seems to have made a new forgery of their receipt on the fly in response to Cabel's inquiry, which leads me to believe they probably made the original forgery as well.
  - polpo 2y ago
    And the other item the seller had was a Taylor Swift concert ticket that used the wrong font. There’s definitely a pattern there. https://social.panic.com/@cabel/112452964691814590 https://social.panic.com/@cabel/112452964691814590
    - aix1 2y ago
      And here's Steve Jobs thanking someone for an amazing "proyect": https://www.ebay.com/itm/285775420457 https://www.ebay.com/itm/285775420457 (same seller.) P.S. The seller is located in Spain. :)
derefr 2y ago
> And that typed text is way, way cleaner than any typewriter I’ve seen. Pedantic point: electric typewriters (which have existed since the 1960s) do type in a way that looks exactly like this. (In fact, note that the text on the real employee ID card, shown later in the article, doesn't look any less clean! It's just set in a different, narrower font.) The smudginess of mechanical typewriters comes from 1. them striking (and especially, releasing) at the same speed you're depressing the key, and 2. having many of the keys necessarily approach the ribbon from an angle. The keys being swung weakly by your fingers, also has the additional implication that the ink ribbons used in mechanical typewriters have to be soft and squishy (so: made of cloth), and use thin inks. These properties ensure a transfer from even a low-velocity impact. But the trade-off is that cloth ink ribbons transfer only a rough outline of what's struck; and thin inks are high-bleed inks. An electric typewriter, playing out a pre-buffered line with a crisp, predictable report, using linear actuators and a rotating-ball type-head to bang a tape ribbon loaded with high-viscosity ink onto the page, can create text indistinguishable from books/newspapers of the same period, or from modern laser-printer reproductions of the same font faces. They're essentially character-at-a-time letterpresses! (Also, ignoring electric typewriters for a sec: inks bleed more on thin, cheap paper. But this is [a forgery of] an employee ID card — where, for durability, a nice heavyweight paper or cardstock would have been used. You're always going to get a better-looking result inking such paper.)
- anon946 2y ago
  I have used multiple typewriters in my life, and agree. In addition, the look of film/tape vs cloth/nylon is very different, and tape ribbon can look very crisp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ink_ribbon#Single-pass_(polymer)_ribbons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ink_ribbon#Single-pass_(polyme....
  - joe_guy 2y ago
    Do you mind if I ask why you still use typewriters?
    - SoftTalker 2y ago
Nerada 2y ago
This is honestly something that would be interesting to own. It's not $950 interesting, but interesting nonetheless, just for a conversation piece about an elaborate forgery. I've always wanted to either create or purchase intricate set props like the journal from Supernatural [0]. Fantastically fake, but just interesting to have. [0] https://waywardjournal.tumblr.com/post/187259600588/reapers https://waywardjournal.tumblr.com/post/187259600588/reapers
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- stoltzmann 2y ago
  You know, you could also have a forged forged employee badge. Give me a hundred quid and I'll forge one for you. Throw in some extra and I'll make sure it's extra forged and you'll have a story to tell to your friends.
  - knallfrosch 2y ago
    But please don't send him the original #10 Apple employee badge. That would be fraud. In a sense, it would be a forged forged forged badge.
- phyzome 2y ago
  Maybe, but I wouldn't pay more than about $50 for such a forgery...
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
throwaway22032 2y ago
I feel as if the article is missing the important detail that eBay auctions are full, absolutely full, of fake/timewaster bids. I've basically given up on the auction format entirely because of the number of people that try to "pull out" not realising that their offer is binding.
- csomar 2y ago
  eBay is so full of garbage I don't understand how they have $10bn of revenue. Yes, that's billions. But then maybe there is a huge garbage market opportunity out there.
  - phyzome 2y ago
    They're a pretty reliable source for used electronics. I go to them every time my favorite out-of-production camera breaks and I want to get another of the same model.
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    The reality is that eBay is full of great electronics and car parts, and sell shitloads of both. Also most things on amazon that are just drop shipped alibaba stuff can be found on eBay for cheaper and less marketing bullshit.
hnthrowaway0328 2y ago
A sideline question: In Jason Bourne movie there are a few shots showing the protagonist faking passports. Does such technique (looks like no advanced tools are used) exist or just a film fantasy?
- gen220 2y ago
  It depends on who you're trying to convince. TSA/customs? A prospective employer? The guy who runs the corner store? To varying degrees, the answer is yes, the tools exist.
  - londons_explore 2y ago
    Most rich countries now use passports with an RFID chip which contains a copy of all the data in the passport and a digital signature. They also host a server allowing trusted third parties to verify that a given passport is still valid (ie. Not withdrawn). The combination of those mean you will never edit details on a passport, but you might be able to copy a passport 1:1, because the security is only mifare classic.
    - gorbypark 2y ago
      Depending on the intended use, copying 1:1 is kinda "useless" as well, as the picture is also included in the RFID chip. Some of those "quick entry" machines many countries are apparently are doing face matching between the person standing there and the picture embedded in the RFID chip. You can actually read the photo from your passport with an Android phone. Some of the info in the machine readable area is required as a salt, so you can't do a remote scan of a closed passport.
      - jimbobthrowawy 2y ago
        Passport number, DOB, and expiry date based on my own checking. I've used this app in the past; https://f-droid.org/packages/com.tananaev.passportreader/ https://f-droid.org/packages/com.tananaev.passportreader/ I think anyone needing "fake passports" usually gets them from stolen identities (or stealing a passport from someone similar looking) and getting a new one issued. Probably easier in countries that don't require the passport to be sent back for another one to be issued.
ecshafer 2y ago
I think its mildly interesting that Apple went through the trouble of making employee ids when they have 10 people. That seems a bit superfluous at that size. Unless of course they made them when they were larger, and still just added numbers for people.
- fyrn_ 2y ago
  Just because it's employ ID #10 does not mean they made them when they hired the 10th employee. Probably it was later
  - WA 2y ago
    The original badge in the article literally says issued in 1977: https://i0.wp.com/cabel.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/image-1.png?w=644&ssl=1 https://i0.wp.com/cabel.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/image...
- mozman 2y ago
  I think it aligns with the strategy of pretending to be bigger than you are so you can attract business customers. An old startup I worked at used customer IDs in communications that started from an arbitrary 5 digit number to give a false impression of our customer base.
  - ender341341 2y ago
    similarly it's used to be super common to get checkbooks starting with a higher check number cause some places were cautious of taking check #1 from someone assuming they didn't have any sort of credit history.
  - TillE 2y ago
    That was really common among shareware developers back in the day, one guy sort of pretending to be a big serious company. I suspect Tim Sweeney was joining this trend but also mocking it with the name "Epic MegaGames". It's definitely not how people act these days, at least with indie/solo game developers.
ttepasse 2y ago
I find myself fascinated by the forged DRK invoice. At first glance it looks like the shitty desktop formatting common to 2001, its in a German two ring binder, crumpled and yellowed. But then there are multiple things which are obviously and subtile off, the most glaring is the obviously AI-translated phrase at the bottom. I'd love to know the mind of the forger. They did put some serious work into the invoice but then AI-translated an idiomatic American phrase (wrongly!) which wouldn’t by used on a German invoice. It’s accepted that the US movies and television industry can’t get contemporary Germany right [1], often for economic limitations of the productions, but something that still get’s me is when the badly pronounced dialogue was obviously written in idiomatic English and only then translated mindlessly word for word, as if other countries cultures and languages are semantically the same, only the words are different. Maybe that’s what happened with the forger - you can’t know there would be differences if you don’t have a sensibility for difference. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/AskAGerman/comments/1ct1k73/what_is_the_worst_representation_of_german/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskAGerman/comments/1ct1k73/what_is...
- aaron695 2y ago
  When we forged some documents it had a photo of a grotesque in the background. We worked out where it was and photographed it ourselves. Had to stand on a trash can to get the angle. We joked our documents were high quality than the original, which they were. Used them for years. Do it. It all makes sense after actually doing it yourself. People think forgers copy pixel by pixel but it's remaking assets. We guessed the iso standard on the barcodes. We were no experts. We probably got it right, but you have to do this on every asset.
- Maxion 2y ago
  > AI-translated phrase at the bottom. I'd love to know the mind of the forger. They did put some serious work into the invoice but then AI-translated an idiomatic American phrase (wrongly!) which wouldn’t by used on a German invoice. This is especially stupid because LLMs like ChatGPT CAN output phrases that wouldn't be out of tune. I assume the forger got that phrase by literally asking the LLM to translate an english phrase to german, rather than asking the LLM what would be a good german phrase to use.
cdchn 2y ago
Interesting that the exchange with the real Apple employee happened on Mastodon. Seems to be breaking the critical mass for serendipitous exchange.
- archagon 2y ago
  In fairness, Espinosa's been on Mastodon for years.
- yreg 2y ago
  Talking about forgeries of early Apple employee badges is far from a non-nerdy topic to be fair.
  - cdchn 2y ago
    It usually starts with the nerds.
echoangle 2y ago
What was even the point of faking the DRK invoice? How does that in any way mean the item is real? If it’s just some charity sale, I don’t think the item would be authenticated
- s0rce 2y ago
  This is what I thought, its not like a receipt from Sotheby's.
- KerrAvon 2y ago
  It’s an attempt to create plausible deniability — “I bought it from someone else who said it was real.” The problem being that no one would think such a thing was valuable back in 2001; Apple was in much better shape than in the mid-90’s, but it wasn’t that far from Dell suggesting they shut down the company. ebay really should yank this person’s account.
  - yumong 2y ago
    They bought it for 3000 DM and then sell it for less than half that price over 20 years later?
    - mewpmewp2 2y ago
      They have trouble supporting their family after Covid19 happened and they lost their job. Please have some empathy.
      - yumong 2y ago
        Do we have aby indication that that's true? They are trying (and apparently succeeded) to sell something that's quite obviously fake. Whatever else they claim should be viewed in the light of that lie.
        samtheprogram 2y ago
        GP was being sarcastic. It’s indeed a part of a sob story meant to dissuade potential buyers from looking over things too deeply.
KennyBlanken 2y ago
> At first, it looked good. The plastic was scuffed with age, No, the plastic is very clearly scuffed with something abrasive like sandpaper. You'd never see wear patterns like that from age/use - it would be a very matte look, not clear scratches.
- mjlee 2y ago
  > But it also felt a little off. The scuffing looked… sandpapery. Is in the very next paragraph.
labcomputer 2y ago
I'm surprised that neither the blog post nor the comments here yet mentioned another obvious giveaway to the forgery: The photo and card inside the plastic lamination show signs of wear. Parts of the photo are rubbed off around the edge, and the paper is stained. At the same time, the lamination is relatively clean. How does that make any sense? That's suspicious, even without seeing Espinosa's badge. [edit: the photo of Espinosa's badge shows a worn lamination and clean, unworn paper and photo] On top of that, the lamination has a cutout so it can be attached to a lanyard or retractor. The cutout shows no sign of wear. It's as if the forger imagined company badges work like library cards: You keep them in your wallet, and only remove them to check out a book. In the forger's head canon, the company must have later decided to laminate the badges (without replacing them!) and require everyone had to wear them visibly (hence the cutout). It makes no sense.
- kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
  Retractable lanyards weren't a thing in the 70's and would never be used for a landscape format ID. These would have been clipped to a pocket or collar. https://www.watson.ch/digital/wirtschaft/272982293-vom-hacker-zum-apple-erfinder-das-verrueckte-leben-des-steve-wozniak https://www.watson.ch/digital/wirtschaft/272982293-vom-hacke...
  - labcomputer 2y ago
    Sure, but the point is that the hole shows the badge is meant to be clipped to something and worn in a visible place. As such, it will naturally bump into things and the lamination will accrue wear marks.
    - refurb 2y ago
      I noticed the badge hole too. It looks present punched and never been used.
- astrange 2y ago
  I keep my badge in my pocket since the clip occasionally wears out, and I don't think anyone has ever commented on this.
SoftTalker 2y ago
eBay is a cesspool of fraud and forgeries. It would be more surprising if the badge were genuine.
toddmorey 2y ago
This sort of appeal for empathy too (in the context of an auction or collectable) is also a big red flag: "I honestly hate to sell it but since Covid19 I'm unemployed and need to support my family."
Tempest1981 2y ago
More interesting question: Your friend pulls out the fake badge, proud of himself for having the winning bid on eBay... "check it out! badge #10!" Do you tell them that it's fake? Or let them live happily in their joy-filled bubble?
- dkjaudyeqooe 2y ago
  You tell them so that they can get a refund from ebay, if you catch them in time, also so they don't end up accused of fraud when they try to resell it.
- emmender2 2y ago
  When you tell them it is a fake, they will believe more strongly that it is real. Dont we all live in the joyful bubble of beliefs many of which have no basis ?
Maro 2y ago
I think the price is also a yellow flag. $1k seems to low..
- croes 2y ago
  It's just the starting bid
  - yumong 2y ago
    From somebody who paid more than that 20 years ago?
    - croes 2y ago
      Lower starting bids attract more people, sometime leads to higher end bid because of bidding wars
amatecha 2y ago
Oh man, I was getting in on that Mastodon thread at the time (particularly scrutinizing the "receipt", like how it shows fresh creases/folds despite having supposedly been in a plastic sleeve and squished between pages in a binder for 20+ years), and hoped there would be enough momentum that the fraudulent item would be pulled. I'm very disappointed to learn someone actually bought this fake stuff. Sad times.
- modzu 2y ago
  i mean, if nothing else, its art
- callalex 2y ago
  I have a hard time feeling bad for someone who can be that uncritical before spending $1000. At that point the buyer is clearly looking to spend money for good feelings, not artifacts, so they probably actually got their money’s worth.
  - wruza 2y ago
    Yes, they buy a piece of paper for memories and they have it. Real or fake is irrelevant as this whole thing with collection and art is irrational. It must just look real enough to you and your guests to serve its purpose.
- roywashere 2y ago
  The other thing with the receipt is that the dimensions are off: it is not tall enough, it seems like it's printed on US Letter paper, whereas in Germany it definitely would be printed on A4 paper, which is taller than Letter.
  - qingcharles 2y ago
    This would be the biggest tell as I don't even know where you would buy Letter paper in Europe. It's hard enough to buy A4 in the USA. I'm in the USA and I'm a jerk who prints things on A4 and mails them out just to make sure they don't fit in anyone's filing system.
mgoetzke 2y ago
He went to so much trouble with the Red Cross thing to forget its DM for Deutsche Mark instead of DEM.
- rcbdev 2y ago
  In the old SAP docs they do write it as DEM.
- netsharc 2y ago
  And using slash as the date separator. Germans are taught to write dates as DD.MM.YYYY
- Kwpolska 2y ago
  Accounting software might have used ISO 4217 currency symbols (DEM, USD) instead of local symbols (DM, $).
hilti 2y ago
There is so much wrong with the faked Red Cross invoice 1) A German date is always written DD.MM.YYYY 2) PLZ not ZIP 3) „Wir danken für ihr Unternehmen“ is a bad translation for „Thank you for your business“ … but it means a complete different thing -> „Thank you for your company“ But I‘m still impressed how much effort this guy put into all this. And I‘m sure my friends would have bought me this badge, because they had no idea it‘s fake.
- yumong 2y ago
  And the locally used abbreviation for the currency at the time was DM, not DEM. For close to $1000, a little bit of effort is not unexpected. (Also, why assume this was a guy?)
  - s0fasurfa 2y ago
    Another red flag: this invoice was issued just days before the EURO was introduced in Germany (1st of January 2022). Invoices issued in these times would have surely shown the amount in EUR as well.
  - serf 2y ago
    'guy'/'guys' is used without a gender context in certain regions, more like synonyms of 'folks '. I hear "hey guys" routinely in SoCal said without intention of labeling people.
    - pixiemagic 2y ago
      Only in the plural form though, right? I'm in the UK, where the usage you describe is common too, but reading "this guy" like in the comment above, I would assume they're talking about a man.
      - germinalphrase 2y ago
        Your understanding is common in the US as well. Singular “guy” would read as “man” or “boy” while the plural “you guys” can read as gender neutral (though some argue that “you guys” should be avoided in mixed gender groups for being inadequately inclusive). I would expect there are some regional US differences in usage and reactions.
mavili 2y ago
Maybe because my first language isn't English but "forged" to me implies card would've been used for access, or at least attempted, and therefore I feel like the title is click-bait. Had it said "fake" instead I would probably not think the same. That aside, if he hasn't already he should've reported to eBay immediately so the buyer isn't conned.
- croes 2y ago
  Seems to be pretty much synonymous. Example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Diaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Diaries Forged all over the place
- callalex 2y ago
  What word would you use in your native language to mean 1) historical document/artifact that was created later by a liar 2) A written signature on a document trying to impersonate someone who didn’t actually read and approve of said document 3) An ID card a teenager uses to gain entrance to a bar/club 4) a verbal statement that the speaker knows is false when said, for example “of course that dress does not make you look fat” (does this word change if the receiver also knows the statement is false? In English I would call this a “white lie”) 5) A body part that has been altered with surgery (silicone implants, saline injections)
  - mavili 2y ago
    1) Fake 2) Forged 3) Forged 4) Lie 5) Fake As you can probably tell, from my understanding (possibly wrong connection) I think of the word 'to forge' in the context of actually trying to get access to somewhere or something with fake documents. When the intention or the consequence of using such document is more for monetary or material gain, I tend to think of it as fake. I suppose dictionary definition does allow for both usage, i.e. to forge is to make a fake resemblance of something.. etc. I didn't think not knowing accurate definition of a word warranted downvotes but oh well.
    - MarceColl 2y ago
DEADMINCE 2y ago
The author is a little paranoid IMO. Sure given his suspicions I assumed this was more a case of a broken clock being correct twice a day. For example: > But, again again, I had a weird feeling — this series of photos was trying too hard. That binder labelled “BILLS 200[0]—2010”, conveniently flipped upside down for casual authenticity? Why would you put that in these photos unless you were trying a bit too hard to make your case? That's just ridiculous.
- croes 2y ago
  But in the end he was right
  - DEADMINCE 2y ago
    About the base claim sure, not about anything regarding the staging of photos though.
- yumong 2y ago
  I'd also ask how come a single binder would suffice for 10 years of bills.
- UberFly 2y ago
  Seems ok to me. Just a stream of pure intuition that ended up being totally correct.
  - DEADMINCE 2y ago
    Well, the base claim was sure, not anything regarding the staging of photos though.
- cabel 2y ago
  It's totally ok that you wouldn't have had the same gut feeling — but I absolutely did. I wrote that because it seemed like the binder was unnecessary information posed specifically in the photo to try to gain my trust. I think that's largely because the binder was unnecessary information posed specifically in the photo to try to gain my trust. Bonus trivia I didn't mention: if you look at the invoice preceding the one in the binder, it has the logo for the 1992 (!) Barcelona Olympics at the top. A real weird thing to put in your 'Bills 2000 — 2010' binder! I do think this binder is totally real, but should actually be labelled 'My Forged Invoices' ;)
meblum 2y ago
Here’s a link to the sold item: https://www.ebay.com/itm/285841371389?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=dV4ohs51QzG&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=x5rVDG4QTWm&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY https://www.ebay.com/itm/285841371389?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid...
croes 2y ago
Who would have paid 3000 Marks for an Apple badge in 2001?
- tjungblut 2y ago
  and why would the German red cross own it and sell it on Ebay? Ebay wasn't even a thing back when the DM was still around.
  - croes 2y ago
    That was the forgers error. At first he claimed he bought it from the Red Cross in 2001 and didn'tmention how, then he claimed it was one of the first items he bought on ebay in 2003/2004 and didn't mention from whom he bought it, implying he bought it inlcuding the invoice.
  - londons_explore 2y ago
    Germany has always been a rather privacy conscious country. Even now, I suspect if that badge fell into the hands of most Germans, they would either try to return it to it's owner or shred it on the basis that it's someone else's private data.
  - chrizel 2y ago
    That's not true. I have a German eBay account from May 2001 when we still had the DM. eBay was very popular back then and had a completely different feeling because it was mostly used by private individuals for selling their stuff instead of mostly professional merchants like it is today.
eps 2y ago
Funny enough forgers now have an example of authentic badge with the list of things to focus on if they decide to make another badge.
- tomaskafka 2y ago
  Cunningham's Law still works :) https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law#:~:text=Cunningham's%20Law%20states%20%22the%20best,the%20inventor%20of%20wiki%20software https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law#:~:text....
system2 2y ago
How about reporting it to eBay so they can refund the money and ban this person? EDIT: I reported it myself including the original article.
ChuckMcM 2y ago
Always interesting to see people who grift like this. My Dad used to engrave and restore guns. He was quite good at it, and so good that at one point the manufacturer's representative from Colt told him at a gun show that had my Dad not told him he would have sworn the revolver he was looking at had not been restored. I asked him if he ever got people trying to get him to "enhance" the value of their guns and he laughed and said, "Ayup, all the time." Art and antique forgery has always been kind of fascinating to me for that reason.
- scoot 2y ago
  Did I understand correctly that your dad was so good at restoring guns that they didn't appear to have been restored? Could you explain what they means?
  - ChuckMcM 2y ago
    It means that to an expert on the item in question the appearance of the item is completely consistent with its age. Sort of like people who can make a painting recreating the brush strokes, paints, etc. such that it is difficult, if not impossible, to tell it apart from the original. Now in this case it is a bit different since it is an "original." My Dad never did anything that would make someone looking at the gun think it was some other version, the most common 'ask' there was that Colt Single Action Army (SAA) revolvers, which are famously "The gun that won the west", original generation (i.e. produced from the original Colt dies and tooling by Colt) are more valuable than second, or third generation guns. An expert in Colt firearms can look at an SAA revolver and tell you from which generation it was made with some level of certainty. But lots of guns were abused and stored poorly and developed rust or other imperfections. My Dad was able to cure those imperfections and restore the gun to a condition it would have, had it been stored properly its entire life. And yes, that did increase its value, mostly because the gun just looked better.
ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
This type of forgery is becoming quite common. I participate in a community that has some historical literature, where early editions of our literature fetch fairly significant premiums. It’s a relatively obscure community, so there’s a pretty limited market. There are some extremely well-done forgeries. I am told they come from China, but I suspect the means to make them, are available in many venues. I heard a story about a guy that purchased a Winchester rifle from an estate auction. It was one of those old western-style guns, with the repeater action. As an original, it was worth a great deal. He took it to an expert, who almost immediately declared it a forgery. He said it was mainly because it was in too good a shape. It was supposed to be over 150 years old, and looked like it was only ten years old. I have also heard, from a watchmaker I knew, that Rolex forgeries are so good, that even seasoned watchmakers are fooled, and the only way to tell, is to open the watch.
eloisant 2y ago
Also, as cool as it is, I don't think it would have been worth 3000DEM in 2001. Adjusted for inflation it's worth almost 3000 of today's USD. That was just a month after the release of the original iPod, that eventually brought back Apple to relevancy. Apple was still the small competitor that Microsoft kept alive to avoid more problems in their anti-trust lawsuit.
- pcurve 2y ago
  Exactly. At this time, people were either giving or throwing away vintage Apple products because most had very little value in the secondary. I know I did too.
- Cockbrand 2y ago
  Very good point! I was an Apple fanboy back then, and I bought quite a few vintage Apple things on eBay for next to nothing at the time. Even 10% of the stated amount would have seemed quite expensive for this item in 2001.
fennecfoxy 2y ago
And somebody still bought it...
- qingcharles 2y ago
  Sadly someone has bought all of the seller's dubious other items too.
brlnwest 2y ago
great detective work by Cabel! Always loved his attention to detail.
Findecanor 2y ago
My first thought was that perhaps it could be a movie prop from perhaps "Pirates of Silicon Valley" or some other movie about Apple but the badly faked provenance proves that it is not even that.
tasuki 2y ago
I don't know, seems like a victimless crime. Collectors gonna collect. Who cares if it's genuine or not?
- astrodust 2y ago
  I don't know. Collectors?
croes 2y ago
The starting bid was $950 but the final was $946. So he lowered the starting bit in-between
markhahn 2y ago
Can anyone else upload pictures of their Apple ID badges? I figure it'll save time and effort if we just collect them into a Huggingface dataset...
elzbardico 2y ago
Someone bought this. So the lesson here is: Don't go investing on art/historical stuff unless you know really well what you're doing.
- sph 2y ago
  The people that spend almost a grand in buying "historical stuff" off Ebay are the type of people with more money than sense.
brentm 2y ago
Looking at the sellers sale history he has a nice little side hustle selling fake collectors items: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?item=285841371389&rt=nc&_ssn=c.stars&LH_Sold=1&LH_Complete=1 https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?item=285841371389&rt=nc&_ssn...
- archon810 2y ago
  Looks like either eBay took action or the seller killed their account.
- robg 2y ago
  I’m surprised this comment isn’t higher, looking at the history, it seems ripe for the same type of breakdown.
__MatrixMan__ 2y ago
I used to fake a lot of ids back in the day. Mostly so I could buy beer, sometimes so I could take the ACT for people (in exchange for beer, something about taking a friend's money felt dishonest). Selling them as collectors' items... thats a new one.
duxup 2y ago
I just assume most everything with any date related value, rarity, antiques, etc sold on Ebay ... are fake or fake-ish. I casually collect coins and on Ebay there are known high volume scammers selling fakes or coins with heavily doctored images, Ebay doesn't care. It's to the point that I only by cheap stuff when it comes to thinks I collect that is less likely to be faked or I just don't collect at all. Sad situation.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
astrodust 2y ago
The "map" is straight up stolen from this: https://www.iclarified.com/17844/hand-drawn-floor-plan-of-apples-headquarters-in-1978 https://www.iclarified.com/17844/hand-drawn-floor-plan-of-ap...
goertzen 2y ago
Whoever bought this should include this blog post. The forgery/story is more valuable than original/real badge.
ocdtrekkie 2y ago
The picture of "Sherry" also looks like an output from This Person Does Not Exist. Ears are mismatched, eyes are centered perfectly, etc.
yatz 2y ago
On a side note, next person who tries to fake it should have a better idea about how to make it more real :-)
achow 2y ago
This nailed it.. That [picture of employee] wasn’t taken with a Polaroid with a flash. Not worthwhile for a forger (unless from a Hollywood movie) to go extra mile for. There is some lesson there for a budding forensic investigator.
frogpelt 2y ago
I’m not sure if I would have considered it a fake or not without the title drawing the conclusion for me. But it reminds me of talking to someone who adds too many details to a story to make it more believable. Liars are notorious for “remembering” very obscure details. And these pictures give me the same feeling. I agree with the author of the post that it tries too hard.
chrisstanchak 2y ago
Plot twist...Cabel is the seller. This is just to cover his tracks.
havkom 2y ago
But now with 856+ points on HN about it, it is probably a valuable relic!
tsavo 2y ago
Before scrolling down, the first images tell me this was fake. The laminate is the all wrong. Intimately aware of laminate devices & materials used during the period. Source: me, during that time I oversaw security at a Fortune 500, issuing thousands (literally) of IDs for "limited access" areas (DataCenters, SOC, etc) in multiple facilities.
groestl 2y ago
I don't know about the legality of forging an old employee badge, but I find it amusing that apparently the forger broke, for totally no reason, the Geneva Convention protection of the Red Cross symbol, signed into law in many many countries worldwide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emblems_of_the_International_Red_Cross_and_Red_Crescent_Movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emblems_of_the_International_R...
SixDouble5321 2y ago
Genuine question, why does this matter? Not trying to be rude, but this doesn't seem like anything anyone would care about, but this definitely not the case. There are a lot of comments that are nice and thoughtful, which isn't uncommon or anything but surprising to me. I guess forgery is pretty cool, but an old apple badge for some plain Jane apple person? I have to be missing something.

952 points by ecliptik 2y ago

Interesting but I wasn't entirely convinced that it's fake. There might be more to this story. Maybe the seller is the one who got scammed when they bought it 20 years ago.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
wetpaws 2y ago
They did not cause their "invoice" was also fake
- quink 2y ago
  With a price on the invoice of “3.000” Mark, with the decimal point being the thousands separator. Or about 1,500 EUR in today’s money. Yeah, I don’t think so.
  - ttepasse 2y ago
    In Germany the dot is the most used thousands separator. It is still a fake.
    - quink 2y ago
      I know that, I wasn’t expressing incredulity at that, I was expressing incredulity at the price of 3,000 DM… while also wanting to make clear that it wasn’t 3 DM.
      - ttepasse 2y ago
        A then I seem to have misread. Sorry.
ttmb 2y ago
Maybe they did. Do you suppose they got scammed on eBay - which they "perfectly" remember buying it from - or from the Red Cross, which they have an invoice for?
groby_b 2y ago
That German Red Cross invoice is 100% absolutely a fake. Source: I'm a German who has donated to the red cross. That ain't it. (Also: There needs to be a a specific key phrase without which the German equivalent of the IRS will come down on you like a ton of bricks. It is missing)
- cromulent 2y ago
  The date 8.12.2001 is a Saturday. This also seems off.
alvah 2y ago
I have a bridge for sale. Completely genuine, honest!
- aix1 2y ago
  I can't tell if it's a reference to this but thought I'd mention as it's a fun story! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridge_(Lake_Havasu_City) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridge_(Lake_Havasu_Cit...
  - microtherion 2y ago
    The traditional bridge sale involved the Brooklyn Bridge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_C._Parker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_C._Parker
simantel 2y ago
Did you miss the part where Chris Espinosa said "That’s not Sherry Livingston"? Chris also has a follow-up post not shown in Cabel's blog where he says there aren't any photos of Sherry online: https://mastodon.social/@Cdespinosa/112391173495267599 https://mastodon.social/@Cdespinosa/112391173495267599
- jandrese 2y ago
  Which is kind of amazing when you think about it. There's no "The Apple Team" group photo that includes employee #10 anywhere? No wonder the scammer chose her when making the fake, it would be impossible to verify the photo without tracking down either Sherry herself or someone who personally knew her back in 1977.
- CamperBob2 2y ago
  That's an interesting thing to assert. How does he know there are no photos of a given person online? It's getting into Russell's Teapot territory.
  - quesera 2y ago
    Possibly an overstated version of "I know what Sherry looks like, and an image search for her name does not turn up any pictures of the real person". I might say the same for several of my friends.

philips 2y ago

Cabel, the post’s author, tells a similar story about someone trying to jump the line for a Playdate console preorder during this GDC talk. http://gdcvault.com/play/1034707/The-Playdate-Story-What-Was http://gdcvault.com/play/1034707/The-Playdate-Story-What-Was?

etchalon 2y ago

This post will ensure a better fake is up on eBay tomorrow.

StrLght 2y ago
Alternatively, it'll raise awareness. If only a few people learn to verify what exactly they're buying before paying relatively huge amounts of money — that would be a win in my book.

paxys 2y ago

The detective work was fun I'm sure but ultimately unnecessary. The burden of proof lies on the seller. Stuff like this is fake by default unless it comes with a certificate of authenticity issued by some trusted party. There's a reason that entire industry exists. Believe me there are much, much better fakes than this one sold online for pretty much every collectable in existence.

op00to 2y ago
Cmon, he had an invoice and everything!
acchow 2y ago
How does one... authenticate... the certificate of authenticity?
- throwaway290 2y ago
  Call the body that issued it and ask
  - kelseyfrog 2y ago
    You're saying I could gain a lot of money by issuing fake certificates of authenticity and then answer, "Yes, it is authentic," to anyone who calls and asks?
    - FabHK 2y ago
      > issued by some trusted party
      - saagarjha 2y ago
        What authenticates the trusted party?
        tedunangst 2y ago

raverbashing 2y ago

Here's the thing, I don't think the purchaser of that listing was worried it was fake. Though it's weird that Chris's typewriter part looks more fake than the faked card (it's supposed to be an IBM printer rather than a typewriter it seems)

FabHK 2y ago
Agreed. The "original" seemed to use a proportional font (with a very narrow "I"), while the fake seemed to use a mono-spaced non-proportional (with a wide "I"), which seemed more plausible to me (for a typewriter).
floren 2y ago
It's supposed to be typed with the "Orator" typeball for the IBM Selectric typewriter.

informal007 2y ago

Why people will pay much to buy those kinds of thing that can't identify?

gosub100 2y ago
They implicitly trust the facilitator of the transaction. It's a variation on the "greater fool" scam. They think it's the old days where the auction house had any skin in the game, they're not wise to the old (in this case almost 30 year old) silicon valley grift: we profit off a scam, but [ its such small amounts/backed by enormous VC capital/"safe" (for the scammer) harbor/ done across state lines/authorized by predatory ToS (with arbitration clause) ] that the victim is powerless. Thanks for playing, better luck next time :D
- talldayo 2y ago
  Bingo. Some rich shmuck who's collecting Imagineering memorabilia and Avatar 3D movie cutouts will see that on Ebay and think it's a great deal. Maybe another 20 such people ignore it because it's sketchy (or because they read an article like this), but somebody less-informed will take the risk and give the seller a profit. When I first read the article, my knee-jerk reaction was that this is a victimless crime. If you pay $700 for a laminated square that has an Apple employee on it, you probably shouldn't get upset when your due-diligence fails you and it's a fake.
- throwaway290 2y ago
  You sneakily jump from "victim is trusting" to "victim is powerless" Yes the victim is trusting because he probably won't think to authenticate the fake. The victim is not powerless, actually. the victim has all the power to get money back. many stories how very easy to get a transaction reversed with paypal/ebay and leave the seller holding the bag, even if the seller is legit.
  - gosub100 2y ago
    eBay sneakily allows the listing to be posted in the first place, even though they have access to the same information as the rest of us. They trust that there will always be a greater fool, they trust that they can claim "we didn't know! you assume the risk when you buy this stuff, we're just a third party ", again, SV shenanigans. Not innovation or even an honest business.

neilv 2y ago

I'm not going to speculate on the truth of allegations of fraud here, but two side points: * A few times skimming this, I didn't understand some of the assertions and logic. For example, I couldn't say just by glancing at the photos that the card wasn't filled out on an IBM Selectric II (introduced in 1971, before Apple was founded). For another example, I see people commenting on VAT tax missing on the receipt from the German Red Cross, and also the confusion over whether it was bought on eBay or from the German Red Cross, but no mention of whether that invoice might be something that the German Red Cross adapted to work with early eBay doing the payments (at least in the US, sales tax for online purchases was very murky, and eBay punted). Also, the author seems to be ignoring cross-cultural differences, in their psychoanalytic speculation about subtleties of seller's behavior, such as seller's perceived earnestness in composing a photo. * This article is going out of its way to publicly defame someone. If they have strong evidence of the counterfeiting and fraud that they allege, they should be going to a legal authority. Given that they decided to get Internet Points out of it, they'd better hope that their allegations are correct, and also that they can prove it sufficiently if sued in some jurisdiction. I would guess that glomming onto mob behavior ("We did it, Reddit!") won't be a good defense.

anewcolor 2y ago
The picture in the ID is not a photo of Sherry Livingston (says Chris, who knows Sherry)
goosedragons 2y ago
If you look at the employee #8 badge it has an issue date of 3/17/77. So how is employee #10's 3/10/77? There's lots of holes.
- neilv 2y ago
  > * If you look at the employee #8 badge it has an issue date of 3/17/77. So how is employee #10's 3/10/77? There's lots of holes.* For "lots of holes", I think that's not a great one to single out as an example. This is a tiny company, in California, in the 1970s..., and we're assuming, ahem, German precision, around when they can get a nerd to sit for a photo to laminate an ID card? Again, like I said upfront, I'm not commenting on the truth of the allegations -- just commenting on the weak Internet detective work. The article says: > When in doubt, Engage The Internet® The Internet can be dumb as snot. Have doubt.

art3m 2y ago

More likely that seller truly purchased this on Ebay before and just resisting to admit (or investigate) that he bought fake item.

nardi 2y ago
I would agree, except the seller seems to have made a new forgery of their receipt on the fly in response to Cabel's inquiry, which leads me to believe they probably made the original forgery as well.
- polpo 2y ago
  And the other item the seller had was a Taylor Swift concert ticket that used the wrong font. There’s definitely a pattern there. https://social.panic.com/@cabel/112452964691814590 https://social.panic.com/@cabel/112452964691814590
  - aix1 2y ago
    And here's Steve Jobs thanking someone for an amazing "proyect": https://www.ebay.com/itm/285775420457 https://www.ebay.com/itm/285775420457 (same seller.) P.S. The seller is located in Spain. :)

derefr 2y ago

> And that typed text is way, way cleaner than any typewriter I’ve seen. Pedantic point: electric typewriters (which have existed since the 1960s) do type in a way that looks exactly like this. (In fact, note that the text on the real employee ID card, shown later in the article, doesn't look any less clean! It's just set in a different, narrower font.) The smudginess of mechanical typewriters comes from 1. them striking (and especially, releasing) at the same speed you're depressing the key, and 2. having many of the keys necessarily approach the ribbon from an angle. The keys being swung weakly by your fingers, also has the additional implication that the ink ribbons used in mechanical typewriters have to be soft and squishy (so: made of cloth), and use thin inks. These properties ensure a transfer from even a low-velocity impact. But the trade-off is that cloth ink ribbons transfer only a rough outline of what's struck; and thin inks are high-bleed inks. An electric typewriter, playing out a pre-buffered line with a crisp, predictable report, using linear actuators and a rotating-ball type-head to bang a tape ribbon loaded with high-viscosity ink onto the page, can create text indistinguishable from books/newspapers of the same period, or from modern laser-printer reproductions of the same font faces. They're essentially character-at-a-time letterpresses! (Also, ignoring electric typewriters for a sec: inks bleed more on thin, cheap paper. But this is [a forgery of] an employee ID card — where, for durability, a nice heavyweight paper or cardstock would have been used. You're always going to get a better-looking result inking such paper.)

anon946 2y ago
I have used multiple typewriters in my life, and agree. In addition, the look of film/tape vs cloth/nylon is very different, and tape ribbon can look very crisp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ink_ribbon#Single-pass_(polymer)_ribbons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ink_ribbon#Single-pass_(polyme....
- joe_guy 2y ago
  Do you mind if I ask why you still use typewriters?
  - SoftTalker 2y ago

Nerada 2y ago

This is honestly something that would be interesting to own. It's not $950 interesting, but interesting nonetheless, just for a conversation piece about an elaborate forgery. I've always wanted to either create or purchase intricate set props like the journal from Supernatural [0]. Fantastically fake, but just interesting to have. [0] https://waywardjournal.tumblr.com/post/187259600588/reapers https://waywardjournal.tumblr.com/post/187259600588/reapers

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
stoltzmann 2y ago
You know, you could also have a forged forged employee badge. Give me a hundred quid and I'll forge one for you. Throw in some extra and I'll make sure it's extra forged and you'll have a story to tell to your friends.
- knallfrosch 2y ago
  But please don't send him the original #10 Apple employee badge. That would be fraud. In a sense, it would be a forged forged forged badge.
phyzome 2y ago
Maybe, but I wouldn't pay more than about $50 for such a forgery...

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

throwaway22032 2y ago

I feel as if the article is missing the important detail that eBay auctions are full, absolutely full, of fake/timewaster bids. I've basically given up on the auction format entirely because of the number of people that try to "pull out" not realising that their offer is binding.

csomar 2y ago
eBay is so full of garbage I don't understand how they have $10bn of revenue. Yes, that's billions. But then maybe there is a huge garbage market opportunity out there.
- phyzome 2y ago
  They're a pretty reliable source for used electronics. I go to them every time my favorite out-of-production camera breaks and I want to get another of the same model.
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  The reality is that eBay is full of great electronics and car parts, and sell shitloads of both. Also most things on amazon that are just drop shipped alibaba stuff can be found on eBay for cheaper and less marketing bullshit.

hnthrowaway0328 2y ago

A sideline question: In Jason Bourne movie there are a few shots showing the protagonist faking passports. Does such technique (looks like no advanced tools are used) exist or just a film fantasy?

gen220 2y ago
It depends on who you're trying to convince. TSA/customs? A prospective employer? The guy who runs the corner store? To varying degrees, the answer is yes, the tools exist.
- londons_explore 2y ago
  Most rich countries now use passports with an RFID chip which contains a copy of all the data in the passport and a digital signature. They also host a server allowing trusted third parties to verify that a given passport is still valid (ie. Not withdrawn). The combination of those mean you will never edit details on a passport, but you might be able to copy a passport 1:1, because the security is only mifare classic.
  - gorbypark 2y ago
    Depending on the intended use, copying 1:1 is kinda "useless" as well, as the picture is also included in the RFID chip. Some of those "quick entry" machines many countries are apparently are doing face matching between the person standing there and the picture embedded in the RFID chip. You can actually read the photo from your passport with an Android phone. Some of the info in the machine readable area is required as a salt, so you can't do a remote scan of a closed passport.
    - jimbobthrowawy 2y ago
      Passport number, DOB, and expiry date based on my own checking. I've used this app in the past; https://f-droid.org/packages/com.tananaev.passportreader/ https://f-droid.org/packages/com.tananaev.passportreader/ I think anyone needing "fake passports" usually gets them from stolen identities (or stealing a passport from someone similar looking) and getting a new one issued. Probably easier in countries that don't require the passport to be sent back for another one to be issued.

ecshafer 2y ago

I think its mildly interesting that Apple went through the trouble of making employee ids when they have 10 people. That seems a bit superfluous at that size. Unless of course they made them when they were larger, and still just added numbers for people.

fyrn_ 2y ago
Just because it's employ ID #10 does not mean they made them when they hired the 10th employee. Probably it was later
- WA 2y ago
  The original badge in the article literally says issued in 1977: https://i0.wp.com/cabel.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/image-1.png?w=644&ssl=1 https://i0.wp.com/cabel.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/image...
mozman 2y ago
I think it aligns with the strategy of pretending to be bigger than you are so you can attract business customers. An old startup I worked at used customer IDs in communications that started from an arbitrary 5 digit number to give a false impression of our customer base.
- ender341341 2y ago
  similarly it's used to be super common to get checkbooks starting with a higher check number cause some places were cautious of taking check #1 from someone assuming they didn't have any sort of credit history.
- TillE 2y ago
  That was really common among shareware developers back in the day, one guy sort of pretending to be a big serious company. I suspect Tim Sweeney was joining this trend but also mocking it with the name "Epic MegaGames". It's definitely not how people act these days, at least with indie/solo game developers.

ttepasse 2y ago

I find myself fascinated by the forged DRK invoice. At first glance it looks like the shitty desktop formatting common to 2001, its in a German two ring binder, crumpled and yellowed. But then there are multiple things which are obviously and subtile off, the most glaring is the obviously AI-translated phrase at the bottom. I'd love to know the mind of the forger. They did put some serious work into the invoice but then AI-translated an idiomatic American phrase (wrongly!) which wouldn’t by used on a German invoice. It’s accepted that the US movies and television industry can’t get contemporary Germany right [1], often for economic limitations of the productions, but something that still get’s me is when the badly pronounced dialogue was obviously written in idiomatic English and only then translated mindlessly word for word, as if other countries cultures and languages are semantically the same, only the words are different. Maybe that’s what happened with the forger - you can’t know there would be differences if you don’t have a sensibility for difference. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/AskAGerman/comments/1ct1k73/what_is_the_worst_representation_of_german/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskAGerman/comments/1ct1k73/what_is...

aaron695 2y ago
When we forged some documents it had a photo of a grotesque in the background. We worked out where it was and photographed it ourselves. Had to stand on a trash can to get the angle. We joked our documents were high quality than the original, which they were. Used them for years. Do it. It all makes sense after actually doing it yourself. People think forgers copy pixel by pixel but it's remaking assets. We guessed the iso standard on the barcodes. We were no experts. We probably got it right, but you have to do this on every asset.
Maxion 2y ago
> AI-translated phrase at the bottom. I'd love to know the mind of the forger. They did put some serious work into the invoice but then AI-translated an idiomatic American phrase (wrongly!) which wouldn’t by used on a German invoice. This is especially stupid because LLMs like ChatGPT CAN output phrases that wouldn't be out of tune. I assume the forger got that phrase by literally asking the LLM to translate an english phrase to german, rather than asking the LLM what would be a good german phrase to use.

cdchn 2y ago

Interesting that the exchange with the real Apple employee happened on Mastodon. Seems to be breaking the critical mass for serendipitous exchange.

archagon 2y ago
In fairness, Espinosa's been on Mastodon for years.
yreg 2y ago
Talking about forgeries of early Apple employee badges is far from a non-nerdy topic to be fair.
- cdchn 2y ago
  It usually starts with the nerds.

echoangle 2y ago

What was even the point of faking the DRK invoice? How does that in any way mean the item is real? If it’s just some charity sale, I don’t think the item would be authenticated

s0rce 2y ago
This is what I thought, its not like a receipt from Sotheby's.
KerrAvon 2y ago
It’s an attempt to create plausible deniability — “I bought it from someone else who said it was real.” The problem being that no one would think such a thing was valuable back in 2001; Apple was in much better shape than in the mid-90’s, but it wasn’t that far from Dell suggesting they shut down the company. ebay really should yank this person’s account.
- yumong 2y ago
  They bought it for 3000 DM and then sell it for less than half that price over 20 years later?
  - mewpmewp2 2y ago
    They have trouble supporting their family after Covid19 happened and they lost their job. Please have some empathy.
    - yumong 2y ago
      Do we have aby indication that that's true? They are trying (and apparently succeeded) to sell something that's quite obviously fake. Whatever else they claim should be viewed in the light of that lie.
      - samtheprogram 2y ago
        GP was being sarcastic. It’s indeed a part of a sob story meant to dissuade potential buyers from looking over things too deeply.

KennyBlanken 2y ago

> At first, it looked good. The plastic was scuffed with age, No, the plastic is very clearly scuffed with something abrasive like sandpaper. You'd never see wear patterns like that from age/use - it would be a very matte look, not clear scratches.

mjlee 2y ago
> But it also felt a little off. The scuffing looked… sandpapery. Is in the very next paragraph.

labcomputer 2y ago

I'm surprised that neither the blog post nor the comments here yet mentioned another obvious giveaway to the forgery: The photo and card inside the plastic lamination show signs of wear. Parts of the photo are rubbed off around the edge, and the paper is stained. At the same time, the lamination is relatively clean. How does that make any sense? That's suspicious, even without seeing Espinosa's badge. [edit: the photo of Espinosa's badge shows a worn lamination and clean, unworn paper and photo] On top of that, the lamination has a cutout so it can be attached to a lanyard or retractor. The cutout shows no sign of wear. It's as if the forger imagined company badges work like library cards: You keep them in your wallet, and only remove them to check out a book. In the forger's head canon, the company must have later decided to laminate the badges (without replacing them!) and require everyone had to wear them visibly (hence the cutout). It makes no sense.

kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
Retractable lanyards weren't a thing in the 70's and would never be used for a landscape format ID. These would have been clipped to a pocket or collar. https://www.watson.ch/digital/wirtschaft/272982293-vom-hacker-zum-apple-erfinder-das-verrueckte-leben-des-steve-wozniak https://www.watson.ch/digital/wirtschaft/272982293-vom-hacke...
- labcomputer 2y ago
  Sure, but the point is that the hole shows the badge is meant to be clipped to something and worn in a visible place. As such, it will naturally bump into things and the lamination will accrue wear marks.
  - refurb 2y ago
    I noticed the badge hole too. It looks present punched and never been used.
astrange 2y ago
I keep my badge in my pocket since the clip occasionally wears out, and I don't think anyone has ever commented on this.

SoftTalker 2y ago

eBay is a cesspool of fraud and forgeries. It would be more surprising if the badge were genuine.

toddmorey 2y ago

This sort of appeal for empathy too (in the context of an auction or collectable) is also a big red flag: "I honestly hate to sell it but since Covid19 I'm unemployed and need to support my family."

Tempest1981 2y ago

More interesting question: Your friend pulls out the fake badge, proud of himself for having the winning bid on eBay... "check it out! badge #10!" Do you tell them that it's fake? Or let them live happily in their joy-filled bubble?

dkjaudyeqooe 2y ago
You tell them so that they can get a refund from ebay, if you catch them in time, also so they don't end up accused of fraud when they try to resell it.
emmender2 2y ago
When you tell them it is a fake, they will believe more strongly that it is real. Dont we all live in the joyful bubble of beliefs many of which have no basis ?

Maro 2y ago

I think the price is also a yellow flag. $1k seems to low..

croes 2y ago
It's just the starting bid
- yumong 2y ago
  From somebody who paid more than that 20 years ago?
  - croes 2y ago
    Lower starting bids attract more people, sometime leads to higher end bid because of bidding wars

amatecha 2y ago

Oh man, I was getting in on that Mastodon thread at the time (particularly scrutinizing the "receipt", like how it shows fresh creases/folds despite having supposedly been in a plastic sleeve and squished between pages in a binder for 20+ years), and hoped there would be enough momentum that the fraudulent item would be pulled. I'm very disappointed to learn someone actually bought this fake stuff. Sad times.

modzu 2y ago
i mean, if nothing else, its art
callalex 2y ago
I have a hard time feeling bad for someone who can be that uncritical before spending $1000. At that point the buyer is clearly looking to spend money for good feelings, not artifacts, so they probably actually got their money’s worth.
- wruza 2y ago
  Yes, they buy a piece of paper for memories and they have it. Real or fake is irrelevant as this whole thing with collection and art is irrational. It must just look real enough to you and your guests to serve its purpose.
roywashere 2y ago
The other thing with the receipt is that the dimensions are off: it is not tall enough, it seems like it's printed on US Letter paper, whereas in Germany it definitely would be printed on A4 paper, which is taller than Letter.
- qingcharles 2y ago
  This would be the biggest tell as I don't even know where you would buy Letter paper in Europe. It's hard enough to buy A4 in the USA. I'm in the USA and I'm a jerk who prints things on A4 and mails them out just to make sure they don't fit in anyone's filing system.

mgoetzke 2y ago

He went to so much trouble with the Red Cross thing to forget its DM for Deutsche Mark instead of DEM.

rcbdev 2y ago
In the old SAP docs they do write it as DEM.
netsharc 2y ago
And using slash as the date separator. Germans are taught to write dates as DD.MM.YYYY
Kwpolska 2y ago
Accounting software might have used ISO 4217 currency symbols (DEM, USD) instead of local symbols (DM, $).

hilti 2y ago

There is so much wrong with the faked Red Cross invoice 1) A German date is always written DD.MM.YYYY 2) PLZ not ZIP 3) „Wir danken für ihr Unternehmen“ is a bad translation for „Thank you for your business“ … but it means a complete different thing -> „Thank you for your company“ But I‘m still impressed how much effort this guy put into all this. And I‘m sure my friends would have bought me this badge, because they had no idea it‘s fake.

yumong 2y ago
And the locally used abbreviation for the currency at the time was DM, not DEM. For close to $1000, a little bit of effort is not unexpected. (Also, why assume this was a guy?)
- s0fasurfa 2y ago
  Another red flag: this invoice was issued just days before the EURO was introduced in Germany (1st of January 2022). Invoices issued in these times would have surely shown the amount in EUR as well.
- serf 2y ago
  'guy'/'guys' is used without a gender context in certain regions, more like synonyms of 'folks '. I hear "hey guys" routinely in SoCal said without intention of labeling people.
  - pixiemagic 2y ago
    Only in the plural form though, right? I'm in the UK, where the usage you describe is common too, but reading "this guy" like in the comment above, I would assume they're talking about a man.
    - germinalphrase 2y ago
      Your understanding is common in the US as well. Singular “guy” would read as “man” or “boy” while the plural “you guys” can read as gender neutral (though some argue that “you guys” should be avoided in mixed gender groups for being inadequately inclusive). I would expect there are some regional US differences in usage and reactions.

mavili 2y ago

Maybe because my first language isn't English but "forged" to me implies card would've been used for access, or at least attempted, and therefore I feel like the title is click-bait. Had it said "fake" instead I would probably not think the same. That aside, if he hasn't already he should've reported to eBay immediately so the buyer isn't conned.

croes 2y ago
Seems to be pretty much synonymous. Example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Diaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Diaries Forged all over the place
callalex 2y ago
What word would you use in your native language to mean 1) historical document/artifact that was created later by a liar 2) A written signature on a document trying to impersonate someone who didn’t actually read and approve of said document 3) An ID card a teenager uses to gain entrance to a bar/club 4) a verbal statement that the speaker knows is false when said, for example “of course that dress does not make you look fat” (does this word change if the receiver also knows the statement is false? In English I would call this a “white lie”) 5) A body part that has been altered with surgery (silicone implants, saline injections)
- mavili 2y ago
  1) Fake 2) Forged 3) Forged 4) Lie 5) Fake As you can probably tell, from my understanding (possibly wrong connection) I think of the word 'to forge' in the context of actually trying to get access to somewhere or something with fake documents. When the intention or the consequence of using such document is more for monetary or material gain, I tend to think of it as fake. I suppose dictionary definition does allow for both usage, i.e. to forge is to make a fake resemblance of something.. etc. I didn't think not knowing accurate definition of a word warranted downvotes but oh well.
  - MarceColl 2y ago

DEADMINCE 2y ago

The author is a little paranoid IMO. Sure given his suspicions I assumed this was more a case of a broken clock being correct twice a day. For example: > But, again again, I had a weird feeling — this series of photos was trying too hard. That binder labelled “BILLS 200[0]—2010”, conveniently flipped upside down for casual authenticity? Why would you put that in these photos unless you were trying a bit too hard to make your case? That's just ridiculous.

croes 2y ago
But in the end he was right
- DEADMINCE 2y ago
  About the base claim sure, not about anything regarding the staging of photos though.
yumong 2y ago
I'd also ask how come a single binder would suffice for 10 years of bills.
UberFly 2y ago
Seems ok to me. Just a stream of pure intuition that ended up being totally correct.
- DEADMINCE 2y ago
  Well, the base claim was sure, not anything regarding the staging of photos though.
cabel 2y ago
It's totally ok that you wouldn't have had the same gut feeling — but I absolutely did. I wrote that because it seemed like the binder was unnecessary information posed specifically in the photo to try to gain my trust. I think that's largely because the binder was unnecessary information posed specifically in the photo to try to gain my trust. Bonus trivia I didn't mention: if you look at the invoice preceding the one in the binder, it has the logo for the 1992 (!) Barcelona Olympics at the top. A real weird thing to put in your 'Bills 2000 — 2010' binder! I do think this binder is totally real, but should actually be labelled 'My Forged Invoices' ;)

meblum 2y ago

Here’s a link to the sold item: https://www.ebay.com/itm/285841371389?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=dV4ohs51QzG&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=x5rVDG4QTWm&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY https://www.ebay.com/itm/285841371389?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid...

croes 2y ago

Who would have paid 3000 Marks for an Apple badge in 2001?

tjungblut 2y ago
and why would the German red cross own it and sell it on Ebay? Ebay wasn't even a thing back when the DM was still around.
- croes 2y ago
  That was the forgers error. At first he claimed he bought it from the Red Cross in 2001 and didn'tmention how, then he claimed it was one of the first items he bought on ebay in 2003/2004 and didn't mention from whom he bought it, implying he bought it inlcuding the invoice.
- londons_explore 2y ago
  Germany has always been a rather privacy conscious country. Even now, I suspect if that badge fell into the hands of most Germans, they would either try to return it to it's owner or shred it on the basis that it's someone else's private data.
- chrizel 2y ago
  That's not true. I have a German eBay account from May 2001 when we still had the DM. eBay was very popular back then and had a completely different feeling because it was mostly used by private individuals for selling their stuff instead of mostly professional merchants like it is today.

eps 2y ago

Funny enough forgers now have an example of authentic badge with the list of things to focus on if they decide to make another badge.

tomaskafka 2y ago
Cunningham's Law still works :) https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law#:~:text=Cunningham's%20Law%20states%20%22the%20best,the%20inventor%20of%20wiki%20software https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law#:~:text....

system2 2y ago

How about reporting it to eBay so they can refund the money and ban this person? EDIT: I reported it myself including the original article.

ChuckMcM 2y ago

Always interesting to see people who grift like this. My Dad used to engrave and restore guns. He was quite good at it, and so good that at one point the manufacturer's representative from Colt told him at a gun show that had my Dad not told him he would have sworn the revolver he was looking at had not been restored. I asked him if he ever got people trying to get him to "enhance" the value of their guns and he laughed and said, "Ayup, all the time." Art and antique forgery has always been kind of fascinating to me for that reason.

scoot 2y ago
Did I understand correctly that your dad was so good at restoring guns that they didn't appear to have been restored? Could you explain what they means?
- ChuckMcM 2y ago
  It means that to an expert on the item in question the appearance of the item is completely consistent with its age. Sort of like people who can make a painting recreating the brush strokes, paints, etc. such that it is difficult, if not impossible, to tell it apart from the original. Now in this case it is a bit different since it is an "original." My Dad never did anything that would make someone looking at the gun think it was some other version, the most common 'ask' there was that Colt Single Action Army (SAA) revolvers, which are famously "The gun that won the west", original generation (i.e. produced from the original Colt dies and tooling by Colt) are more valuable than second, or third generation guns. An expert in Colt firearms can look at an SAA revolver and tell you from which generation it was made with some level of certainty. But lots of guns were abused and stored poorly and developed rust or other imperfections. My Dad was able to cure those imperfections and restore the gun to a condition it would have, had it been stored properly its entire life. And yes, that did increase its value, mostly because the gun just looked better.

ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago

This type of forgery is becoming quite common. I participate in a community that has some historical literature, where early editions of our literature fetch fairly significant premiums. It’s a relatively obscure community, so there’s a pretty limited market. There are some extremely well-done forgeries. I am told they come from China, but I suspect the means to make them, are available in many venues. I heard a story about a guy that purchased a Winchester rifle from an estate auction. It was one of those old western-style guns, with the repeater action. As an original, it was worth a great deal. He took it to an expert, who almost immediately declared it a forgery. He said it was mainly because it was in too good a shape. It was supposed to be over 150 years old, and looked like it was only ten years old. I have also heard, from a watchmaker I knew, that Rolex forgeries are so good, that even seasoned watchmakers are fooled, and the only way to tell, is to open the watch.

eloisant 2y ago

Also, as cool as it is, I don't think it would have been worth 3000DEM in 2001. Adjusted for inflation it's worth almost 3000 of today's USD. That was just a month after the release of the original iPod, that eventually brought back Apple to relevancy. Apple was still the small competitor that Microsoft kept alive to avoid more problems in their anti-trust lawsuit.

pcurve 2y ago
Exactly. At this time, people were either giving or throwing away vintage Apple products because most had very little value in the secondary. I know I did too.
Cockbrand 2y ago
Very good point! I was an Apple fanboy back then, and I bought quite a few vintage Apple things on eBay for next to nothing at the time. Even 10% of the stated amount would have seemed quite expensive for this item in 2001.

fennecfoxy 2y ago

And somebody still bought it...

qingcharles 2y ago
Sadly someone has bought all of the seller's dubious other items too.

brlnwest 2y ago

great detective work by Cabel! Always loved his attention to detail.

Findecanor 2y ago

My first thought was that perhaps it could be a movie prop from perhaps "Pirates of Silicon Valley" or some other movie about Apple but the badly faked provenance proves that it is not even that.

tasuki 2y ago

I don't know, seems like a victimless crime. Collectors gonna collect. Who cares if it's genuine or not?

astrodust 2y ago
I don't know. Collectors?

croes 2y ago

The starting bid was $950 but the final was $946. So he lowered the starting bit in-between

markhahn 2y ago

Can anyone else upload pictures of their Apple ID badges? I figure it'll save time and effort if we just collect them into a Huggingface dataset...

elzbardico 2y ago

Someone bought this. So the lesson here is: Don't go investing on art/historical stuff unless you know really well what you're doing.

sph 2y ago
The people that spend almost a grand in buying "historical stuff" off Ebay are the type of people with more money than sense.

brentm 2y ago

Looking at the sellers sale history he has a nice little side hustle selling fake collectors items: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?item=285841371389&rt=nc&_ssn=c.stars&LH_Sold=1&LH_Complete=1 https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?item=285841371389&rt=nc&_ssn...

archon810 2y ago
Looks like either eBay took action or the seller killed their account.
robg 2y ago
I’m surprised this comment isn’t higher, looking at the history, it seems ripe for the same type of breakdown.

__MatrixMan__ 2y ago

I used to fake a lot of ids back in the day. Mostly so I could buy beer, sometimes so I could take the ACT for people (in exchange for beer, something about taking a friend's money felt dishonest). Selling them as collectors' items... thats a new one.

duxup 2y ago

I just assume most everything with any date related value, rarity, antiques, etc sold on Ebay ... are fake or fake-ish. I casually collect coins and on Ebay there are known high volume scammers selling fakes or coins with heavily doctored images, Ebay doesn't care. It's to the point that I only by cheap stuff when it comes to thinks I collect that is less likely to be faked or I just don't collect at all. Sad situation.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

astrodust 2y ago

The "map" is straight up stolen from this: https://www.iclarified.com/17844/hand-drawn-floor-plan-of-apples-headquarters-in-1978 https://www.iclarified.com/17844/hand-drawn-floor-plan-of-ap...

goertzen 2y ago

Whoever bought this should include this blog post. The forgery/story is more valuable than original/real badge.

ocdtrekkie 2y ago

The picture of "Sherry" also looks like an output from This Person Does Not Exist. Ears are mismatched, eyes are centered perfectly, etc.

yatz 2y ago

On a side note, next person who tries to fake it should have a better idea about how to make it more real :-)

achow 2y ago

This nailed it.. That [picture of employee] wasn’t taken with a Polaroid with a flash. Not worthwhile for a forger (unless from a Hollywood movie) to go extra mile for. There is some lesson there for a budding forensic investigator.

frogpelt 2y ago

I’m not sure if I would have considered it a fake or not without the title drawing the conclusion for me. But it reminds me of talking to someone who adds too many details to a story to make it more believable. Liars are notorious for “remembering” very obscure details. And these pictures give me the same feeling. I agree with the author of the post that it tries too hard.

chrisstanchak 2y ago

Plot twist...Cabel is the seller. This is just to cover his tracks.

havkom 2y ago

But now with 856+ points on HN about it, it is probably a valuable relic!

tsavo 2y ago

Before scrolling down, the first images tell me this was fake. The laminate is the all wrong. Intimately aware of laminate devices & materials used during the period. Source: me, during that time I oversaw security at a Fortune 500, issuing thousands (literally) of IDs for "limited access" areas (DataCenters, SOC, etc) in multiple facilities.

groestl 2y ago

I don't know about the legality of forging an old employee badge, but I find it amusing that apparently the forger broke, for totally no reason, the Geneva Convention protection of the Red Cross symbol, signed into law in many many countries worldwide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emblems_of_the_International_Red_Cross_and_Red_Crescent_Movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emblems_of_the_International_R...

SixDouble5321 2y ago

Genuine question, why does this matter? Not trying to be rude, but this doesn't seem like anything anyone would care about, but this definitely not the case. There are a lot of comments that are nice and thoughtful, which isn't uncommon or anything but surprising to me. I guess forgery is pretty cool, but an old apple badge for some plain Jane apple person? I have to be missing something.