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Just a thought on the msscribe wank resulting from a look at the latest episodes of the saga. Everyone seems convinced that the lady in question, however sociopathic/unethical/batshit she may have been, did actually pull off a stroke of sheer brilliance -- that she's an 'evil genius' as one person put it in a comment (no, I can't be bothered to look up the link).
So is it just me -- or was she, in actual fact, pretty crap really?
After all, she didn't manage to set up a bunch of real identities with real-life documentation and convincing collateral, in the way that many a con-artist has done before (and when she tried to do so, she fell flat on her face as soon as anybody checked). She just made use of the largely anonymous nature of online identities and interactions, and the fact that few of us really know that much about the people on our flists, to set up a series of tentacles ("One can never have enough socks" -- A.Dumbledore) in order to bootstrap herself into notoriety. And she got sloppy -- if she'd taken enough care to keep her multiple net personalities separate from each other, and to research plausible backstories, no-one would have been able to bust her.
It's been a fascinating and entertaining study (if not that surprising -- there are plenty of people like that, after all), and one that was certainly worth presenting to clear the air. But she really was lucky to get away with it for so long.
So is it just me -- or was she, in actual fact, pretty crap really?
After all, she didn't manage to set up a bunch of real identities with real-life documentation and convincing collateral, in the way that many a con-artist has done before (and when she tried to do so, she fell flat on her face as soon as anybody checked). She just made use of the largely anonymous nature of online identities and interactions, and the fact that few of us really know that much about the people on our flists, to set up a series of tentacles ("One can never have enough socks" -- A.Dumbledore) in order to bootstrap herself into notoriety. And she got sloppy -- if she'd taken enough care to keep her multiple net personalities separate from each other, and to research plausible backstories, no-one would have been able to bust her.
It's been a fascinating and entertaining study (if not that surprising -- there are plenty of people like that, after all), and one that was certainly worth presenting to clear the air. But she really was lucky to get away with it for so long.
