It's Easy To Steal Identities (Of Corporations) 140
jfruh writes "Two lawyers in Houston were able to exploit business filing systems to seize control of dormant publicly traded corporations — and then profit by pushing their worthless stock. In many states, anyone can change important information about a publicly registered company — including the corporate officers or company contact information — without any confirmation that they have anything to do with the company in the first place. Massachusetts requires a password to do this through the state registry's website, but they'll give you the password if you call and ask for it. Long focused on individual ID theft, state governments are finally beginning to realize that corporate ID theft is a huge problem as well."
Boo frickin' Hoo (Score:2, Insightful)
As Munchkin said, this is just fraud. Corporations are NOT people, they can't have their ID stolen.
And given the way that the corps have been raping the public lately, I find it hard to be sympathetic.
Re:Boo frickin' Hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously, corporations are not people are not companies are not businesses, otherwise we wouldn't make the point of distinguishing them with different names.
Also obviously, ID "theft" isn't really theft, because you aren't (fully) denying that person their own identity.
TFA (if you bothered to read it) is about "identity thieves" who masquerade as executives of the corporation, when they are in fact not. The point here, is that corporations are agreements (contracts) among people, and "corporate ID theft" causes illegitimate harm to very real individuals.
Overall, the point of TFA is better authentication is needed for government and other organizations who do business with the corporation (i.e., properly authenticating the members of the corporation as people with the lawful ability to make such decisions).
Corporations 101 (Score:3, Insightful)
A corporation is a "legal entity" (a concept not unlike like a domain name or a handle) created through voluntary consent of the people who established a binding contractual agreement. Different individuals may be subject to different contracts and perform different functions: part-owners, partners, board members, employees of various levels of responsibility and compensation, and of course (usually quite informally) the customers.
Before investing in a company, an investor (or a consultant / broker acting on her behalf, or the institution facilitating the exchange, or an industry publication, etc) can investigate the company and see if it has sufficient policies to ensure secure operations, which would include preventing unauthorized individuals from issuing authoritative communications on behalf of the corporation. If the involved people fail to do this, it is their fault, and they are responsible for their losses.
The involvement of government bureaucrats in this process should not be necessary. Even the supposed benefits that governments provide to corporations (a centralized registry, undue liability limitations, etc) ultimately do more harm to the marketplace than good. The government currently exists as the default arbitrator [wikipedia.org] and enforcer of contracts, but there's no need for this function to be a monopoly [wikipedia.org]. In a sufficiently advanced society, multiple agencies can exist to protect Rights and enforce contracts [wikipedia.org] - just as long as boundaries of their jurisdiction (which need not be geographical) are clearly and openly defined in advance.
Corporate law should be like programming - you have to think about security and implement appropriate restrictions yourself.
(Signed: AlexLibman's sockpuppet [slashdot.org].)
Re:Wouldn't that just be corporate fraud? (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporate Fraud? Deceptive conduct? Could the lawyers get disbarred?
I would hope so.
Either way, now that the Federal indictment has gotten through -- getting disbarred is the least of their worries right now.
Re:Boo frickin' Hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with whether corporations are people, even an IP packet has an ID. And packets can have their ID stolen. What sequence of logic did you go through to convince yourself that corporations can't have their ID stolen merely because they are not people?
Secondly, you have to understand that real people got ripped off here, in bad stock deals, etc. You're not supposed to feel sorry for the corporation, you're supposed to feel sorry for the people who got ripped off.
Re:Boo frickin' Hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll accept that a corporation is people.
I will not accept that a corporation is a person (of its own).
There's a big difference there.
-uso.
Re:Wouldn't that just be corporate fraud? (Score:5, Insightful)
Could the lawyers get disbarred?
Well, if a hacker can go to jail for hacking some online system then disclosing how they did it (to improve security, without even charging service fees), then Lawyers should face the same punishment too.
Re:Corporations 101 (Score:4, Insightful)
>The involvement of government bureaucrats in this process should not be necessary.
>should
You use that word, but we don't live in that fantasy land.
--
BMO
Re:Boo frickin' Hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a difference between "personhood" and being a legal entity. Corporations are legal entities, in that they can perform legal actions, but they are not natural persons, for obvious reasons. In most countries (such as those in Europe), the distinction between legal persons and natural persons is made. This because natural persons have additional rights (beyond the obvious human rights).
Simple example: consumer law applies to natural persons trading with a legal person, but not to trade between different legal persons (ie. business to business transactions). If you have your own one-man company, buying for yourself or for the company still matters.
I'm not sure what the US perspective is, but from the complaining on /., it seems that the problem is that rights intended for natural persons is attributed to legal persons (ie. corporations). That's not a good idea. Here's an example why:
Imagine that corporations would send money to politicians, hiding it by claiming "privacy". Obviously, privacy is a right intended for natural persons (some formulations of human rights include a definition of privacy). Corporations do not need a right to privacy*. And it is easily exploited for blatant corruption.
Okay, that is a huge hyperbole, but I think it clarifies the point.
* obviously, they do have the right to kick you off their property. Property is attributed to legal persons.
Errr.... no. (Score:4, Insightful)
I hope you were joking.
Two people cannot use the same identity at the same time. Attempts to, say obtain two valid Driver's Licenses, Passports, and voter registrations simultaneously doesn't work too well. Not to mention the fun around tax time.