I led the team that developed the fraud detection software for the largest online auction house in the world.
Scammers sold products, did not deliver them to paid customers, then dropped off the site. The perp then changed every identifier — name, address, credit card, phone, literally every ID — and rejoined the site.
Fraud detection software was blind because there was nothing in common between the bad guy and the newly listed same bad guy. Neural nets were useless; there were no patterns.
This was a high-profile deal. It was front-page national news for months. The Secret Service, the FBI, about every fraud detection company was trying to solve it. They could not.
We delivered a fraud technology that stopped auction fraud in its tracks. The auction site publicly stated such, noting it in its annual report.
We know a little bit about fraud, cyber-security, computer programming, and “glitches.”
Software is really stupid stuff. It does not go off on its own, has no mind of its own, and there is no intelligence anywhere in code. It performs instructions and does them over and over, exactly the same every time, no matter what.
Until something changes.
Something changing is not a “glitch.” It is a change…
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