CPAs read about fraud schemes so we can learn what they look like. The concept is that if we see a fraud during an audit, we will be able to recognize it as such.
When doing that sort of reading, I’ll often thing “wow, I never woulda’ though of that!”
I have that reaction to the very sophisticated scam pulled by Olympus. Also have that reaction to a large bank setting up a department in Asia to remove all indications from wire transfers that the money belongs to someone in Iran so that the wire will successfully clear the U.S. banking system and thus launder dollars for your customers who can’t do business in the U.S.
I would never come up with those ideas. Who sits around thinking up these things?
Likewise with using the privacy settings on a phone to hide from one girlfriend that you are deeply involved with a few other ladies. Never would have crossed my mind. I would have never thought of hiding the existence of messages and caller info on my phone as a tool to conceal infidelity.
Yet men (obviously not gentlemen) in Japan have been doing that for years.
Seems there’s a phone sold only in Japan that is quite a help if you want to keep the sweetie you are with now from seeing the texts your other sweeties just sent you. See The Wall Street Journal article Japan’s Philanderers Stay Faithful to Their ‘Infidelity Phones’.
There is a very discreet change in some symbol on the phone to show a message or text you want to keep hidden just arrived. A special code reveals the private communications.
Seems this phone is only available in Japan and then only on certain older phones. The new smart phones don’t have those built-in features. Thus, some guys are refurbishing their old phones instead of upgrading to new ones.
Article closes with quoting someone who designed an app available in the U.S. market which will do the same thing. Said developer admired the capabilities of the Japanese phone when it was described to him.
That whole capability would have never crossed my mind. Amazing what tech can do, huh?