back to article We all hate Word docs and PDFs, but have they ever led you to being hit with 32 indictments?

They are potentially the two most popular file formats in the world – Microsoft Word's .DOC and Adobe's .PDF. And it's fair to say they have caused millions of people billions of hours of frustration. But spare a thought for lobbyist and Trump campaign adviser Paul Manafort, of Virginia, for whom translating from one format to …

Page:

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    There's a worrying implication

    Which is that the bank did (or would normally) accept emailed electronic documents as proof of income or assets. I suppose bankers are the most over-rewarded, least competent trade on earth, but after all we've seen, is it still the case that a few token alterations can create a document that the buggers trust?

    1. Mark 85

      Re: There's a worrying implication

      The banks probably trust the "big kids" who have power and influence more than the rest of us. And they see a big profit for large (<$1,000,000) loans. Let's not even get into the implications that political types (or those on the edge or hangers on) can give them some influence for future favors or legislation.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: There's a worrying implication

        "And they see a big profit for large (<$1,000,000) loans. "

        Borrow a few thousand from a bank and can't pay it? Your problem.

        Borrow twenty million from a bank and can't pay it? Banks problem.

    2. katrinab Silver badge

      Re: There's a worrying implication

      Printed documents are no better. Your printer is probably as good as the one the bank uses to print statements, just a lot slower.

      1. bombastic bob Silver badge
        Devil

        Re: There's a worrying implication

        well, consider this:

        a) you go to your bank because you NEED MONEY, because (for some reason) you didn't earn enough and there are expenses

        b) The bank checks your CURRENT income and says "no we cannot lend you money because you actually NEED it right now"

        Now, the bank WANTS to lend you money, because you make THEM money when you pay it back. So what happens normally? Well, they make a decision based on you, your history, how much of your money has flowed through their bank, what your credit rating is, and so on. THEN they give you an approval based on "all of that", sometimes coaching you to 'fudge a little' so they can "sell you the loan".

        This is just business as usual, in reality. The banks want you to pay them because they'll lose money if you don't. But sometimes stupid-regs just "get in the way" and so the loan officers know how to 'adjust' things accordingly to make it work. And it does. And we move forward, pay our bills [most of the time], and everybody's happy, and nobody outside of the bank and customer REALLY NEEDS TO KNOW the details of that process.

        Added: business loans and lines of credit are a bit different than mortgages...

      2. Mage Silver badge

        Re: There's a worrying implication

        " just a lot slower"

        Maybe when banks used Line printers and SOHO users had a daisywheel or MX80 DMP. It might not be true now with a leased Nashutec copy/print/scanner on the network.

        1. Stoneshop

          Re: There's a worrying implication

          Maybe when banks used Line printers and SOHO users had a daisywheel or MX80 DMP.

          They were already switching to high-speed laser printers when I was in FS, so around 1990. And I mean high speed. I was told the (Siemens, IIRC) beast in the basement at a payrolling provider did triple-digit pages per minute. They were doing the payslips for a significant part of the Dutch workforce at the time, which would amount to somewhere between one and two million statements printed per month for just that one task. Banks would have similar machines, probably multiple even.

          The, ehm, paper tray took what appeared to be shipping pallets with specially packaged paper (couldn't get a close look, I was working on a VAX in a different part of that basement, fenced off from where the printer was, but the sysadmin told me a few things about it)

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            It isn't worrying

            While it is easy to edit documents you send the bank (and you could do the same with paper documents by editing an electronic version and printing it...) the thing that stops you from doing it is that it is considered bank fraud, which is a felony. Probably wire fraud if you send it electronically and they can add some more charges if it crosses state lines, etc.

            There are a lot of crimes that are easy to commit but most people don't because of the consequences if they get caught. But desperate times make for desperate men...

    3. Hugh McIntyre

      Re: There's a worrying implication

      Last time I applied for a mortgage here the bank required permission to get the IRS to send them a copy of recent tax returns (note: not me giving them a PDF or printout of the return). If this bank had done the same they would presumably have found out exactly whether the income matched, not just relied on a PDF or printout that the applicant might have edited.

      1. TRT Silver badge

        Re: There's a worrying implication

        In the UK the banks accept scanned payslips, PDF bank statements etc for electronic submission. They have to.The number of banks pushing 'go paperless' and the rise of internet banking means that people are expecting electronic document submission. We'll see, of course, if the new laws opening up financial records to third parties will mean that in future a mortgage or loan application will mean downloading a company's verification tool.

        Oddly the identity checking system seems way, way more advanced than the document checking system. For example, one major internet bank requires that you use a webcam to image your passport or photo driving license (nothing else will do), using image recognition software to ensure that every bit of the captured image is readable at a high level of certainty, then you have to, within a minute, place your own face into the webcam view, and it then checks THAT for image quality before sending the pair of the images off as a combined and encrypted pair. It only runs on some browsers, and it seems to have a preference for inbuilt web cams - a USB plug in one didn't work for me.

        It's a pain in the arse having to get the photo ID documentation, but one can get around that by posting a certified copy of the documentation in - it just belies having an internet bank in the first place.

        1. Justin Case
          Unhappy

          Re: There's a worrying implication

          My driving licence is paper and I don't have a passport. Guess I'm stuffed, then?

          1. TRT Silver badge

            Re: My driving licence is paper and I don't have a passport. Guess I'm stuffed, then?

            Yep. Been through all of that myself. Had to get a passport in the end. Took months and months due to changes to the passport regulations, all that business about grandparent's place of birth etc. You wouldn't think that would matter for the UK - it's almost as bad as someone of Pakistani descent trying to get a visa to visit India. Interviews, retake your photographs (and the price of the photo booth in the passport office... talk about creaming a captive audience), phone calls to your sponsors etc. And that's for a 40ish year old WITH a UK birth certificate, a NI number, a 20 year plus continuous employment history, UK bank accounts etc etc.It was just a lost passport and a destroyed birth certificate from years ago that was holding it all up.

        2. rh587

          Re: There's a worrying implication

          In the UK the banks accept scanned payslips, PDF bank statements etc for electronic submission. They have to.The number of banks pushing 'go paperless' and the rise of internet banking means that people are expecting electronic document submission.

          And more to the point, it's not just banks going paperless. Companies are using e-payslips where each employee has a login and can view their payslips, P60s, etc.

          Last time I applied for a mortgage it was using payslips that I printed myself. They could contact my employer's accountants for verification I suppose, but there exists no "original" payslip in terms of the traditional anti-tamper envelope that we're all familiar with.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: There's a worrying implication

        This is now required by law in the US. It was implemented after the housing market collapse when the

        small mortgage companies were handing out Ninja loans (No income no job approved) to people like candy because the big banks would still buy the paper anyway a week later.

    4. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

      Re: There's a worrying implication

      Not an implication at all. The loan officer wrote back saying the P&L document looked doctored and could Manafort please send a clean copy.

      From the loan officers point of view the idea is to get the commission. Reporting that the documents are obvious forgeries is some one else's responsibility.

      1. Stoneshop
        Devil

        Re: There's a worrying implication

        The loan officer wrote back saying the P&L document looked doctored and could Manafort please send a clean copy.

        Mumble mumble BleachBit mumble Acidwashing mumble. And hey, clean as a whistle.

    5. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Coat

      Is anyone else thinking "And I would have gotten away with it if not for those pesky kids."

      Sorry, just couldn't resist.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: There's a worrying implication

      "I suppose bankers are the most over-rewarded, least competent trade on earth, but after all we've seen, is it still the case that a few token alterations can create a document that the buggers trust?"

      First, loan officers are responsible for the loans that they issue. If a loan officer has a loan go bad, the bank will scrutinize how that happened. I know a loan officer that approved a mortgage against property that did not exist, based on falsified title documents. They were heavily investigated, and no longer are in that position. Banks are also very suspicious of personal relationships between loan officers and clients, so they save all email and record all phone calls. Loan officers can't use personal cell phones at work.

      But banks will give load officers a considerable amount of latitude to make decisions, as banks need to make loans in order to make money. That is, until things start to go bad, in which case they are out of a job.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: There's a worrying implication

        banks need to make loans ignorant customers in order to make money.

        Fixed it for you. I'd say that the majority of a bank's income is based on keeping customers stupid, because I have seen some stunts by banks attempting to bamboozle end users that were truly jaw dropping. I have absolutely zero respect for most banks, because they're all at it, so I also have no compunction to switch banks when it suits me, and God help them if any of them wants to be creative.

  2. Lee D Silver badge

    Could have just bought Nitro PDF or the proper Adobe Acrobat and edited it directly, though, couldn't you?

    The purpose of PDF is to act as the "final version" of something and reversing/editing is more difficult than necessary only for the expense of the software licence to do so.

    I imagine that a few cryptographic signatures in the PDF would mess things up nicely and provably, if anyone actually bothered to use those, though.

    But as stated - if an emailed PDF is accepted as proof of income nowadays, without other verification, then holy cow I could be a billionaire.

    It is a sad state of affairs that all my bills, bank statements, payslips and tax confirmations are supplied to me as PDFs, but not one of them is properly signed as takes seconds in any kind of PDF creation software. Where any kind of editing - whether with proper software or not - would break the cryptographic signature as I don't have the private key necessary to sign it as someone else. And NOBODY knows that or uses it, despite it being no more complicated than the SSL icon in your browser.

    1. TRT Silver badge

      Myself and my office-mate been trying to get cryptographic digital signatures for PDFs adopted by my workplace for over two years. They think it's too complicated, and prefer to stick with audited email through Microsoft Office. They can't even create a PDF form to use without signature. Permissions and logins is good enough for them. If something needs filling in or signing, you print it, complete and sign it, scan it, return it. Seriously... they're living in the stone age. Whilst simultaneously forcing us to adopt entirely new working practices to replace established and evolved ones and telling us we've got to change because change is good. They are inept. Totally inept. Demand the highest levels of regard for digital security and GDPR etc etc, yet they planned to send round an IT audit team with just an email warning that "people will be asking to install software on your machine" and that if you have an administrative login, to let them. No list of names, no photographs, no nothing. So I said no - we will install the software and do the audit for you. That's not acceptable, they said. We've got home office licensed areas and we're not even letting you in through the door, I said. You have to, or we'll turn off your network, they said. In that case, not until we've vetted the people doing the audit, and you will be accompanied at all times. Bring your workplace IDs and a second form of photo ID with you. Your memory sticks will be scanned before and after use on the floor, by a member of our own IT staff.

      Trying to tell us about security, indeed. Bunch of incompetent b*******.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        TRT on digital signatures

        Crikey. One process that we're saddled with is involving forms that must be repeatedly scanned, stored, extracted, printed, signed, scanned, emailed, printed, signed, scanned, emailed back, stored, extracted, printed, signed, scanned, stored. Etc. endlessly.

        Eventually it's hundreds of illegible grey-smudge pages with a file size closing in a GB. They switch from email to FTP to move the stinky mess around.

        .: Humans are stupid. []

        1. Stoneshop
          Thumb Up

          There's a few steps missing

          One process that we're saddled with is involving forms that must be repeatedly scanned, stored, extracted, printed, signed, scanned, emailed, printed, signed, scanned, emailed back, stored, extracted, printed, signed, scanned, stored sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat and recycled as firelighters.

        2. Someone Else Silver badge

          Re: TRT on digital signatures

          Humans are stupid.

          Well, maybe not all. But certainly those who have passed the Peter Principal threshold (which basically includes any suits in a Fortune 500 company in the US).

          1. TRT Silver badge

            Re: TRT on digital signatures

            I don't mind humans being stupid. Really, I don't. They are. Why deny it? What I do mind, though, is when they claim to be professional or competent or otherwise beyond error. It's a form of hypocrisy and that's the thing that grinds my gears above all else. The IT directorate bleating on about cyber security endlessly then expecting absolute trust and a different set of rules for their staff, or shirking any sort of hard work that would actually mean they comply with the best practises that they are proscribing... it's like the local priest preaching hell and damnation and putting, literally, the fear of God into the little kids from the pulpit, about paedophiles and original sin and how buggery condemns you to burn in eternal fires... then bending their favourite choirboy over a chair in the vestry and blessing their ring with their rod and staff thy comfort still.

      2. EarthDog

        That reminds me of a story. I was working on a project for a large government organization. We were accepting a new app from a 3rd party and learning the system. The system could run a official report and then save it off. Well it saved it off but for 2 problems; the document which was an important legal document was neither locked nor signed. Which of course meant it could be easily tampered with. I was working QA on that one and flagged as a security breach (said government agency was paranoid about security).

        We went to the vendor and asked for a fix. They considered it no big deal. One person went so far as to say "EarthDog cares about it but no one else does". Once our customer found about it they was rather upset.

        That lack of professionalism is why I hate working in software.

    2. Danny 14

      word supports PDF for reading and writing. has done since 2013. Word 2013 does a reasonable job at taking apart most pdfs. especially ones saved or printed from word (ie via dopdf etc)

    3. Stoneshop

      I imagine that a few cryptographic signatures in the PDF would mess things up nicely and provably,

      How about a dash of Smart Blockchain?

    4. EarthDog

      Yes, you can add a digital check sum to it. If the version changes, the checksum changes. It allows you to track versions.

      1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Yes, you can add a digital check sum to it. If the version changes, the checksum changes.

        What would a non-digital checksum be? Real-valued?

        Checksums are trivial to forge. For tamper resistance you need a digital signature, HMAC, or other mechanism that (strongly) incorporates some secret not available to the forger.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      PDF

      "The purpose of PDF is to act as the "final version" of something and reversing/editing is more difficult than necessary only for the expense of the software licence to do so."

      Nope! That's how some people use it, but remember, the "P" in PDF stands for "portable", not "permanent".

      Yes, your average accountant thinks a pdf cannot be altered in any way, but we know better.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      What are the chances I could self sign my bank statement of "£1,000,000" with the cert from Barclays Ba|\|k?

      Other hidden characters are available.

  3. Someone Else Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    But spare a thought for lobbyist and Trump campaign adviser Paul Manafort, of Virginia, for whom translating from one format to another has led directly to the imposition of no less than 32 US federal indictments for fraud and conspiracy.

    No! I have more important things to do with my thoughts than waste them on that fetid pile.

  4. beep54

    I have no sympathy whatsoever for this gang of criminals. The quicker they are brought to justice, the better for us all.

  5. Someone Else Silver badge
    FAIL

    Well, you see, now there's the problem...

    But the bookkeeper was a stickler for the rules and said they couldn't really add income to a statement before it was received.

    Ahhh, so now we get to the crux of the whole problem! Manafort and Gates made the colossal mistake of hiring someone with a moral compass and ethics to be a bookkeeper for a company that has neither.

    You fuels! That'll learn ya!

    1. Allan George Dyer
      Holmes

      Re: Well, you see, now there's the problem...

      That's the Catch-22 for criminals-if you hire an honest bookkeeper, they refuse to "adjust" the figures, but if you hire a dishonest one, they adjust the figures and then run off with your (cough) money. You could try hiring a stupid bookkeeper, but that brings some new problems.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Well, you see, now there's the problem...

        That's the Catch-22 for criminals-if you hire an honest bookkeeper, they refuse to "adjust" the figures, but if you hire a dishonest one, they adjust the figures and then run off with your (cough) money.

        So difficult to get good staff these days.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Well, you see, now there's the problem...

          "That's the Catch-22 for criminals-if you hire an honest bookkeeper, they refuse to "adjust" the figures, but if you hire a dishonest one, they adjust the figures and then run off with your (cough) money.

          So difficult to get good staff these days."

          Correction:

          So difficult to get good 'dishonest' staff these days. :)

          Although you would have to be 'Very very stupid' to be in any way involved with something 'Dodgy & Financial' when you are likely to be the 1st suspect !!!

      2. Chairman of the Bored

        Re: Well, you see, now there's the problem...

        Simple solution I've seen: have two bookkeepers. One keeps a clean set for the tax man and banks, the second - paid in cash - tracks the kickbacks "donations" and cash income. Make damn sure these guys never meet.

        Guess Manafort was too cheap to do a proper job.

        Pro tip: if you find yourself in a situation where you DO know both bookkeepers, GTFO.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Well, you see, now there's the problem...

          "Simple solution I've seen: have two bookkeepers."

          An Italian gentleman I used to know said that every businessman needs five sets of accounts: One for the government, one for the bank, one for his wife, one for his mistress, and the little book he never lets out of his sight.

          If you're going to go bent, do it properly.

          1. eionmac

            Re: Well, you see, now there's the problem...

            This is not a fallacy. As I was "trusted", once when I visited to an Italian firm, I was asked to witness the owner's signature to four or five 'sets' of accounts. Each told a different story for the firm's results for that year I believe, but then I only saw the signature page, not the detail pages. My witnessing his signature was true, the contents of the previous pages was unknown to me.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Well, you see, now there's the problem...

              "This is not a fallacy."

              I try never to post anything that is not actually true (unless for deliberate effect). I may make small alterations to protect the guilty but never of important facts.

              I've been in the interesting position of having two Italian companies each tell me their rival wasn't to be trusted and that their accounts were fraudulent, and I suspect both were telling the truth. The trick is to go with the one who gets the biggest welcome in the best restaurant.

        2. Mike 16

          Re: Well, you see, now there's the problem...

          Movie Recommendation: "The Accountant" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2140479/

          which covers this situation. The title character has many skills appropriate for his client base.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Well, you see, now there's the problem...

        You just hire Arthur Andersen.

        ..or you did....back in the day.

        1. Stoneshop
          Pirate

          Re: Well, you see, now there's the problem...

          You just hire Arthur Andersen.

          Accenture nowadays. With that stupid accent-like sign over the capital A.

          The other large accountancy firms are probably just as good, eh, bad.

  6. Dr. Heinrich Backhausen

    Well, that is the meaning of PDF: don't change. Coming from a deep UNIX (not this kiddies' OS Linux),

    I'm used to the Interleaf suite of document processing (as opposed to poor/pure word processing like Word). Acrobate Professional allows some editing (sorry, I didn't use for some years, so I might not be uptodate). So, if if somebody doesn't keep his editabel version: SORRY!! It's a little bit like 'Top Gear': you are Jeremy Clarkson or ....

    1. Hugh McIntyre

      @ Dr Heinrich Backhausen

      Re: "Acrobat Professional allows some editing (sorry, I didn't use for some years, so I might not be up to date"

      The full Acrobat has an option for "convert this PDF back to Word", in fact. You can't convert back to other formats such as Excel or PowerPoint, but back-to-word works locally.

      1. Primus Secundus Tertius

        Re: @ Dr Heinrich Backhausen

        @McIntyre

        Yes, Acrobat can convert pdf back to doc. I have done it regularly. I am a proof reader for the magazine published by a small voluntary organisation. The Editor sends early drafts of the mag to us as pdf from her desktop publisher, but I want to run the text past the Word spellcheck.

        First one should use the Acrobat facility to add tags. With tags in place, the Word output is less disjointed. Running headers and footers are eliminated, but page breaks still seem to be a problem. If they split a sentence, Word complains there is no capital letter for the first word on the next page. Material in text boxes often seems to get corrupted. However, the exercise does manage to spot a useful number of faults in the draft text.

        Recently, after using Word 2013 for over three years, I learned that it could import pdf as text, that can then be spellchecked. This yields better results than export from Acrobat. But it seems to want pdf from dtp programs, rather than from OCR programs; the latter come through as graphics, not text.

        1. TRT Silver badge

          Re: @ Dr Heinrich Backhausen

          Ah, but the problem is, if you're a bit short of dosh in the first place, how do you get a loan to pay for a full copy of Acrobat? ;)

          OK, I know, a bit of a tongue in cheek poke at Adobe's relatively new SaaS licensing model, and I know Acrobat Pro does have a more traditional licensing option available - the only part of the suite that does, I think. But still, it's worth a cheap shot about the price of Adobe software now. Suits some customers, but not us for sure.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge
            Happy

            Re: @ Dr Heinrich Backhausen

            "But still, it's worth a cheap shot about the price of Adobe software"

            Don't you mean an expensive shot?

Page:

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon