How late in the Industrial Age is it practical to masquerade as somebody else, given the existence of (say) photographs and telegraphs?

Well, there was that man who was arrested in New York, mistaken for a convicted criminal in California, and spent two years in prison accidentally under an assumed name. The man in question was insane, and thus not terribly able to plead his case, but the fact was, with all the ID procedures that happen in the prison system, nobody noticed he was the wrong man. (Nobody bothered to compare fingerprints, and the two men were the same race, though not the same age and didn't look that much like each other.)

This was in the last 4 years -- I read about it in the NYT Magazine.

While it may be impossible to claim a dukedom in this late age, certainly it is possible to create a new identity from scratch, using gravestone data from children born the same year as you. (I didn't get a social security number till I was ten, so if I'd died at 6, I'd have been a perfect candidate.) More and more children are getting SSNs at birth, though, so that loophole is closing.

Being born in a war zone, or really, living in a war zone at any time, is still pretty good for self-reinvention. Probably the "I was born in a small town, and the Official Records office burned down" excuse no longer works, what with statewide/national repositories of that kind of information. But if the state/national office burned down, or even just got shelled a little bit, go for it!

Of course, people still do claim "I'm descended from the Hapsburgs," I bet. It's just that anybody who bothers to doubt this claim could probably disprove it pretty well. So the assertions of nobility have to be subtler or less assertive.

There's a woman in this training session that's too beautiful. I need to get her thrown out so I'll be able to concentrate--well, not on the materials, perhaps, but at least on normal slacking.

It's like that story where the thief sues the person whose house he's injured breaking into, and the lawsuit gets escalated to god because one of the people making one of the bits that went into the window was distracted by a beautiful woman that walked by, and that's why it was faulty.

Except without the lawbreaking or the religion.

question: those of you watching this season of The Amazing Race: family Edition, are you liking it?

Sue, that's great - you're passing along the nice!

I didn't even mention the lady I met with at the bank who brought my wallet to me when I forgot it after our meeting. I sent her flowers. So I guess what goes around does come around.

Being born in a war zone, or really, living in a war zone at any time, is still pretty good for self-reinvention. Probably the "I was born in a small town, and the Official Records office burned down" excuse no longer works, what with statewide/national repositories of that kind of information. But if the state/national office burned down, or even just got shelled a little bit, go for it!

I wonder if Katrina did any kind of number on Gulf State records.

question: those of you watching this season of The Amazing Race: family Edition, are you liking it?

I never even watched last week's episode because I hate nearly everybody so much.

I got bored a couple weeks ago because there were just too many people to keep track of and they weren't that interesting.

I wonder if Katrina did any kind of number on Gulf State records.

I know it took days if not weeks for them to figure out who all the people were in the Orleans jail, and then more time to figure out why they were in jail, and when they should be getting out. They had to get defense attorneys to pool information, because all the official stuff was gone or inaccessible.

She's still being extremely pretty.

poor ita. perhaps imagine her being ugly on the inside?