Wendy stared at her phone in disbelief. What was going on, she asked herself. Perhaps it was just someone's version of a bad joke. Or maybe she had messed with fire one too many times as an identity thief and synthetic identity creator. Whatever the case, one of her identities had come to life.
It all started when she had created a fake identity, Elizabeth Elliot. Liz came together nicely, developing credentials and even getting her own social media presence. Wendy specialized in creating whole profiles, meticulously piecing components together and managing the identities to build them up. She took identity fraud to the next level to be able to circumvent a variety of controls in order to put her schemes to use. She would also sell the profiles to those who could better execute different attacks.
One day when Wendy logged in to Liz's personal social media account, she noticed a strange posting that she had never added.
"Where am I? Who am I?" fictional Liz posted. It was odd to Wendy and she promptly deleted it.
A few days later when Wendy accessed the account again she found that Liz had been adding and conversing with new friends. In every post and message Liz was questioning who she really was. This freaked Wendy out. Not knowing what else to do, she deleted the entire Elizabeth Elliot profile. It had to have been a joke. Someone must have been able to access the profile. She'd have to be more careful in the future to avoid her synthetic identities identity's being stolen. In truth, it had been an account takeover of the profile. Unfortunately, Wendy was unaware of the information the other thief had and the extent they would go to with it.
Everything seemed to be back on track until Wendy logged into her personal social media account. A friend request had come through...from Elizabeth Elliot. Along with the request was one word.
"Mom?" Wendy should have concluded that it was just someone messing with her but she was seriously shaken by the request to connect. She denied the request but eventually curiosity had got the better of her. The identity fabricator would view Liz's new profile. No one would go to this level with a fake profile, she thought. She was the best in the game; Liz was posting too much and appeared to still be looking for answers. And she never actually did anything; how could she if she was a digital being. The Liz identity would question and ponder her existence, asking others on the platform for advice, and wanting to know how to connect with her...MOM?
I'm the mom, thought Wendy. She is looking to connect with me. Eventually the fraudster had the courage to meet with her creation, a strange daughter of sorts that she had only intended to defraud with. The first interactions were difficult. Liz had a lot of questions about who she was. Wendy, a great model of truthfulness, wholly lied to her. Eventually, the strange family became friends. Wendy's conscience got the better of her. While she liked Liz, the nefarious nature of her birth made the criminal question her profession. What if other fake identities came to life? What if all of them weren't as understanding as Liz was?
Wendy stopped committing identity fraud and her and Liz continued to be friends...until the fraudster who took over the Liz profile went to jail and never logged in again. The end.
The moral of the story? Don't create synthetic identities.