Mystenous keming
January 5, 2022 2:57 PM Subscribe
The perpetrator of a mysterious phishing scam targeting unpublished manuscripts by authors including Margaret Atwood and Ethan Hawke has been arrested by the FBI (NYT): Filippo Bernardini, a 29-year-old rights coordinator for a major international publisher in London (previously)
Basically all the article says is the FBI arrested him at JFK, he worked at Simon & Schuster and he's getting thrown under the bus. It doesn't say why he did it or why his employer is being considered innocent in all this. I guess he was just a highly motivated employee?
posted by bleep at 3:04 PM on January 5, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by bleep at 3:04 PM on January 5, 2022 [4 favorites]
New York Magazine published a fantastic deep dive on this story in August last August.
posted by minervous at 3:19 PM on January 5, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by minervous at 3:19 PM on January 5, 2022 [11 favorites]
The why of it is unclear - the article even notes that the indictment only talks about the how, not the why. The speculation at the end of the article seems to point at the idea that the information about what various publishing houses were buying & how much they were paying might have been the reason.
posted by nubs at 3:21 PM on January 5, 2022
posted by nubs at 3:21 PM on January 5, 2022
Mysterious kerning indeed.
posted by bendy at 3:22 PM on January 5, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by bendy at 3:22 PM on January 5, 2022 [3 favorites]
He's being "thrown under the bus"? On what basis can you even make such an accusation?
posted by PhineasGage at 3:38 PM on January 5, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 3:38 PM on January 5, 2022 [3 favorites]
bendy: "Mysterious kerning indeed."
glonous keming, always
posted by chavenet at 3:40 PM on January 5, 2022 [10 favorites]
glonous keming, always
posted by chavenet at 3:40 PM on January 5, 2022 [10 favorites]
Bloody hell.
This sort of information would be useful to a publishing house, but not particularly to an individual rights executive - way too junior and specific of a role. If he was working alone he was doing it for the hell of it.
posted by ominous_paws at 3:47 PM on January 5, 2022 [3 favorites]
This sort of information would be useful to a publishing house, but not particularly to an individual rights executive - way too junior and specific of a role. If he was working alone he was doing it for the hell of it.
posted by ominous_paws at 3:47 PM on January 5, 2022 [3 favorites]
Makes you wonder if "the suspect" from the Vulture article was Bernardini or not.
posted by clawsoon at 3:49 PM on January 5, 2022
posted by clawsoon at 3:49 PM on January 5, 2022
By "thrown under the bus" I mean it seems likely to me that he's taking all the blame for something I doubt he took all of the benefit from if any.
posted by bleep at 3:57 PM on January 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by bleep at 3:57 PM on January 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
He's Italian, which is enough to make the baseless accusation he was working for the mafia. What the mob's scheme was is the question. Something nefarious no doubt, being the mafia.
posted by riruro at 3:58 PM on January 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by riruro at 3:58 PM on January 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
Nowhere in the NYTimes article is made any mention of the mafia or organized crime of any sort. Nor any implication his employer / publisher was implicated; in fact it explicitly says "it was not accused of wrongdoing in the indictment." Nor any hint of a the accused's motive, just some speculation the materials could be valuable. "Indeed, the indictment details how Mr. Bernardini went about the scheme, but not why."
posted by Nelson at 4:08 PM on January 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Nelson at 4:08 PM on January 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
New York Magazine published a fantastic deep dive on this story in August last August.
Yes, I remember reading this! Thanks for the update, adrianhon!
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:09 PM on January 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
Yes, I remember reading this! Thanks for the update, adrianhon!
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:09 PM on January 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
According to the indictment, to get his hands on the manuscripts, Mr. Bernardini would send out emails impersonating real people working in the publishing industry — a specific editor, for example — by using fake email addresses. He would employ slightly tweaked domain names like penguinrandornhouse.com instead of penguinrandomhouse.com, — putting an “rn” in place of an “m.” The indictment said he had registered more than 160 fraudulent internet domains that impersonated publishing professionals and companies.
I'm surprised that publishing companies as large as Random House have not hired IT or security consultants to deal with typosquatting. Though I suppose catching every odd edge case is hard work, even for the largest of targets.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:19 PM on January 5, 2022 [5 favorites]
I'm surprised that publishing companies as large as Random House have not hired IT or security consultants to deal with typosquatting. Though I suppose catching every odd edge case is hard work, even for the largest of targets.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:19 PM on January 5, 2022 [5 favorites]
It’ll be interesting to follow the story as more comes out. So much is still unexplained, for instance how Bernardini heard about unfinished manuscripts by fairly obscure writers in languages he doesn’t speak.
posted by Kattullus at 4:51 PM on January 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Kattullus at 4:51 PM on January 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
Typo-squatting is fiendishly difficult to protect against, particularly with Unicode domain names (see: IDN homograph attack). We (large financial) spend a *lot* of money to mitigate the issue, but continually find new and interesting ways scammers play on our name. As with most things in security, it's really not as easy to address as non-practitioners think it is.
posted by kjs3 at 5:10 PM on January 5, 2022 [21 favorites]
posted by kjs3 at 5:10 PM on January 5, 2022 [21 favorites]
I'm on a mailing list that has been following this story, a few links: Indictment (PDF), Court Docket, and a News Release from the US Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York.
posted by jessamyn at 5:40 PM on January 5, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by jessamyn at 5:40 PM on January 5, 2022 [5 favorites]
When the New Yorker article came out in August, me and my book discord friends decided it was probably not an American (bc of the respect for international lit), definitely someone working in a group, and probably someone in the NYC lit scene.
So we got some of it right, but sadly it doesn't look like this guy is in a gentleman thieves club or a training-program-for-hackers club, or that he's Israeli ex-intelligence...
This article is so dissatisfying, I want to know why he did it !
posted by subdee at 6:26 PM on January 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
So we got some of it right, but sadly it doesn't look like this guy is in a gentleman thieves club or a training-program-for-hackers club, or that he's Israeli ex-intelligence...
This article is so dissatisfying, I want to know why he did it !
posted by subdee at 6:26 PM on January 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
How do we know that some Filippo Bemardini hasn't just framed this guy?
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:31 PM on January 5, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:31 PM on January 5, 2022 [11 favorites]
it's really not as easy to address as non-practitioners think it is
Not saying it is easy, but for a book publisher to get caught by a typosquatter using kerning is a bit, well, ironic.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:04 PM on January 5, 2022
Not saying it is easy, but for a book publisher to get caught by a typosquatter using kerning is a bit, well, ironic.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:04 PM on January 5, 2022
→
For the same reason that the manuscript expert steals pages from rare book libraries. For the same reason that the first edition connoisseur would stop at nothing to get that book. Bookpeople are stranger than you can imagine. But they have to hold that book (if even virtually) that no-one else does.
posted by scruss at 7:16 PM on January 5, 2022 [4 favorites]
I want to know why he did it!
For the same reason that the manuscript expert steals pages from rare book libraries. For the same reason that the first edition connoisseur would stop at nothing to get that book. Bookpeople are stranger than you can imagine. But they have to hold that book (if even virtually) that no-one else does.
posted by scruss at 7:16 PM on January 5, 2022 [4 favorites]
"Bookpeople are stranger than you can imagine."
Indeed!
posted by kaibutsu at 7:41 PM on January 5, 2022
Indeed!
posted by kaibutsu at 7:41 PM on January 5, 2022
It’ll be interesting to follow the story as more comes out. So much is still unexplained, for instance how Bernardini heard about unfinished manuscripts by fairly obscure writers in languages he doesn’t speak
Nice catch, Kattullus; that makes it sound like he's serving up takeout to people who phone in their orders.
But if he's just operating a clearing house, who are his customers? Illicit publishers who print unauthorized editions or translations and sop up demand before the genuine article can make it through the labyrinth?
Sort of like what happened to Dickens in America during the 19th Century? Maybe that's why Dickens had to do an American tour, very much like rock bands who have to tour these days because they get so little of the money from album sales.
posted by jamjam at 7:57 PM on January 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
Nice catch, Kattullus; that makes it sound like he's serving up takeout to people who phone in their orders.
But if he's just operating a clearing house, who are his customers? Illicit publishers who print unauthorized editions or translations and sop up demand before the genuine article can make it through the labyrinth?
Sort of like what happened to Dickens in America during the 19th Century? Maybe that's why Dickens had to do an American tour, very much like rock bands who have to tour these days because they get so little of the money from album sales.
posted by jamjam at 7:57 PM on January 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
This has a lot less mystique now than I was hoping for :(
posted by wesleyac at 8:14 PM on January 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by wesleyac at 8:14 PM on January 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
But if he's just operating a clearing house, who are his customers? Illicit publishers who print unauthorized editions or translations and sop up demand before the genuine article can make it through the labyrinth?
Wouldn't be surprised. It's probably not as lucrative as, say, selling bootleg DVDs used to be, but there's most likely a nice gain in profit or prestige (among said target group) to be had.
Sort of like what happened to Dickens in America during the 19th Century? Maybe that's why Dickens had to do an American tour, very much like rock bands who have to tour these days because they get so little of the money from album sales.
Heck, you can go as far back as the infamous bad quartoes of Shakespeare's works (and mostly likely beyond) for examples of literary "bootlegs".
posted by gtrwolf at 10:55 PM on January 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
Wouldn't be surprised. It's probably not as lucrative as, say, selling bootleg DVDs used to be, but there's most likely a nice gain in profit or prestige (among said target group) to be had.
Sort of like what happened to Dickens in America during the 19th Century? Maybe that's why Dickens had to do an American tour, very much like rock bands who have to tour these days because they get so little of the money from album sales.
Heck, you can go as far back as the infamous bad quartoes of Shakespeare's works (and mostly likely beyond) for examples of literary "bootlegs".
posted by gtrwolf at 10:55 PM on January 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
Nobody goes into book publishing because they want to get rich—it's a poorly paid industry and the marketing/editorial/operations side is typically based in horrifyingly expensive metropolii (cost of living alone makes it difficult for junior staff to survive there).
So I suspect there's a very good chance that this guy is just a massive book nerd and a fan, for creepy/doesn't understand boundaries values of fan.
posted by cstross at 5:04 AM on January 6, 2022 [11 favorites]
So I suspect there's a very good chance that this guy is just a massive book nerd and a fan, for creepy/doesn't understand boundaries values of fan.
posted by cstross at 5:04 AM on January 6, 2022 [11 favorites]
Thanks for this post, adrianhon, and thanks for the line to a free version, chavnet. The whole thing is fascinating to me, including this part:
The phishing attacks have been so voluminous and far-reaching, hitting publishing professionals in the United States, Sweden and Taiwan, among other countries, that some have said it could not possibly be the work of just one person.
Now I'm eager to find out which publishers the scam hit here in Sweden.
posted by Bella Donna at 5:45 AM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
The phishing attacks have been so voluminous and far-reaching, hitting publishing professionals in the United States, Sweden and Taiwan, among other countries, that some have said it could not possibly be the work of just one person.
Now I'm eager to find out which publishers the scam hit here in Sweden.
posted by Bella Donna at 5:45 AM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
Maybe this just falls under the category, "Just because you can does not mean you should." He's young, full of beans... probably has a very bright future in publishing.
posted by From Bklyn at 5:48 AM on January 6, 2022
posted by From Bklyn at 5:48 AM on January 6, 2022
It looks like the perp worked for Simon & Schuster UK in London, not in the NYC lit scene, so really me and my book club friends got almost nothing right... only the fact that he was not an American. An Italian studying Chinese literature !
posted by subdee at 10:39 AM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by subdee at 10:39 AM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
Reeves Wiedeman, one of the two authors of the in-depth article from last August minervous linked to above, has written a short follow-up.
posted by Kattullus at 3:50 PM on January 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Kattullus at 3:50 PM on January 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
No Wonder Left In World Now That Mysterious Book Thief Has Been Arrested [Defector]
posted by chavenet at 7:32 AM on January 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by chavenet at 7:32 AM on January 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'm picturing the FBI getting involved just because it was so intriguing. "Nobody's getting hurt by this... there's no compelling reason to investigate... there are many more pressing crimes to pursue... but dammit, I want to figure out who it is! What a great mystery! We need top men on this, top men!"
posted by clawsoon at 7:56 AM on January 7, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 7:56 AM on January 7, 2022 [5 favorites]
Perhaps he just gets really excited about reading the books and couldn't bear to wait.
I am at least semi-serious here: people do strange things in the service of obsessive collecting.
(On the cartel thing...I seem to recall one of the profiles of the case, or discussion of one of the profiles of the case, saying there didn't appear to be any evidence that these books were appearing anywhere as pirate copies).
posted by reynir at 2:08 PM on January 7, 2022
I am at least semi-serious here: people do strange things in the service of obsessive collecting.
(On the cartel thing...I seem to recall one of the profiles of the case, or discussion of one of the profiles of the case, saying there didn't appear to be any evidence that these books were appearing anywhere as pirate copies).
posted by reynir at 2:08 PM on January 7, 2022
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posted by adrianhon at 2:57 PM on January 5, 2022