This reminds me very much of a "hack" I performed in a workplace that used Outlook/Exchange as its primary email system. I simply sent an email (to a few, trusted people) with the "from" field set to the CEO's name/address.
In their inbox it looked completely legit. Outlook even put the CEO's avatar next to it and everything. They were genuinely shocked. Even after I explain that the "from" field is just like me writing "love from Mum" at the bottom of a letter I think they still couldn't believe it.
There is a problem with people assuming that all data they find is authoritative. People don't question whether they can trust data often enough. Another problem is when you make things look nice enough, they look trustworthy. This is a well known confidence trick, of course.
My PhD supervisor objected to me typesetting my work in LaTeX before it had been checked because he said once it's typeset it looks correct, but might still be complete rubbish.
Unfortunately this all boils down to web-of-trust, as usual. We've had the solution for decades now, but we've collectively agreed that it's more trouble than it's worth. So these kinds of problems will keep popping up again and again.
In their inbox it looked completely legit. Outlook even put the CEO's avatar next to it and everything. They were genuinely shocked. Even after I explain that the "from" field is just like me writing "love from Mum" at the bottom of a letter I think they still couldn't believe it.
There is a problem with people assuming that all data they find is authoritative. People don't question whether they can trust data often enough. Another problem is when you make things look nice enough, they look trustworthy. This is a well known confidence trick, of course.
My PhD supervisor objected to me typesetting my work in LaTeX before it had been checked because he said once it's typeset it looks correct, but might still be complete rubbish.
Unfortunately this all boils down to web-of-trust, as usual. We've had the solution for decades now, but we've collectively agreed that it's more trouble than it's worth. So these kinds of problems will keep popping up again and again.