#forensic accountants

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The true post-cyberpunk hero is a noir forensic accountant

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TOMORROW (Apr 17) in CHICAGO, then Torino (Apr 21) Marin County (Apr 27), Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

I was reared on cyberpunk fiction, I ended up spending 25 years at my EFF day-job working at the weird edge of tech and human rights, even as I wrote sf that tried to fuse my love of cyberpunk with my urgent, lifelong struggle over who computers do things for and who they do them to.

That makes me an official "post-cyberpunk" writer (TM). Don't take my word for it: I'm in the canon:

https://tachyonpublications.com/product/rewired-the-post-cyberpunk-anthology-2/

One of the editors of that "post-cyberpunk" anthology was John Kessel, who is, not coincidentally, the first writer to expose me to the power of literary criticism to change the way I felt about a novel, both as a writer and a reader:

https://locusmag.com/2012/05/cory-doctorow-a-prose-by-any-other-name/

It was Kessel's 2004 Foundation essay, "Creating the Innocent Killer: Ender's Game, Intention, and Morality," that helped me understand litcrit. Kessel expertly surfaces the subtext of Card's Ender's Game and connects it to Card's politics. In so doing, he completely reframed how I felt about a book I'd read several times and had considered a favorite:

https://johnjosephkessel.wixsite.com/kessel-website/creating-the-innocent-killer

This is a head-spinning experience for a reader, but it's even wilder to experience it as a writer. Thankfully, the majority of literary criticism about my work has been positive, but even then, discovering something that's clearly present in one of my novels, but which I didn't consciously include, is a (very pleasant!) mind-fuck.

A recent example: Blair Fix's review of my 2023 novel Red Team Blues which he calls "an anti-finance finance thriller":

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2023/05/13/red-team-blues-cory-doctorows-anti-finance-thriller/

Fix – a radical economist – perfectly captures the correspondence between my hero, the forensic accountant Martin Hench, and the heroes of noir detective novels. Namely, that a noir detective is a kind of unlicensed policeman, going to the places the cops can't go, asking the questions the cops can't ask, and thus solving the crimes the cops can't solve. What makes this noir is what happens next: the private dick realizes that these were places the cops didn't want to go, questions the cops didn't want to ask and crimes the cops didn't want to solve ("It's Chinatown, Jake").

Marty Hench – a forensic accountant who finds the money that has been disappeared through the cells in cleverly constructed spreadsheets – is an unlicensed tax inspector. He's finding the money the IRS can't find – only to be reminded, time and again, that this is money the IRS chooses not to find.

This is how the tax authorities work, after all. Anyone who followed the coverage of the big finance leaks knows that the most shocking revelation they contain is how stupid the ruses of the ultra-wealthy are. The IRS could prevent that tax-fraud, they just choose not to. Not for nothing, I call the Martin Hench books "Panama Papers fanfic."

I've read plenty of noir fiction and I'm a long-term finance-leaks obsessive, but until I read Fix's article, it never occurred to me that a forensic accountant was actually squarely within the noir tradition. Hench's perfect noir fit is either a happy accident or the result of a subconscious intuition that I didn't know I had until Fix put his finger on it.

The second Hench novel is The Bezzle. It's been out since February, and I'm still touring with it (Chicago tonight! Then Turin, Marin County, Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver, etc). It's paying off – the book's a national bestseller.

Writing in his newsletter, Henry Farrell connects Fix's observation to one of his own, about the nature of "hackers" and their role in cyberpunk (and post-cyberpunk) fiction:

https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-accountant-as-cyberpunk-hero

Farrell cites Bruce Schneier's 2023 book, A Hacker’s Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules and How to Bend Them Back:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/06/trickster-makes-the-world/

Schneier, a security expert, broadens the category of "hacker" to include anyone who studies systems with an eye to finding and exploiting their defects. Under this definition, the more fearsome hackers are "working for a hedge fund, finding a loophole in financial regulations that lets her siphon extra profits out of the system." Hackers work in corporate offices, or as government lobbyists.

As Henry says, hacking isn't intrinsically countercultural ("Most of the hacking you might care about is done by boring seeming people in boring seeming clothes"). Hacking reinforces – rather than undermining power asymmetries ("The rich have far more resources to figure out how to gimmick the rules"). We are mostly not the hackers – we are the hacked.

For Henry, Marty Hench is a hacker (the rare hacker that works for the good guys), even though "he doesn’t wear mirrorshades or get wasted chatting to bartenders with Soviet military-surplus mechanical arms." He's a gun for hire, that most traditional of cyberpunk heroes, and while he doesn't stand against the system, he's not for it, either.

Henry's pinning down something I've been circling around for nearly 30 years: the idea that though "the street finds its own use for things," Wall Street and Madison Avenue are among the streets that might find those uses:

https://craphound.com/nonfic/street.html

Henry also connects Martin Hench to Marcus Yallow, the hero of my YA Little Brother series. I have tried to make this connection myself, opining that while Marcus is a character who is fighting to save an internet that he loves, Marty is living in the ashes of the internet he lost:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/07/dont-curb-your-enthusiasm/

But Henry's Marty-as-hacker notion surfaces a far more interesting connection between the two characters. Marcus is a vehicle for conveying the excitement and power of hacking to young readers, while Marty is a vessel for older readers who know the stark terror of being hacked, by the sadistic wolves who're coming for all of us:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I44L1pzi4gk

Both Marcus and Marty are explainers, as am I. Some people say that exposition makes for bad narrative. Those people are wrong:

https://maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/my-favorite-bit/my-favorite-bit-cory-doctorow-talks-about-the-bezzle/

"Explaining" makes for great fiction. As Maria Farrell writes in her Crooked Timber review of The Bezzle, the secret sauce of some of the best novels is "information about how things work. Things like locks, rifles, security systems":

https://crookedtimber.org/2024/03/06/the-bezzle/

Where these things are integrated into the story's "reason and urgency," they become "specialist knowledge [that] cuts new paths to move through the world." Hacking, in other words.

This is a theme Paul Di Filippo picked up on in his review of The Bezzle for Locus:

https://locusmag.com/2024/04/paul-di-filippo-reviews-the-bezzle-by-cory-doctorow/

Heinlein was always known—and always came across in his writings—as The Man Who Knew How the World Worked. Doctorow delivers the same sense of putting yourself in the hands of a fellow who has peered behind Oz’s curtain. When he fills you in lucidly about some arcane bit of economics or computer tech or social media scam, you feel, first, that you understand it completely and, second, that you can trust Doctorow’s analysis and insights.

Knowledge is power, and so expository fiction that delivers news you can use is novel that makes you more powerful – powerful enough to resist the hackers who want to hack you.

Henry and I were both friends of Aaron Swartz, and the Little Brother books are closely connected to Aaron, who helped me with Homeland, the second volume, and wrote a great afterword for it (Schneier wrote an afterword for the first book). That book – and Aaron's afterword – has radicalized a gratifying number of principled technologists. I know, because I meet them when I tour, and because they send me emails. I like to think that these hackers are part of Aaron's legacy.

Henry argues that the Hench books are "purpose-designed to inspire a thousand Max Schrems – people who are probably past their teenage years, have some grounding in the relevant professions, and really want to see things change."

(Schrems is the Austrian privacy activist who, as a law student, set in motion the events that led to the passage of the EU's General Data Privacy Regulation:)

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/15/out-here-everything-hurts/#noyb

Henry points out that William Gibson's Neuromancer doesn't mention the word "internet" – rather, Gibson coined the term cyberspace, which, as Henry says, is "more ‘capitalism’ than ‘computerized information'… If you really want to penetrate the system, you need to really grasp what money is and what it does."

Maria also wrote one of my all-time favorite reviews of Red Team Blues, also for Crooked Timber:

https://crookedtimber.org/2023/05/11/when-crypto-meant-cryptography/

In it, she compares Hench to Dickens' Bleak House, but for the modern tech world:

You put the book down feeling it’s not just a fascinating, enjoyable novel, but a document of how Silicon Valley’s very own 1% live and a teeming, energy-emitting snapshot of a critical moment on Earth.

All my life, I've written to find out what's going on in my own head. It's a remarkably effective technique. But it's only recently that I've come to appreciate that reading what other people write about my writing can reveal things that I can't see.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/17/panama-papers-fanfic/#the-1337est-h4x0rs

Image: Frédéric Poirot (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/fredarmitage/1057613629 CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

#pluralistic #science fiction #cyberpunk #literary criticism #maria farrell #henry farrell #noir #martin hench #marty hench #red team blues #the bezzle #forensic accountants #hackers #bruce schneier #post-cyberpunk #blair fix

[harriettfoxcpa]

Divorce may be a difficult process that affects almost every part of your life, including your physical, emotional, financial, and legal well-being. If you have only recently become married and have no children, property, or other assets, perhaps a divorce lawyer by themselves would be sufficient. However, if your marriage has lasted a long time and you have children and assets, you may require the assistance of more than one expert during the divorce process.

The following experts may be necessary if you require assistance with a family law or divorce dispute: divorce mediator, real estate professionals, accountants and forensic accountants, and divorce attorneys.

#divorce mediator #forensic accountants #real estate professionals #Family Law #Divorce Disputes

[makesperfect101]

Napoli Chartered Accountants

Level 1, 16 Parliament Place West Perth, WA 6872

#Napoli Chartered Accountants #Business Accountants Perth #Accountants Perth #Tax Accountants Perth #Accounting Firms Perth #Forensic accountants

[nsktglobal-12]

Forensic Accounting| NSKT Global

If you suspect financial fraud or misconduct in your organization, forensic accounting can help you identify the source of the problem and develop a strategy to prevent future occurrences. By working closely with NSKT Global's management team, the forensic accountant can help you identify weaknesses in your financial controls and procedures, and implement solutions to improve them.

#forensic investigation #forensic services #forensics #forensic accountants #forensicaccounting

[arrowfishconsulting1]

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[clotpole-tm]

#the riddler #edward nashton #scarecrow #nolanverse #the batman 2022 #my art #scriddler #average psychiatrist and average forensic accountant.

[ruushes]

going back and forth between wanting nox to have minor cosmetic shapeshifting abilities, bc a career as a prolific serial killer and public-facing executive of the local murder cult is not especially compatible with being a 6’3” purple guy with horns and a tail, and not doing that, bc it would be rly funny if they met orin and were just so jealous they could die

#ofc i could also say they knew disguise self but it’s Not The Same #disguise self is a lvl 1 spell you have to figure it gets used in crime A Lot and is somehow accounted for in faerunian forensics #height build and tangibly detectable anomalies i.e. an invisible tail would be major tells right #nox #my ocs #talkin #bored @ work… noxposting be upon ye

[slightlyplant]

i’m so curious about other ema kinnies cuz like did we all have distant relationships with our older sisters from the ages of 10-14 while she withheld information from us to both protect us and because she didn’t trust us only to reconcile many years later, finally learning the truth, and becoming closer than ever despite physical distance or are you guys just all forensic scientists

#………..i bet you’ll never guess which kind of kinnie i am! #no but fr we are 1. both 17 2. have long brown hair with a side part 3. have taken at least some kind of forensics class and liked it #plus the. sister thing. oh the sister thing. um. lol! #ema skye #ace attorney #ace attorney fanart #yes ema may be a slightly altered maya clone but she’s MY slightly altered maya clone. oh also she’s a klavgav hater hahahaha #follow me on insta at @klaviergavinhater (this is not for the bit i actually have a klavier hate account.) #my art

[theabstruseone]

I hope there's a short film that shows how Benoit Blanc met Phillip. And it's a big huge marketing push to find out the grand adventure where they fell in love...

...and then it's Daniel Craig and Hugh Grant having an awkward first date in a coffee shop after two friends set them up.

I mean did you really expect Phillip to be some grand gentleman thief Benoit caught or former suspect whose name he cleared? The series is all about subverting expectations.

#glass onion #knives out #benoit blanc #Phillip should be an accountant #Not even a forensic accountant #Just a boring files-your-taxes-for-you accountant

[beenovel]

So today I was like "huh I wonder if there are suggested careers for autistics" so I looked it up and lo and behold there were lists. First one I pulled up nearly half the careers were ones I'd either considered in the past or are ones I'm currently considering and I lost my shit

Told my mom and she was like "yeah for I while I thought you were pulling from that list" and I-

!!!!! No!!!!!!!! I wasn't!!!!!!! I'd never even thought about that before!!!!!!!

#losing my mind #actually autistic #actually autism #gardening #horticulture #mechanical engineering #car mechanic #automotive technician #forensic scientist #carpenter #accountant #librarian

[finniestoncrane]

bear with me because i'm about to get a sugar high from thinking about this (and shout out to @sweetums0kitty for getting me hard for this idea) but i wanted to flesh out the beginning of this fic i finally finished where you and eddie work together and have a basement office a la mulder and scully and you are just work-spouses being cute and working late so you can be together HNGGGGG so sugary drabbly goodness:

you're messy, he's obsessively neat at work (and at home too but that's organised chaos and he won't argue his point there)

he puts up with it though because you're adorable and he likes looking at you when you're trying to tidy up

you bought him the little name plate, he bought you a fern, so you're now co-parenting this dumb plant that has to move around the room at intervals to get the most of the sunlight from the tiny window

but eddie has set alarms that match with the sun's position because he's a good plant-dad

when you said you wanted to name the plant he was super confused because "that's asinine" which made you frown and feel silly, but the next day there was sticker on the front and in eddie's scribbly handwriting it said "fern-ando"

you guys have a playlist that you created together and you listen to it on the speaker eddie brought from home, and while you share a couple of things in common music wise, there are arguments over whether you are allowed to have this much lizzo in one playlist and whether he should just admit that he is in love with elton john at this point

you have a constant battle to see who can pick the funniest cover photo for the playlist and it never fails to make you smile when you see eddie has changed it to some random meme that was funny two years ago

sometimes at lunch time, if one of his favourite songs comes on, he'll dance with you unless he thinks someone might catch you both in an intimate moment

his hands are always respectful but you can feel him staring into your soul in a way that he might as well be inside of you

you bought a disco ball for above your desks because you were in a silly goofy mood and eddie now calls the basement office "studio 54" but only to you

you bought a microwave, he bought a mini-fridge and you take it in turns to buy each other's favourite drinks and snacks and you know each other well enough now that you don't need a list

and bonus bonus sometimes he'll call you "dear" and pretend that you're an old married, straight couple who hate each other, but you always catch him smiling afterwards

#crying throwing up shitting #i am down bad for this idiot #catch me applying to a forensic accountancy course now #even though i still dont really know what that job is #riddler fanfic #the riddler #my shit #dano riddler #dano!riddler #paul dano riddler #riddler 2022 #edward nashton #fanfic #drabble #oneshot #fluff #finnie writes #batman #headcanons

[dirt-str1der]

I like that the ueno seiwa hit was clearly the first time saejima ever used a gun because he didnt seem concerned that none of the shots he fired spilled any blood at all like the red splatters that was splashing all over the place during the shooting scene was literally ramen , like saejima got his shoulder blown open and he was leaking blood everywhere but he was like surely its coincidence

#Yakuza liveplay #i appreciate that they foreshadowed it though even though i thouhht the whole thing was so stupid #like katsugari could have just worn a bulletproof vest and be done with it and let saejima use real bullets for the rest of the guys ...?.?. #he could have made his boss wear a bulletproof vest too. like what if saejima had shot him in the face with a rubber bullet #like he would have been knocked out for longer than the other men #that means he wouldnt have time to kill them and they would have filed outside by then #like the whole plan was so stupid ... i guess he couldnt run the risk of saejima killing their patriarch but still #and sugiuchi could have lied on the reports a bit more .... they could have bribed forensics #like the fucking ... rubber bullets .... god fuck me. #like what if saejima had picked up one of the ueno seiwa guys guns with real bullets and used that to shoot ?? #did he account for that ? what if saejima was extremely resourceful and a little more trigger happy

[makesperfect101]

Napoli Chartered Accountants

Level 1, 16 Parliament Place West Perth, WA 6872

www.napoliaccounting.com.au

#Napoli Chartered Accountants #business accountants perth #accounting firms perth #tax accountants perth #forensic accountants #accountants perth

[forensicfield]

Forensic Science E-Magazine (October 2022)

We proudly present the October issue (Vol 9) of your favorite magazine, Forensic Science E-Magazine. The current issue of the magazine, as usual, has helpful content related to forensic science. Our editorial team works diligently to deliver the study....

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#bastian and welch case #career as a forensic accountant #career as a forensic auditor #career in forensic science #cold case #common things that are poisonous for children #crime scene review points #DNA #Ecstasy #forensic field magazine #forensic games #forensic job #forensic magazine #forensic magazine by archana singh #Forensic Photography: A Quick Review #forensic psychology #forensic science internship #forensic science jobs #forensic science magazine #forensic science magazine october issue #forensic science magazine october month #genealogy #hair importance in forensic science #household item which are poisonous for child #human fluid and forensic science #magazine #magazine of forensic #mcqs on crime scene management #mdma #october issue forensic magazine

[arrowfishconsulting1]

Arrowfish Consulting - The Most Trusted Business Evaluation Firm

Our expert team of business valuators, forensic accountants, & economists provides various services like business evaluation, economic consultation

#business valuators #business evaluation #forensic economists #forensic accountants #economic consulting business valuation #\

[l-e-g-i-o-n-losh]

Wanted to do a little style test for Reader but i couldn't think of any plot so here's any of 1000 moments a day where he's too distracted by his crush to work and angy about it.

#songs that the hyades shall sing #oc: reader #my art #the computer is like nothing idk what programs forensic accountants actually use so he's just typing bs into excel #but the disgruntled expression turned out well i think #i was trying to emulate the style of like doodling on post-its #which is why its so messy