BE ch 5 accounts

[Mark Kohut]

I did not know the 'hash' slang, thanks, and yes to P's genius in making
Maxine a financial fraud investigator. Following the money is most of the
plot so far.

To 2nd problem, consecutive invoice numbers. Services rendered or things
bought are done and invoices created for the recipient to pay. In any
large-enough company there are multiple invoices
a day. From the coffee order for the office; the cleaning service; the
temps work (we know there were temps) and others you can think of. Invoices
are itemized. For services, such as we are probably talking about here,
almost every company would itemize all the services rendered and submit
one invoice. Invoices are numbered and dated and it would be
very inefficient and not even close to any norm to write one after another
for lots
of services. (This would be handled by internal encodings for the issuing
company's bookkeeping).

Therefore, with one day's invoicing from the company in question, there
should be other invoices to other companies before the next one to
hashslingerz was issued; later in the invoice number sequence, if the
company was actually doing business as a legitimate business.

On Sun, Nov 21, 2021 at 12:15 AM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> So Maxi starts looking at hsz accounts and finds problems right away.
> 1st the Benford’s Law problem where 1st digits  are  not logarithmic.
> The 2nd problem, Consecutive invoice numbers, I don’t understand???
> 3rd problem may give us a prime insight into the name hashslingerz :Hash
> totals that don’t add up. Here is a simple version  explanation from
> Barron’s that I kind of understand:
>    The purpose is to identify whether a record has been lost or omitted
> from processing. For example, check numbers may be summed to get a hash
> total. If the total of the check numbers processed does not agree with the
> hash total, a discrepancy exists, and investigation is required to uncover
> the error.
>     From something else I read it sounds like hashing makes it hard either
> to forward engineer or reverse engineer  hash numbers if you wanted to fake
> accounts.
> 4th problem,  Credit cards failing Luhn checks( Used to id incorrect
> numbers usually used to protect against accidental errors,).
> That’s a lot of problems for  trying to hide some serious money games.
>
> What Michael B said becomes relevant here about a captive  SEC since we
> are dealing with large $ numbers and an unproven  fast growing firm(hsz).
> Even with government laxity most large banks regularly get caught in
> illegal schemes (though the fines are too low to change the behavior). On
> the other hand, the military accounting system never gets punished despite
> losing billions which may be relevant in BE since hsz has military
> contracts as do several  real world big tech firms.
>
> This chapter  is where the genius of  P having his latest detective be a
> financial fraud investigtor becomes obvious. Follow the money being  the
> primary tool of investigative reporters, and legal investigators.  She
> likes also to check things out up close, on site, and in person. This gives
> us a diverse picture of the world and the players Pynchon is choosing to
> focus on.
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