1. Generate fake phone profiles of a made-up disaster crew
2. Wait for minor disaster at random refinery
3. Feed trackers with location data showing your fake crew moving into that refinery
4. Repeat 2, 3 to associate your profiles with disaster
5. Short some fine $refinery stock
6. Move your crew to $refinery
7. Profit
I wonder whether this has already been pulled off :-)
Source. 4 years of R&D at HFT company that traded around $10^10 during that time :)
As a (somewhat ridiculous) counter example, suppose I know you, a trader, love tap dancing and I, also a trader, happen to be a skilled tap dancer. On Monday I show up outside your office and start tapping up a storm. You are unable to resist the sound of your favorite thing and rush out of your office to enjoy my performance. I return at the same hour Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and by then you are out on the sidewalk expecting me when I show up. Friday you leave your office as usual but you wait for me to show in vain, for I am in my office and taking advantage of your absence to make a big trade against you.
Have I defrauded you? You believed that I would show up to entertain you instead of competing against you in the market, and frankly I trained you to think so only to enrich myself at your expense.
Let’s make it simple you intend to commit murder, you buy the tools, draw up a plan, then get arrested. Guess what you are up for with zero interaction with the victim
Murder is murder, tap-dance distraction isn't fraud.
Intent is a tricky thing to prove, it requires knowing the state of someone's mind. Until we have mind-reading devices, there is no way to know someone's state of mind with complete certainty, so we necessarily have to rely on circumstantial evidence, including what someone said, wrote, and yes, researched in the past.
Researching a grotesque topic is by no means proof that you committed a grotesque act, but it's definitely a nugget of evidence.
As a community service in case you’ve convinced yourself, have a read of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud
“ In law, fraud is deliberate deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right “
Exactly the story I’m replying too
Once again this is about the intent, it’s not about how you can hand wave it away as something else, that part is for the trial
In law fraud <=> deception <=> intent
Also, I dont appreciate the tone of your post, eg "as a community service"
“fraud is deliberate deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain”
That means either unfair gain or unlawful gain. Not only unlawful gain
You'd have to argue cellphone activity/location is a legitimate "positive statements".