A thing to keep in mind is that many of these forgeries Wright has successfully been using for a number of years. They fooled people! "If it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid".
One thing I've realized during the case is that the kind of scrutiny people apply when they get handed a document as "proof" is not the same as the scrutiny they'd apply if handed a document they know is fake and they simply need to find proof.
In the former case people just tend to confirmation bias themselves, they check a few things and say "yep checks out". While in the latter case, they'll much more quickly say "well if it's authentic, then all the version numbers should check out, lemme go check those".
The former kind of check is almost completely ineffective against an intentional forgery unless it was made by someone dramatically less competent that you. Validation for "proof" sake must use the second process of assuming it false and looking for the evidence of it.
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with accepting a document on its face, but you shouldn't deceive yourself that you've validated something. If someone is giving you a document to prove something then you have to accept a serious possibility that it was fake, otherwise why bother looking at the document at all?
One thing I've realized during the case is that the kind of scrutiny people apply when they get handed a document as "proof" is not the same as the scrutiny they'd apply if handed a document they know is fake and they simply need to find proof.
In the former case people just tend to confirmation bias themselves, they check a few things and say "yep checks out". While in the latter case, they'll much more quickly say "well if it's authentic, then all the version numbers should check out, lemme go check those".
The former kind of check is almost completely ineffective against an intentional forgery unless it was made by someone dramatically less competent that you. Validation for "proof" sake must use the second process of assuming it false and looking for the evidence of it.
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with accepting a document on its face, but you shouldn't deceive yourself that you've validated something. If someone is giving you a document to prove something then you have to accept a serious possibility that it was fake, otherwise why bother looking at the document at all?