He endorses many causes, e.g the Algerian resistance. You may disagree with the cause, but i am not sure how you can deduct he did it it for money and not conviction. And why embracing a cause necessarily means having to know everything about the people who are part of it?
More info about his life and causes in the presentation of the book here:
A lot of people seem to be struggling with this notion that he did it for money, perhaps because he claims he didn't. But that's not consistent with the rest of the article, so why should he be immediately believed? Just because it's a nice story?
From the article:
He had two kids soon after World War II, but couldn’t tell them or his ex-wife about his underground work, so they didn’t know why he rarely visited. Girlfriends assumed he was absent because he’d been cheating.
His business took him away from home so frequently that he was unable to maintain stable relationships at all until he quit for good. We can deduce that forging documents was therefore not a rare occurrence - it was happening all the time. It also seems to have involved a lot of travel, which in the years he was active was nowhere near as cheap as today.
He estimates that in 1967 alone, he supplied forged papers to people in 15 countries.
Not to 15 people, but people in 15 countries. That does not sound like a small operation.
He went on to forge papers for people in practically every major conflict of the mid-20th century.
Forging passports that could pass muster around the world for decades on end is not something one does as a hobby. It takes significant time and presumably in the later stages serious lab equipment. Given his post-forging career as a photographer - not the most lucrative of trades - where did he get the money to fund his forging activities if not by charging for it?
It is difficult for me to reconcile this self-proclaimed image Kaminsky projects of a hobbyist who neutrally saves lives out of the goodness of his heart, with all the other evidence in the article that he was both highly political and running an international criminal operation up until the point he got scared of being caught.
The only evidence we have of his noble intentions are what he says they were. And just in case we think he's a humble and modest person, from the book website:
“My life as a forger is one long, uninterrupted resistance… against inequality, segregation, racism, injustice, fascism and dictatorships.”
>A lot of people seem to be struggling with this notion that he did it for money
Who? I wonder if you struggle that people can do many things without charging for it. .If you good at your trade as a forgerer, and you work with organization like the Algerian Resistance, and -if- expensive equipment was needed as you claim without backing it up, I could see an oragnization funding it.
And he would keep doing it for free, not making money out of it. Out of conviction.
>It is difficult for me to reconcile [...]
A lot of people who fight politically, especially those outside the limelight, do it because they believe this is the right thing to do for others. I don't recall reading "neutrally", only causes he believes in.
If his success was dependent upon the goodwill of some mysterious organisation, why not give them a share of the credit too, even if just anonymously?
I think maybe the HN community is so heavily open source/software oriented that it's hard to realise that most complex, long term efforts in the world do need funding, even if they aren't full time. Even most artists need some sort of funding, hence why his photography was commercial. Passports, even quite old passports, have all sorts of anti-forging techniques that take time to overcome. I think the book mentions the invention of watermarking ... and that's really just the start. Here's an article on US Passports:
Kaminsky also forged French currency, which is also rather non-trivial and has been so for a long time. This isn't open source where you can buy a thousand dollars worth of equipment and the rest is just your free time, donated to the world. Obtaining the specialised equipment, building up a network capable of securely and anonymously routing forged documents across the world, training new generations of forgers - all this takes a lot of time and effort.
More info about his life and causes in the presentation of the book here:
https://doppelhouse.com/adolfo-kaminsky-a-forgers-life/