- A browser setting called designMode lets you edit the text on any web page.
- The edit only shows up in your own browser, not on the real site.
- A screenshot can show a genuine web address next to fake words.
- Courts need extra proof, not just a screenshot, before they trust it.
- The Wayback Machine can save a dated, real copy of a page.
Every browser has a hidden setting called designMode that turns the whole text on a web page into something you can click and retype, according to Mozilla's developer docs. Turn it on, change a price, a headline or an account balance, then take a screenshot. The web address at the top of the picture is still real, but the words under it don't have to be.
A panel called developer tools lets you type document.designMode = "on" into the console and press enter. That makes the page's text editable, according to Mozilla's documentation.
The change only appears in your browser. It doesn't send the new words back to the website, so nobody else sees them. Reload the page and the real text comes back, unless the site has its own code that saves edits.
Checking the web address in the screenshot won't catch the trick, because the address is genuine. Whoever made the fake just started from the real page and retyped a few words.
Fake screenshots already show up in real scams, according to the security firm ESET. Say a seller on an online marketplace gets a screenshot that looks like a finished payment. The seller ships the item and never gets paid, because the screenshot was fake. ESET says the same kind of fake photo turns up in romance scams and in cryptocurrency chat groups.
Courts don't take a screenshot at face value either. Under the Federal Rules of Evidence, a screenshot needs enough proof that it's really what someone claims before a court will accept it.
To check a claim for real, open the bank, payment app or website yourself instead of trusting someone else's screenshot. The Internet Archive's Save Page Now tool fetches a copy of a web page through its own servers, according to the Internet Archive's help center. That copy gets a date stamp. It can be checked later, even if the original page changes.
