They are good buffers. They are basically prepaid cards that can be refilled. Not sure about any assurances for fraud(probably none) but what is taken can be minimized.
It is identity theft in that they are posing as you to so they can perform fraud. It's identity as a societal thing like id with you name but their picture. Being able to do this remotely like credit charges(can be in brick n mortars though) etc just means normally they just need enough info. Once again it is mor societal concept of how we identify people we don't know.
Maybe that was just to show the recreation. An engine is pure code and a lot of times closed source. Just creating animation and similitude in that ways does not recreate a engine but could create those aspects. Engines have many aspects of game mechanics many you do not really see directly but as a byproduct.