There are basically three ways to tell if a putative prophet is a phony or not. One is to check his character and commitment. If he is a sinner or a glutton, he can't be the real McCoy. The second is to evaluate his message. If he is telling you in the name of G-d that any of the mitzvos are not mandatory, he is certainly a charlatan. Bill Gates may think he's G-d but that doesn't equate with us expecting Him to launch Torah 2.0.
 
The third acid test is more interesting from a scientific perspective, because it is so eminently testable. When a prophet predicts the future, every detail of his prediction must come to pass, otherwise his prophecy is falsified and so is he. The exception to this rule is if the prophecy is one of Divine retribution of some sort. It may be that G-d had mercy and removed the decree. But if the prophecy is for something neutral or good, then its nonfulfillment even in part condemns the prophet to death. It's as if the prophet fraudulently wrote a check on G-d's account.
 
In fact G-d is so bound to positive prophecies that if they are made conditional on something, the positive outcome must occur even if the condition is not fulfilled. Let's take a for instance. Plony the Prophet tells you, if you stand on your head and spit wooden nickels, you will find a million dollars in your shoe tomorrow at noon. Let's say you neither stand on your head nor spit wooden nickels. If all the money does not show up at the right time and in the right place, the man is a fake and he's doomed.
 
Now here is something that the empiricists among us can sink their teeth into: A falsifiable hypothesis. It either happens as stated or it doesn't. No waffling. Now all we need is a prophet and then we can run our scientific system check. Hmmm.. let's see.. where am I gonna find a prophet.. there's just these ancient ones.. oh wait, here's something.. The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Schneerson. A lot of his followers say he was a prophet of biblical stature.. Let's run a system scan on him.
 
Let's see: Character set - perfect. Mitzva profile - clean. Command prompts - spot on. So far, everything is in line with the documentation and there are no system errors. It's even user friendly. Now let's check the prediction vs. outcome files. Okay, let's start with the big ones - geo-bite size. We've got the Six-Day War, the Yom Kippur War, the Land for Peace fiasco, Gulf War I, the collapse of Communism, Hurricane Andrew. Well, all the big ones seem to line up.
 
Now let's defrag.. okay we have a couple hundred thousand blessings to individuals for health, money and children that have all come to pass. Oh wait.. there are a few blessings outstanding.. aha.. now what? Back to the manual.. flip.. flip.. here it is. "Do not overly test a prophet" Okay, we'll let the pending stuff go for now.
 
Okay, it looks about right to me. Maybe we need an expert to verify this. Oh, here we are 250 rabbinic endorsements that the Rebbe is in fact a prophet in our times. Cool. I wonder what the Rebbe himself had to say about all this. Okay, here's a document worth reviewing - the edited Talk of Shabbos Parshas Shoftim 5751... mmm... mhmm.. hmm!
 
Here it says that Moshiach gets prophecy before the redemption happens and that this is relevant today. He says that everyone in the world must know that Hashem has chosen a free-willed individual who is head and shoulders above all the people in the generation. And that he is the judge of the generation, the advisor of the generation and the prophet of the generation. And that he gives guidance to all in the areas of knowing G-d in all one's ways and dedicating all one's deeds to heaven. And he makes prophecies including the most fundamental prophecy of "The time of the redemption has arrived" and "Behold this moshiach coming." And he emphasizes that this statement is made not as a sage but rather as a prophet, which is absolutely certain. Wow!
 
But that was then and this is now. It's been sixteen years, and we'd like a status update on this prophecy. All the other major predictions have come true along with 99.99% of the smaller, more personal ones. What's with this one? Was he right or was he wrong? Well, if he was wrong then he is a false prophet and we should burn all his books. If he was right, then we should get busy telling the world about the Rebbe and his prophecy! And if we don't then we are transgressing the mitzvah of listening to a prophet.
 
Whew! These are high stakes. I'm not about to make a bonfire of a few hundred volumes of the Rebbe's works, yet I don't feel comfortable about shouting a prophecy from the rooftops. Is there a third option? Let's try. The Rebbe was right about being a prophet but we don't have to listen to him? That doesn't work. The Rebbe never said he was a prophet? Well, according to what we just checked, that doesn't work. How about the Rebbe is a prophet and I've been charged with a mission to spread the news but I just don't want to?
 
Does the "I just don't want to" plea also exempt me from kosher, Shabbos, tefillin, honoring parents, honesty in business, and giving charity?
 
We live in radical times. Perhaps it's time to live with a radical message.
Moshiach Now!
 

And here is a great article by Tzvi Freeman on the same topic.

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