Slashdot Mirror
Stealing From Banks One Cent at a Time
JRHelgeson writes "In a story strangely reminiscent of Superman 3, a 'hacker' allegedly stole over $50,000 from PayPal, Google Checkout as well as several unnamed online brokerage firms. When opening an online brokering account it is common practice for companies such as E-trade and Schwab to send a tiny payment — ranging from only a few cents to a couple of dollars — to verify that the user has access to the bank account listed. According to the story, the attacker wrote a script that opened thousands of accounts at dozens of these providers. He was arrested not for taking the money, but for using false names in order to get it."
When reached for comment, the "hacker" had this to say:
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
What the fuck does that mean?!
I had this very idea a few days ago when paypal put two 40 cent payments in my checking account. Thank god I didn't go with it, eh?
Damn it feels good to be a gangsta.
The most you'll do is a few years in one of those "country club" prisons, right?
Wire fraud? Bank fraud? Don't you need to have done these actions against actual banks for these kinds of charges to get levied?
At least his script didn't almost capsize the oil tankers... people would be super pissed off then.
Don't drop the kryptonite in the shower.
when he started using names like...
Haywood Jablome
Connie Lingus
Dick Trickle
Seymour Butts
Hugh Jass
Ben Dover
Should of used a better name generator.
At least he did not create a script that automatically rounded every payment up to the nearest... oh wait...
Even if he gets a fine, he can always apply to pay off the debt in small payments - say a few cents every time...
Reminds me of a debt my father picked up from a school my sister attended for less then a week. They charged him for a whole year. Not to be deterred he promptly paid them half the amount they invoiced him for. Months later and six angry letters later he paid them half of the sum they asked for. Months later.. ah well, I am sure you can see the pattern here. Fast forward 14 years and they finally wrote of the rest of his debt (I think 1GPB) as a good will gesture (and I am reliably informed he is legend in the schools finance department). I have no idea how much the administration cost to school at the end of it, but it all seemed good natured enough.
You know what I'd do with $50,000? 2 chicks at the same time.
But he only stole it a little bit, a whole bunch of times...
How dare you judge me? I mean what are you? You think you're some kind of, like, angel here? No, you're just this penny-stealing... wanna-be criminal... man.
How many hours of community service do you get for 58,000 counts of petty theft?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Peter: "That virus you're always talking about, right? The one that could, uh, rip off the company for a bunch of money."
Michael: "Yeah, what about it?"
Peter: "Well, how does it work?"
Michael: "It's pretty brilliant. What it does is, every time there's a bank transaction where interest is competed, you know, thousands a day, the computer ends up with these fractions of acent, which it usually rounds off. What this does is, it takes those little remainders and puts it into an account."
Peter: "This sounds familiar."
Michael: "Yeah, they did it in Superman III."
Peter: "Right."
Michael: "Yeah. Underrated movie, actually. And then there were a bunch of hackers, did it in the '70s as well. One of them got busted."
Peter: "Well, so they check for this now."
Michael: "No, here's the thing. Initech's so backed up with all the software we're updating for the year 2000, they'd never notice."
Peter: "You're right. And even if they wanted to, they couldn't check all that code."
Michael: "Thumbs up their asses. Thumbs up their asses."
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
It makes no sense at all.
It sounds like it made a lot of cents.
Huh. Learned something new - thanks! I always thought Salami Attack was a bad 80s porn movie...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
if I truly wanted to...
Yes, but I'm sure someone can still claim PRYOR art.
But IBM doesn't use 32x drives. And therefore I am utterly baffled by the meaning of your comment.
The opinions stated herein do not necessarily represent those of anybody at all. Deal with it.
which is totally what she said
So? You banged Lundbergh!
In this case, he's a hacker using the Slashdot/ESR definition, instead of the typical everyday definition. People around here should be excited.
Yeah, well... at least I didn't fuck Lumberg.
You read the article? WTF?
Underrated movie, actually.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Favorite line from Night Court:
Defense attorney: "You had a gun?"
Crook: (sheepishly) "Just a little one."
District attorney: "The term is sawed-off."
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Indeed. Now just do it 100,000 more times and you'll be fighting the man with the soap.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
That explains why I've been losing money counterfeiting pennies!
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Now that Snopes has come out on the field, this XKCD is obligatory.
Do you smell that? It's the karma burning.
"I've spent my whole life figuring out crazy ways to do things. It'll work." -- Montgomery Scott, "Relics"