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Alibaba Engineers Fired for Mooncake Hacking (wsj.com)

Posted by msmash on from the over-the-moon dept.

On the eve of Mid-Autumn Festival, some people will go to great lengths to get mooncakes, the traditional gift for family, friends and colleagues. At Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., four engineers tried to rig the distribution system of the e-commerce giant's mooncake selloff -- and were fired for their effort (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternate source), reports WSJ. From the report: Alibaba confirmed it fired the four this week, after they hacked into the internal website that allows employees to purchase the company's signature mooncakes, with an orange fluffy Alibaba mascot inside. The Hangzhou-based company allocates one free box to each employee for the holiday, and sells extras on the site at cost -- 59 yuan (about $9) for a box of four.

4 of 85 comments (clear)

  1. What the hell are mooncakes? by Enigma2175 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Would it have killed them to put a picture of a mooncake in the article? Am I the only one who doesn't know what the hell they are talking about?

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    Enigma

    1. Re:What the hell are mooncakes? by networkBoy · · Score: 5, Informative

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      to be fair, I had no clue either.
      -nb

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      whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
    2. Re:What the hell are mooncakes? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Informative

      A mooncake is a pastry consisting of a crust and a filling. The filling can be sweetened red beans, lotus paste, nuts, etc. They are pretty good. They are eaten during the harvest moon festival, with is tonight.

      They are not at all "hard to get". You can buy them on any corner bakery in China. Also they are easy to make using molds you can buy on eBay or Amazon, and they taste WAY better fresh from the oven instead of the sodium-benzoate laden crap you buy on-line.

      Pro-tip: The hard part is getting them out of the mold, and they slide out of the plastic molds way easier than the wooden molds. I use this one.

      Disclaimer: My wife is Chinese.

  2. Re:so basically by Cederic · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm British, my culture is to appropriate other cultures.

    We appear to be at an impasse.