Hacking Real World Systems
mattmaroon.com
mattmaroon.com
I did not break any law in any country, or even violate a site rule. It's preposterous to call it unethical. I simply took advantage of a flawed system.
I also often have to sign contracts, and I am not sure if all of them are 100% waterproof - probably they are not. But even though the opposing lawyers could probably screw me over, doesn't mean it would be ethical for them to do so.
EDIT: Frankly, I re-read the original post and I'm not sure what's going on. Is he actually depositing money or depositing a small amount and somehow refreshing it so that it reads like a larger amount? If he is doing the former, then it isn't a hack at all. If he is doing the latter, then it is thievery, pure and simple. I read it the latter way because the former way (as I said) makes no sense as a "hack".
Why do you say he stole something? I can't believe how many (people) are misreading Matt's words. There is no fraud, there is no crime. What is your problem?
>you could make one deposit and then just keep hitting refresh to deposit again and again
He is actually depositing money and very large amounts of money. The site made it easy to deposit up to $500, so Matt repeated that process ad nauseum. After a week, when the points cleared, he withdrew the money.
The hack is because he was able to get large amounts of video game systems and video games by having his bankroll tied up for one week.
- Edward O. Thorp ("Beat the Dealer" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_O._Thorp )
- Keith Taft (http://www.blackjackforumonline.com/content/taftint.html)
- the MIT Blackjack Team ( "Bringing down the house" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bringing_Down_the_House_(book) )
Was it the clicking of the button? Or was it the scripting? Perhaps it was the not committing a crime part?
People, reread the story -- he deposited tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars at once, only to withdraw it after a week.
I was thinking the same thing as soon as I read the question.
This would make me drop you like a sack of armpit hair if I were a VC...
Party Poker awarded points for making deposits. Matt deposited money. He would deposit so much money at a time (up to $50K) that he got bored clicking buttons, so he wrote a script to do it for him.
So, if depositing money wasn't against the rules and withdrawing the money after he got the FPPs wasn't against the rules, how can you possible claim that "this was a crime"?
The way I read the post, he deposited all his money ($50,000 or so?) into the account, withdrawing it again as soon as he was credited. He could have refreshed the page himself, hired a Chinese monkey to do it or create a script to log in and deposit money again and again...call me a genius, but I can't see how this is a very sophisticated or even defraud an obviously broken system.
Others say fraud. But what did he lie or deceive about? He didn't hide anything.
I think it's possible he may have violated the terms of service somewhere along the line but I doubt he broke the law.
I'd be more sympathetic to the victim if they weren't themselves in the business of taking money from the helpless.
It's pure survival of the fittest.
In several countries (e.g. Germany, France... don't know about US) this is called computer fraud. And because he did it to sell the goods and make money, some countries would add "professional" and double the punishment.