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Entertainment Satire Tech

Stealing $1 Billion? Then, spelling kountz

 

cash - not a lot
We’re rich! Nope…actually after foreign exchange rates, this is equivalent to not a lot of money, could last a couple of days. Imagine $1 billion. Physical money is lame.

 

Wait, are you serious right now? Some hackers were about to steal $1,000,000,000??? Can we stop for a second and think about how insanely outrageous that is. Look how many 0’s that has. Technology is crazy. Granted, these guys’ (or person’s) spelling error only allowed them to rob $80 million, that’s still a shitload of green (thinking in US dollar colors).

 


***Original post***

Gizmodo: A Basic Spelling Error Cost These Hackers Nearly $1 Billion

Most spelling mistakes are innocent, fleeting, and only mildly embarrassing. Then there are the ones that result in a loss of over $800 million during a bank heist. Those ones suck.


 

I remember back in the day when criminals actually had to be physically present and steal tangible money. Even then, it would only amount to, 10, 20 million? Whatever the bank had in cash reserves. Is that still too high? Oh, the good old days. The criminals also had to be somewhat in shape to carry a heavy bag and guns, and run with a mask on…now, they can be on a completely different continent eating Twinkies and drinking coke in their mom’s basement. We’re doomed.

This is the future of heists, if we didn’t know that already. Now, it’s about being fluent in a computer language (or a few) and being smart. Oh, and also apparently, it still requires fluent English, or at least proficiency.

So, “how’d they get caught?” The hack was detected by the NY Fed when a transfer was trying to be made to an entity with a word of “Fandation” in it, instead of “Foundation.” Whaaaaat a dick. That’s not even an intermediate-English-learner typo. That’s straight up beginner stuff. And look what they were about to accomplish! It’s interesting to note this wasn’t detected even after a seemingly high number of requests were being sent to transfer funds to entities in the Philippines and Sri Lanka. Oh well.

What about that hacking organization? Would this be a good place to work, to start a career? If that’s this hacker’s first error, do you think he’ll get a warning? Is he fired on the spot? What is protocol for hackers on such big jobs when something like this happens?

Boss: Um, Milton…can you step into my office for a minute please?

Milton: *gulp* Sure thing.

Boss: So…Milton, I see here, your typo in this wonderfully designed hack just cost us $900,000,000 dollars, hehehe. That’s silly. Do you have anything to say for yourself? How can we prevent this in the future?

Milton: *runs full speed to jump out window – is machined down before able to commit suicide*

Boss: Exactly, Milton. Exactly.

Or, are these sophisticated criminals? Like:

Boss: Okay, Milton, for the next hack, you have to spend an extra 20 hours coding all the bitch-work because of this, and you pick up the coffee and donuts!

Milton: Ohh, come on! It was a simple mist-

Boss: No! That’s final.

Milton: Yes sir, sorry boss. *walks out of office, head down*

Who knows? This would be an awesome movie/documentary. If you do like stuff like this, check out “Track Down” [2000] it’s a pretty cool movie loosely based on Kevin Mitnick’s life (he was a serious hacker).

It’d be pretty sweet being part of such a sick, elite hacking team. Guess the majority of us will never know what the adrenaline rush is like doing something insane like this. If these guys were from the states and got caught, they’d get at least 5 years in jail for stealing this. Maybe 3 with good behavior and a few million in fines, which they could afford by that point. That’s the beauty of this wonderfully broken system. Even Mitnick who spent time in jail now is a multi-millionaire with his consulting firm. Ha, sweet gig. Well played. Best part, you can probably work remotely from any beach.

In the next life, I’ll choose to be a crazy awesome hacker over being a soccer player, movie star, accountant or whatever. Need money? Just steal one billion dollars and you’re still able to live a normal life in the public eye, doing whatever the hell you want while working on an as-needed basis from the comfort of any beach ever.