My Diseased Mind

The Punchlines are in the Story

People like this are true American heroes.

A California man has been indicted for an inventive scheme that allegedly siphoned $50,000 from online brokerage houses E-trade and Schwab.com in six months — a few pennies at a time.

Michael Largent, 22, of Plumas Lake, California, allegedly exploited a loophole in a common procedure both companies follow when a customer links his brokerage account to a bank account for the first time. To verify that the account number and routing information is correct, the brokerages automatically send small “micro-deposits” of between two cents to one dollar to the account, and ask the customer to verify that they’ve received it.

This is a slightly modified version of the legendary Salami Method of computer embezzlement, featured in several movies, including Superman III, Hackers, and Office Space, by Mike Judge.

Largent allegedly used an automated script to open 58,000 online brokerage accounts, linking each of them to a handful of online bank accounts, and accumulating thousands of dollars in micro-deposits.

Two things: First, it takes a 22 year-old to realize that Superman III isn’t required viewing at bank software companies and security firms. Second, it takes a 22 year-old with enormous balls to go ahead and do this, regardless of how ignorant he is.

Here’s my favorite part:

Largent’s script allegedly used fake names, addresses and Social Security numbers for the brokerage accounts. Largent allegedly favored cartoon characters for the names, including Johnny Blaze, King of the Hill patriarch Hank Hill, and Rusty Shackelford. That last name is doubly-fake — it’s the alias commonly used by the paranoid exterminator Dale Gribble on King of the Hill.

Dude stole Dale Gribble’s stolen alias! That’s right, the proprietor of Dale’s Dead Bug, brazen in his commission of identity theft on numerous occasions, has become a victim of the same crime. Karma’s a bitch, Gribble.

However, what did Hank Hill ever do to deserve this? This is as bad as the time that the video store accused him of failing to return a porn tape, and put it on his credit report.

And then there’s Johnny Blaze. Johnny’s the Ghost Rider, and made a deal with the devil. Pretty sure he could care less about what Experian says about him.

A May 7 Secret Service search warrant affidavit (.pdf) says Largent tried the same thing with Google’s Checkout service, accumulating $8,225.29 in eight different bank accounts at Bancorp Bank.

When the bank asked Largent about the thousands of small transfers, he told them that he’d read Google’s terms of service, and that it didn’t prohibit multiple e-mail addresses and accounts. “He stated he needed the money to pay off debts and stated that this was one way to earn money, by setting up multiple accounts having Google submit the two small deposits.”

In other words, it’s not a crime if the only victim is a $184 billion company. Funny thing is, almost everyone agrees with this line of thinking–except for $184 billion companies. And that’s a hell of a tiebreaker.