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USA Today has a story about a New Jersey couple who allegedly used a glitch in Lowes website to steal merchandise.
A New Jersey couple used a website glitch to try and get more than $258,000 worth of goods — everything from a gazebo to an air conditioner to a stainless steel grill — for free from a home improvement store, authorities said.
Ultimately, the couple was only able to secure nearly $13,000 worth of merchandise from Lowe's after exploiting "weaknesses" in the company's website to have the items shipped to their home in Brick for free, according to a release from the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office.
Romela Velazquez, 24, was arrested and charged with theft by deception and computer criminal activity for accessing a computer system with the purpose to defraud. She attempted to get about $258,068 worth of unpaid merchandise from Lowe's, according to the release.
She actually received about $12,971 in stolen products, according to the release.
Her husband, Kimy Velazquez, 40, was charged with third-degree receipt of stolen property and fencing for his role in the alleged scheme.
The couple tried to sell some of the products on a local Facebook "buy and sell" group for half of the original sale price, listing the products as "new in box," authorities said.
According to an article on NJ.com, an attorney for the couple has stated that Velazquez is just an expert shopper, not a criminal hacker.
Jef Henninger, an attorney for Romela Velazquez, said his client is "the farthest thing from a computer hacker."
"Like many young mothers, she needs to stretch every dollar she can," Henninger said in a statement. "As a result, she has learned to spot good deals. These are the same deals that any of us can take advantage of, but most of us are too busy to learn how to spot them.
"Buying things at a big discount and selling them is not illegal. As a result, she maintains her innocence (and) looks forward to her day in court."
As far as I have been able to find, no technical details about the hack have been released.
One of the more interesting details that I did see was
Lowe's, makers of Ugg shoes and Victoria's Secret have been identified as victims so far – but many more retailers were also ripped off and will eventually be identified, officials said.
Who knew?
Additional coverage at the New York Post and BleepingComputer.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday August 23 2017, @05:04AM
They can do this because there was a clause in the previous version that stated it explicitly. That is, when you accepted the original terms, you also accepted that they may change the terms whenever they want. I'm pretty sure if they didn't include that clause in the original terms, later changes without your explicit agreement would not be allowed. Similarly, they certainly don't include a clause that you may change the terms as you see fit, therefore I'm pretty sure if you just sent them an email telling them "I changed the terms of service in that and that way; if you continue to provide the service that counts as implicit acceptance" that wouldn't work.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.