So essentially you're proud of stealing huge amounts of money from a fund set up by people for a specific purpose, and then you channel this money to suit your own needs while claiming <i>moral superiority</i>?<p>You know, even if the money you stole for "the little children OMG think of the children" really reaches the intended recipients, which it probably won't if this is a typical 3rd world development fund, you still betrayed everybody's trust and you're actually proud of it.<p>Sam Odio is either the worst kind of stealing hypocrite out there, or he's genuinely living in a cardboard box under a bridge giving all his money away to charity. I think I can guess which one is the case.<p>I apologize for the tone of this post, but the sheer amount of arrogant jerkiness on display here actually makes me angry; and that's saying something.<p>On the plus side, I suppose now we know who kept on abusing the card (people were wondering in other threads).
"Or am I alone in thinking that helping a stranger find their next caffeine fix is not what we should be worried about in today's world?"<p><i>sigh</i> This is such a silly, stupid point to make:<p>Buying an iPad? What about world hunger!? Going to the movies? What about the modern slave trade!? Painting a picture? Women in Sudanese refugee camps can't go to the bathroom at night without fear of rape, and here you painting a picture. The way you take your privilege for granted makes me sick, you selfish bastard!!!!<p>Yes there are problems in the world. Does this mean no one is allowed to do anything frivolous until they are all solved? In my opinion, no.<p>Get off your high horse, OP.<p>EDIT: Neat project tho! Took the originator's project in a new, unexpected direction, which makes it even more interesting. Kudos!
I'm probably going to get down-voted to hell, but I'm not sure what this counter experiment is trying to prove... we all already knew it is easy to take from Jonathan's card.<p>When people noticed that money was disappearing off Jonathan's card $100 at a time, most people thought it was an uninformed, karma-less nobody stealing from the card. It is incredible that the transactions are due to some educated do-gooder imposing his beliefs onto the donors of Jonathan's card.<p>I've read many of Sam's comments before, and respect them as thoughtful and intelligent. However, just because you don't like the idea of "yuppies buying yuppies coffee", doesn't mean that you should try to destroy Jonathan's card. Some people feel good and more connected with others by adding to and taking from Jonathan's card.<p>By taking money out of the system, you are in effect going against donors wishes and imposing your own beliefs on them. It is almost like taking from the vault of a charity that you dislike and giving the proceeds to your charity of choice. Its less atrocious than pocketing the money and buying an iPad, but obviously still bad.<p>EDIT: I feel sorry for Jonathan and his good intentions.
God I hate this mentality.<p>Yeah, you can exploit this, but are you doing anything fun or interesting by it?<p>I live in a community that has a lot of cyclists in it. If I'm at home, I tend to spend a lot of time on my front porch working on my bikes with my friends. Most of them know that I keep some tools slightly "hidden" there, and I've told all of my friends that they're welcome to come over and use them if I'm ever not there.<p>Could they steal these tools?<p>Yep.<p>Would they would demonstrating some OMG SECURITY HOLE in my "Ryan's Porch" scheme?<p>No. They'd be acting like assholes, which is exactly what this guy is doing.<p>I'm an amateur locksmith. I usually keep a half diamond pick and a torsion wrench in my car, and sometimes I even carry it in my pocket. <i>Could</i> I steal half of the bikes locked up across the street from my house?<p><i>Could</i> I break into buildings and steal things from them?<p>What if I donated the money to poor people?!<p>Sam Odio, you're being a jerk here. Knock it off.
<i>Since I don't find the idea of yuppies buying yuppies coffees very interesting I decided to mix things up a bit.</i><p>OP/Sam, I understand that you believe there are worse problems in the world. I have no doubt that you are correct. However, this does not change the fact that your own social experiment amounts to you taking advantage of the good will of those who contributed to the Starbucks card by stealing from them. Contributing the money to a charity afterwards does not change this fact.<p>You are not Robin Hood stealing from a corrupt Sheriff of Nottingham. So please don't act like it.
What I find most interesting about this is Sam's comments in the previous thread:<p>1) Claimed that a large purchase was him buying food for two homeless guys:
<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2857712" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2857712</a><p>Sam, is this true? Did you actually buy food for some homeless guys (and then later decide on this strategy), or was this cover for your experiment?<p>2) in response to a comment about the card being ripe for abuse, he said the balance seemed to be holding at a low and steady value, and <i>"That would imply that the card is currently being used as intended."</i>
<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2858511" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2858511</a><p>Interesting, then, that he's most definitely <i>not</i> using the card as intended. An "edgy/controversial twist" for sure.
Congratulations. You broke Johnathan's Card. But more than that— I think you made a valuable point.<p>Lots of people who were exposed, maybe for the first time, to the idea of a stranger doing something nice for them for no reason, and then to the idea that they might then do something nice for a stranger in return, have had that illusion shattered. There is no act so charitable that somebody won't steal from it.<p>You take money from yuppies to give to charity. The people who run the charity take 10% off the top to pay the bills— they have children too, you know. When the food actually gets on the ground, local warlords come and take half for themselves.<p>The yuppies still drink coffee, the charity still pays its salaries, the warlords still try to kill each other, and children are still starving to death. The experiment has changed nothing— except that a few of those yuppies maybe believe in the idea of random acts of kindness just a little bit less.<p>Point <i>well made.</i>
I personnally never donated anything significant to charity. I haven't tried Jonathan's card either (for lack of time), but if I had, I can picture how I would have felt, and how it would have changed my views on human nature and altruism.<p>Jonathan's experiment was letting people experience other people's generosity and let that change their minds.<p>And then Sam comes and ruins everyhting. And he's totally convinced that he's doing the Good Thing.<p>You're not, Sam. You are destroying an opportunity for people like me to become less individualistic assholes.
Strip away all the fluff that Sam put in his blog post and what do you have? You have Jonathan's 'take a penny, leave a penny' project. You have Sam who thinks he's very clever by showing how someone can come in and siphon off the pennies and whoa ... spend it on other things.<p>The amusing thing is Sam thinks he's done something really amazing or insightful. The whole 'donate to charity angle' is just Sam trying to justify his actions and put a veneer of credibility on his uninspiring actions.
Great, you donated $600 to kids who really needed it. Next time you get the desire to do so, I suggest you build your own crowd-sourced donation scheme, or donate your own money. Either way, you won't be leeching off of other peoples' hard work.
Donating money to starving children in Africa well-meaning, but cruel. Life in Africa sucks, and making people live there longer is not a good deed. The West has invested incredible sums of money into Africa, and the result is corruption, violence, and stagnation. They are begging us to stop:<p><a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,363663,00.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,363663,00...</a><p>I believe that about as strongly as Sam believes that donating to Africa will help (this time is different!). Buuut I wouldn't feel justified in stealing from a charity in order to act on that belief.
Used to work for Starbucks. We once had a day where all of our customers decided to 'pay it forward', and buy the next person's drinks.<p>It led to a lot of accounting for me, but the final tally was something in the vein of 800 transactions in an unbroken chain.<p>The high points involved folks buying $50 or more worth of transactions, down the line. The low points involved people trying to put down $20 and the next person using all of it up on silly frappucinos.<p>To answer another topic, I think that the assertion here that buying Starbucks coffee for someone else as intrinsically frivolous, when we could be doing something valuable, like perhaps Saving the Children, or Helping Starvation, is itself frivolous.<p>Helping one another is helping one another, and criticizing how it's done is missing the point altogether. I have to wonder where the utility is in comparing the weight of one charity versus another. It seems pointless.
The original post about Jonathan's card Stated that the experiment is inspired by "'take a penny, leave a penny' trays at convenience stores in the US".<p>Then here is what happened:<p>People started using the tray, taking them as well as leaving them. Then one day a guy started showing up at the store. He would intermittently dump the tray into his knapsack whenever there were enough pennies. Not only he did this for many days, but later he also proudly publicly announced that how he did it. Since all the people who show up at the store are rich and wealthy, it makes more sense to give that money to poor in some other parts of the world.<p>If this logic is acceptable then I should be allowed to break apart any petty charity collection box and use the money for the purpose I deem more noble.
I feel sorry for the moron who thinks he's making a statement with this. The card was a brilliant social experiment regardless of critics claiming it a stealth marketing campaign. People who participated felt good giving whether someone was free-riding. However, this just leaves a bad aftertaste. You ruin it for everyone then pretend it's okay by "donating" money that isn't even yours and killing the experiment then brag about the ordeal. Kudos to you. Bravo indeed.<p>Having said that I'm not at all surprised by the outcome just didn't expect something like this. Now I'm sure some yuppie wannabe is going to try and score an iPad for themselves.
Sam has posted on Google+ (<a href="https://plus.google.com/113956160418597123621/posts/MAqht3NBAp1" rel="nofollow">https://plus.google.com/113956160418597123621/posts/MAqht3NB...</a>) ... however be aware that I suspect he is deleting posts and blocking people (^) that are critical of him as I posted the following:<p>"It's not much different to taking money out of the church collection plate and donating it to a charity that you prefer over the churches. Whilst I acknowledge this could be considered an extension of Jonathon's social experiment - it's hardly insightful or clever - you took money from an open fund and spent it. Hardly mind shattering stuff. The whole 'charity versus coffee' justification is little better than the 'think of the children' arguments that are used in similar ways. For the record, I don't think what you did is theft or immoral (it was a social experiment after all), but it was just a lame move that served no purpose and made no point."<p>... and now it doesn't appear in my stream and i can no longer post on the comment thread.<p>(^) There is a chance I'm just not understanding how to use G+ and Sam has done nothing of the sort - I only started using it recently.
> "Since _I_ don't find the idea of yuppies buying yuppies coffees very interesting"<p>Wow, This is some serious sense of entitlement of someone <i>else's</i> money/experiment.<p>I don't believe in many of people's belief. However its their beliefs and it is Jonathan's (and other donors') social experiment. If you do not agree with its philosophy, don't participate in it, but ruining it would be as senseless as me trying to make a personal mission to harass people on having belief's other than mine.
This is clearly theft. What he used the money for is not relevant. The card was put out for a specific use, and this use case was not the intended one. Had he actually bought an iPad, everyone would agree that it's theft. Transferring money between someones else's card and your own with out permission is theft.
I find it ironic that the OP, who hacked the experiment to divert funds onto his own card (which are now going to a just cause), is the brother of the person in the original comments thread who was posturing about whether or not the card had been hacked.<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2858120" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2858120</a>
<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2858226" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2858226</a><p>Perhaps Sam made this script well after there was a question as to whether or not the card had been hacked, but if not, this is just funny.
I think I've changed my mind about the project, reading everyone's opinions here. At least sort of.<p>An analogy: You have some clothes, and you build a little covered rack outside your house on the street and put a sign up that says "clothing swap, takes some for yourself or leave some for someone else." Some people take some clothes and drop some off. THEN some guy comes along and says "this is BS, it's just a bunch of yuppies trading clothes" and proceeds to take <i>all</i> the clothes and bring them to the goodwill, where he believes they'll be put to better use. He does this a few times.<p>Now, if I were the project founder or a clothing donor (or taker), I would be <i>pretty pissed</i> if someone decided to take all the clothes and give them to Goodwill because s/he thinks "they'll be put to better use" there.<p>1. There's an ulterior goal here (community building) that is scuttled by you taking all the clothes
2. How do you know I don't give to poverty related charities already
3. I have my reasons for not giving to Goodwill
4. Even if you think it's stupid <i>it's not your decision</i>.<p>On the other hand, if I leave a pile of dollar bills in a bowl on the street with a sign that says "please take only one," would it be reasonable of me to get upset when someone takes more than one? In my opinion it would not be reasonable. Someone abusing the system was the <i>inevitable</i> conclusion of this experiment. That doesn't make what he's doing "right," per se, but it seems silly to rage about something that was predictable with 100% certainty.<p>EDIT: downvoter: which part didn't you like? I put a couple of different points in one post (I know, my fault) so I can't tell what you're objecting to. :P Just curious.
The rich steal stealing from the rich to eventually pass a percentage on to the poor. I'm sure it seemed much more Robin Hood-y at the time.<p>There are <i>far</i> less scummy ways to do something like this. Game a Bing promotion, take advantage of lax security in some other MegaCorp rewards programme - or <i>gasp</i> use your own money. Mind you, those guys are more likely to sue than a disparate bunch of well-meaning folks.
Another lesson here is to be careful with @font-face styling - <a href="http://i55.tinypic.com/1z342ee.png" rel="nofollow">http://i55.tinypic.com/1z342ee.png</a> - the whole thing is barely readable on Windows.
This is the same Sam Odio that had a scam Iraqi Dinar exchange...<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcq2LXSAn_U" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcq2LXSAn_U</a><p>The service received a cease and desist letter from the government...<p><a href="http://www.iraqidinarmoney.com/dinar-profits/" rel="nofollow">http://www.iraqidinarmoney.com/dinar-profits/</a><p>Sam Odio seems to exhibit the traits of a sociopath,defined by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual as "...a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood.<p>Why YC supports people like this is beyond me.
I can't help but feel that this just isn't the right way to go about helping the less fortunate. It's just too underhanded.<p>Just build something similar that doesn't involve taking advantage of J's Card. Man up.
No wonder the card's been empty every time I try to use it (I'm on vacation in the States). People like you steal the money. Fuck you, and fuck your script.
Sam is such a great guy. I'm sure he donates all of his earnings to charity and doesn't own a single luxury, so he's definitely qualified to judge how "yuppies" spend their money.<p>On a slightly darker note: He sure seems proud of himself for donating to a charity that keeps children barely alive, just long enough for them to have more children that no one can provide for. It seems slightly counter-productive to me.
Gift cards held by a group are an interesting way to move money around with a little deniability.<p>If there was an easier way to cash in Starbucks gift cards, Starbucks could take over Western Union.
I don'5 know who is OP but I believe what he did is wrong, both in legal ground and moral ground. Obviously Jonathan didn't allow him and his friends to transfer money off the card, is that enough to sue him? I'm no lawyer but I can't believe that's acceptable. Also, he misused the card + donate other people's money -- what did he think? And one last point, he said they did that many time but he only intended to donate that $600, what about the other attempts? Can we do something, please?
I've seen a lot of hostility in this thread to the perceived egotism of this act. I've also seen some people who dislike that the donations were used for something other than their intended purpose. Since my initial reaction was that he's in the right here (accusations of high horse and such aside, I'd rather not go into that), I'm curious to hear people's reasoning on why they dislike this so much. So, some hypotheticals and questions...<p>1) What if it had been anonymous and "Ego free". Would you feel better about it if it were disconnected from status?<p>2) Most people would agree that giving to charity is better than giving a coffee (note I said charity, not Africa specifically. There can be some debate over whether aid helps or harms Africa, but I'm less interested in that now). If charity > coffee, why is this such a bad thing?<p>3) I understand the hostility to statements about "You should be doing charity instead" because there's always an element of hypocrisy to them, but if the statement is divorced from the person, isn't it correct? So why should there be so much hostility when it's put into practice in this case?<p>I'm not trying to judge anyone for their opinion here, I'm just curious about their reasoning since it differs from my own.
I think Sam/OP should transfer all the money he took back onto Jonathan's card. In small increments of course in order to curb further abuse like what he committed.
cache <a href="http://google.com/search?strip=1&q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fsam.odio.com%2F2011%2F08%2F12%2Fi-took-625-jonathans-card%2F" rel="nofollow">http://google.com/search?strip=1&q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fsa...</a><p>why he's installing memcache for a single-server wordpress I have no clue - just install wp-super-cache and use .htaccess to do rewrites to static files - only way to bypass the (lack of) performance nightmare that is wordpress
I'm surprised at the outraged expressed in this thread.<p>Everybody expects participants in this experiment to be divided into givers and takers, right? Why would anybody donate and then claim if they could just buy their own cup? The very nature of the thing is that both party's are anonymous, so the givers have no right or expectation to the "worthiness" of the taker or the purpose it is put to (on-selling included). However, it is clear that the hope and intention is to spread good will and kindness.<p>Originally, Jonathan provided a means to distribute these gifts to random strangers. The demographic was somewhat limited by technical and geographic constraints but Sam figured out a way to broaden (a small portion of) the benefits to a wider audience. To my mind that is entirely in keeping with the spirit of the original experiment (i.e. spreading goodwill and kindness).<p>Also, it's worth noting that Sam did not explicitly moralize about this - other than to say that he didn't "find the idea of yuppies buying yuppies coffees very interesting".<p>Can anyone explain why it has provoked such an aggressive response?<p>EDIT: I've no connection with Jonathan or Sam or Starbucks (really).
Jonathan's card strikes a good point beyond giving to Yuppies and not those seriously in need. The social implications of this experiment I think shows that people are willing to help others if its relatable and also accessible for them to do so. Besides, I am sure somewhere someone bought a coffee with Jonathons card and then gave it to a hobo
Jonathan's card, at worst a marketing experiment, at best a means of charity for those who are privileged enough to learn about it and who like to frequent Starbucks, has been subverted to give to the truly poor and needy. Does it leave a bad taste? It might. Truly, a shame. This toy for the well off might now be broken for good. I might have used it, I might have even given to it (in the spirit intended by the creator), and in either case this exploit would not upset me. I don't see why there is so much umbrage present in these comments.
Very interesting experiment on an already interesting experiment.<p>Would everyone be up in arms if he didn't publish how he did it on his blog and publicly post the code on github and instead used it to buy himself coffee for life?<p>He saw a "flaw" in the system and is publicizing it. Sounds pretty holy to me. Certainly holier than buying yourself a luxury item from an exploiting corporation, meanwhile deluding yourself into thinking you're doing something good for society by donating 5 bucks to said cause.
Actually I have an idea which I will implement soon hopefully. It involves a vending machine for the homeless and money donated by people. If you're interested in participating, and have some kind of experience, contact me. <a href="http://magarshak.com/contact" rel="nofollow">http://magarshak.com/contact</a>
Would someone care to explain how is this fundamentally different from the Firesheep experiment a few months back, which was heavily applauded by the community here?
Jonathan's Card claimed to be a social experiment, but it was never clear to me exactly what the experiment was supposed to test. As an outsider looking at this experiment, the first question I has was: How would he prevent unintended use of the card's funds?<p>Sam is just part of the experiment. Yes, he's spoiling the good fun of buying coffees for each other, but if it weren't him taking the money, it'd be someone else. At least we still have data on the where most of the money went.
Hacking the hack of the hack: @Socialize has paid $625 to @Jonathanscard to promote our SDK Speed Challenge. That's enough for an iPad, @sodio! besoci.al/q2I0QE <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2878875" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2878875</a>
An alarmingly high number of comments are saying pretty much the same thing, would be great if people writing had something new to say, if not just upvote a well written comment that states your view!
This seems like an unauthorized use of the card and could be criminal theft. If I give you my stored value card to buy coffee and you instead steal all the money, it doesn't matter whether you're donating to charity or disagree with my cause - it's stealing.<p>Regardless, it's certainly a shitty thing to do.
Why does a project that's about a minor form of good will always need to be trumped by something else? Like we need to be incessantly reminded that there are starving people for every decision we make in our day to day lives?<p>It's nice that he's trying to increase the awareness of starving children. But I don't see why he feels he needs to basically destroy the system Jonathan has come up with.<p>Yes, apparently the one second you were thinking about your own needs, or anyone OTHER than a very poor person, was selfish and horrible. We should all stop buying things, walk out into the street and start screaming at the futility since there are people in the world who are worse off than us.
Guess Sam couldn't handle the heat. He cutoff commenting on his G+ thread. Hmmm, could he finally be realizing that he messed up and actually did wire fraud and stole money?
Awesome. What a hack. Can everyone please shutup with their dumb subjective value judgements already? Grow up, these were both fun, benign, experiments.
Hi Sam. I know a lot of people are going to talk shit to you about this, but I think what you did was right. You shouldn't have published though. Next time just take the money and run.
I think some people on here took too much offense to his 'holier than thou' attitude. the kid showed off a neat little hack (we're all nerds here) showed it to the world, put the money towards a good cause, and hopefully educated some people about security issues. i think is hilarious, I give sam some props, and I can live another day without free coffee...
To all who want to slam on Sam Odio's moral code:<p>You're seriously arguing that a hack that converts money into fat, caffeinated Americans and corporate profit is better than a hack that hacks that hack to feed the poor? We should be finding more ways to prevent the conversion of money into American fat. In fact: as a doctor, there's my challenge to you: please find ways to catch calories before they land in middle-class American bellies and convert them to some better good.<p>I know the HN crowd is pretty libertarian, but Sam's behavior is, by definition, thoroughly with the scope of acceptable behavior in a libertarian polity. By the way, Sam's fairly successful startup guy. If you're on HN and not your text editor, you should probably be noting this is how successful entrepreneurs behave, and emulate Sam.
Thought this was already revealed as a viral marketing campaign by starbucks:<p><a href="http://www.coffeestrategies.com/2011/08/08/starbucks-and-the-starkbucks-jonathan-card-viral-marketing-campaign" rel="nofollow">http://www.coffeestrategies.com/2011/08/08/starbucks-and-the...</a><p>Not sure if that means there's more of a reason to exploit it or not, at least Sam's doing it for good =)