theres a difference between a transaction fee and theft. this is actually a pretty common scenario really. most recent i can recall personally was in the second season of ghost in the shell. the villain did this to fund his nuke purchase.
Questioning why stories continue to use the concept of salami slice tactics as a plot point is a little like questioning why stories continue to use murder as a plot point; as long as it’s a thing people do, the concept will find its way into fiction. The idea of “maybe if I just steal a tiny amount, but a lot of times, no one will notice” predates those movies and the half dozen other ones that address a similar concept, and human actions post-date those movies as well, since people are STILL trying to find ways to do this.… Read more »
It’s a fantastic movie. But “I saw it in a movie humans made” is not good enough to be Zeke’s justification. “I see humans doing something they think is smart and I’m going to take advantage because I can” is wholly in line with where their worldview is right now.
The biggest faux pas of this is that you actually came on to explain/argue a point and expect ANYONE on the internet to change their opinion due to said explanation.
But of course, now I’m commenting and expecting somewhat the same. So meh.
The idea goes all the way back to times when gold coins were in use & “clipping” (removing a tiny piece) from them was practised by criminals.
Because it debased the currency, conviction usually carried the death penalty.
Btw, my comment was not meant to sound angry. My bad. Should have added a lol in there. Just thought it was funny that that story keeps coming up like a meme. I getcha that it’s a common thing in history, but it doesn’t stop it from being cutely familiar. If I was to pitch a story where a time traveler had to avoid erasing his own birth, it doesn’t matter how common or inherent to time travel stories this concept is, you’d still say “oh, he’s in danger of McFly-ing himself.”
It’s as old as coins. The way I’ve heard it, smiths used to shave off the smallest amount of gold from the coins they minted for their sovereign and keep it until they had an appreciable amount for themselves. When caught they would be executed.
You could ask why Office Space and Superman III stole the plot point too.
There was a book in 1978 “Computer Capers” which tells of several instances of banking fraud where the thief took small amounts from a large number of different accounts to make a profit.
While the book was referencing actual events, it was still a few years before Superman III came out.
As Tim said, real life translates into fiction incredibly well.
Came to say this. Or he watched Office Space. Both made big mistakes, but at least the latter is an infinitely better movie.
GUNnibal
2 years ago
Oh God, did ZK find banks that store their digital dollars and cents in the same float? If so – robbing them is morally acceptable. The very phrase “fraction of a cent” gives me the heebie-jeebies, man…
Yep. The thing is, they typically use 4 to 7 digits in the fractional part. Everything after that is rounded. When it’s rounded down, some money disappears, and when it’s rounded up, some money is created. This is typically so little that it’s not significant and equivalent to misplacing a penny somewhere. There were already instances where some clever IT administrators at banks exploited that fact and gathered the money from these roundings to move to their own accounts. Some got greedy and rounded everything down which had zero net result for the customer and even for the bank, but… Read more »
you kinda make me wanna see about doing this as a way to run a bank. handle everything like normal, take the “trash”. nice way to give employees money that technically exists so i do have a legally tracable way. long as i put the fine print and assure that the customer never loses anything…..
Gnarph
2 years ago
Forty eight dollar pants?? Time for ZK to learn when they’re getting taken for a ride… erm *ahem* I mean theft is bad.
Wasn’t that the plot of Superman III? (The skimming off transactions, not the pants).
Last edited 2 years ago by odaiwai
Pulse
2 years ago
its funny cause hes kinda right. most systems would nix the issue of it being off as an error and round. so the deeper you shave off the safer it is. what you gotta watch for is a system that doesnt and tracks it.
im more interested in how he got through the encryption.
Because the value goes a LOT deeper than 1c. (Look at exchange rates. The US dollar is just one of the highest valued currently. 1$ is not the same everywhere) But this also means it has a whole lotta room to be DE-valued.
Richard Pryor’s character in the lame Superman 3 movie did something similar by using his programming skills to divert rounded off fractions of cents to is bank account.
Leon
2 years ago
The danger of doing things ‘because I can’………
Mike the Limey
2 years ago
Wasn’t a similar scheme involving fractions of cents from city employees pensions part of the plot in one of the earlier batman movies?
Somewhere
2 years ago
“Technically, the fraction of a cent gets rounded down to nothing, so neither the consumer nor producer gets it.
So, if you think about it, I’m ADDING value to the economy.”
The story of how the gang accidentally become white collar villains
Yakumo
2 years ago
Some might think Zeke a Stainless Steel Rat, but this was actually the Bishop’s racket.
Dr.Synth
2 years ago
I called this being his source of funding immediately.
Dharric
2 years ago
Finally gone full Ghost in the Shell.
ReyMonoArdilla
2 years ago
I will say the same thing I said when I saw Office Space: When Richard Pryor did that in Superman III, he got caught almost immediately. (They also almost got caught in Office Space).
Matt Braddock
2 years ago
…Did Zeke just pull a Swordfish for a pair of pants?
Last edited 2 years ago by Matt Braddock
Kaitensatsuma
2 years ago
Hey, if a bank can do it, I don’t see why an autonomous, sovereign AI entity can’t.
Whatever
2 years ago
I’m with ZK on this one.
Dom
2 years ago
Phew, I thought he was going to say he used his hardware to mine crypto.
To be fair, a computer strong enough to run ZK’s mind in one humanoid sized chassis would be pretty good at mining stuff.
Greg
2 years ago
I presume that Zeke could just as easily farm bitcoin. In fact he might be well suited to solving blockchain. This would be legal and profitable. And probably untraceable.
Smiffwilm
2 years ago
As Colin Mochrie once said: “NI-ICE PANTS!”
Scott
2 years ago
Must admit to being slightly disappointed ZK doesn’t have his own Patreon…
Blaine Moore
2 years ago
Gotta love a good Gus Gorman reference.
Lily
2 years ago
How do you shave off fraction of a cent? Fraction of cents are not kept tracked of. So to steal the money you would have to at least be stealing a cent at a time.
Fractions of cents not being properly tracked is precisely how this method is supposed to work. People would notice if their $99.99 account drops to $99.98. They don’t notice if $99.99(99) drops to $99.99(90). Even if they aren’t actively tracked, fractions of cents regularly come up in transactions. For a simplified example, imagine a transaction of a $10.95 purchase with a 10% discount. 10.95 * 0,90 = 9.855, leaving you with an ugly impossible half a cent at the end. Normally, you might round that down to $9.85, and have the $0.005 disappear into nothingness. In this case, Zeke takes… Read more »
There is no money disappearing though. You would be getting 9.99% or whatever instead of a 10% discount, so there is no extra floating money. It just got rounded off.
Also, the US dollar is not the only firm of currency in the world. Most places have ‘coins’ that are baked at much less than a US penny. Money goes a LOT deeper than most realize.
Last edited 2 years ago by Logan
Lord Foxxy Foxington
2 years ago
The government, politicians, corporations, and big business people lie, cheat, and steal all the time, I have no problem with ZK doing this.
Admiral Casual
2 years ago
This isn’t the first time that I’ve heard about something like that, but the way Zeke is doing it is incredible. He’s leeching money from the human economy in such a subtle way that if he didn’t explain it to Ethan, there would be no way he’d get caught. You’d have to be a quantum supercomputer to even notice that there was anything amiss at all.
24
This can be very useful in the future.
Until someone gets wise and traces it to their store.
Then it is very unuseful.
Time for ZK to learn a little more about what Work and Wage means.
What’s work? Might as well question if getting an income from rent is work.
On a side note, I half expected for ZK to mine the coins instead. “Work”.
Didn’t ZK do the transactional fee part of mining?. He just got the transaction fees without handling the transaction(since there was no need) though.
theres a difference between a transaction fee and theft. this is actually a pretty common scenario really. most recent i can recall personally was in the second season of ghost in the shell. the villain did this to fund his nuke purchase.
yes, When ticket master does it its called a fee. when yo do it its called scalping.
Funny how that works:
Nerds, Powered by Memes, Technology, and Crypto: “Oops, check out what I can do.”
Government: “B-But our control of monetary value!”
Stock Market: “B-But our illusion of stability!”
Gamestop: “What the heck is HAPPENING?!”
Any sufficient amount of processing is indistinguishable from magic. 😀
Lost it at Gamestop. Thank you.
And when the banks do it, they try really hard not to get caught.
And now to teach the differences between can’t do and shouldn’t do.
More humans things I suppose
I think ZK has watched Office Space, the money making idea is right out of that film
Which in turn got it from Superman 3.
came to say this. does this reference make us old?
Don’t think of it as old.
Think of it as more collectable.
I believe the term is…
“Vintage”
?
Or like fine wine and scotch, we are well aged.
Ah, it was in a Superman movie.
For some reason I thought it was one of the early Batman ones.
At least he isn’t trying to create synthetic Kryptonite.
Yet.
Which got it from a much older source…
Uh…Superman 3 came out WAY before Office Space….
Ok, to my excuse: I never watched Superman 3
reminds me of ghost in the shell stand alone complex
Goddangit, how many times are we going to steal the plot of “Office Space” and “Superman III”?
Questioning why stories continue to use the concept of salami slice tactics as a plot point is a little like questioning why stories continue to use murder as a plot point; as long as it’s a thing people do, the concept will find its way into fiction. The idea of “maybe if I just steal a tiny amount, but a lot of times, no one will notice” predates those movies and the half dozen other ones that address a similar concept, and human actions post-date those movies as well, since people are STILL trying to find ways to do this.… Read more »
Okay, but… Office Space is a good movie, and a classic by this point. And it would make sense for Zeke’s main takeaway to he the Heist lessons.
It’s a fantastic movie. But “I saw it in a movie humans made” is not good enough to be Zeke’s justification. “I see humans doing something they think is smart and I’m going to take advantage because I can” is wholly in line with where their worldview is right now.
The biggest faux pas of this is that you actually came on to explain/argue a point and expect ANYONE on the internet to change their opinion due to said explanation.
But of course, now I’m commenting and expecting somewhat the same. So meh.
The idea goes all the way back to times when gold coins were in use & “clipping” (removing a tiny piece) from them was practised by criminals.
Because it debased the currency, conviction usually carried the death penalty.
Btw, my comment was not meant to sound angry. My bad. Should have added a lol in there. Just thought it was funny that that story keeps coming up like a meme. I getcha that it’s a common thing in history, but it doesn’t stop it from being cutely familiar. If I was to pitch a story where a time traveler had to avoid erasing his own birth, it doesn’t matter how common or inherent to time travel stories this concept is, you’d still say “oh, he’s in danger of McFly-ing himself.”
So the actual plot is the full salami?
It’s as old as coins. The way I’ve heard it, smiths used to shave off the smallest amount of gold from the coins they minted for their sovereign and keep it until they had an appreciable amount for themselves. When caught they would be executed.
it can’t be stealing. 1) this is better written than superman III and 2) while ZK is hilarious, he’ll never be as funny as richard pryor.
Hackers also.
It makes me feel so old that there is only one comment that mentions this classic.
You could ask why Office Space and Superman III stole the plot point too.
There was a book in 1978 “Computer Capers” which tells of several instances of banking fraud where the thief took small amounts from a large number of different accounts to make a profit.
While the book was referencing actual events, it was still a few years before Superman III came out.
As Tim said, real life translates into fiction incredibly well.
Simpsons did it first 😛
So he’s been watching Superman III ?
Came to say this. Or he watched Office Space. Both made big mistakes, but at least the latter is an infinitely better movie.
Oh God, did ZK find banks that store their digital dollars and cents in the same float? If so – robbing them is morally acceptable. The very phrase “fraction of a cent” gives me the heebie-jeebies, man…
There are banks that store their numbers in floats? I though pretty much everything in that sector uses fixed point numbers.
Yep. The thing is, they typically use 4 to 7 digits in the fractional part. Everything after that is rounded. When it’s rounded down, some money disappears, and when it’s rounded up, some money is created. This is typically so little that it’s not significant and equivalent to misplacing a penny somewhere. There were already instances where some clever IT administrators at banks exploited that fact and gathered the money from these roundings to move to their own accounts. Some got greedy and rounded everything down which had zero net result for the customer and even for the bank, but… Read more »
you kinda make me wanna see about doing this as a way to run a bank. handle everything like normal, take the “trash”. nice way to give employees money that technically exists so i do have a legally tracable way. long as i put the fine print and assure that the customer never loses anything…..
Forty eight dollar pants?? Time for ZK to learn when they’re getting taken for a ride… erm *ahem* I mean theft is bad.
You expect Zeke to debase himself with inferior pants?!
*themselves 🙂
*themself
“it” may be deemed an unsuitable pronoun for people-type beings, but at least keep number agreement.
Toldja it wasn’t crypto mining.
I thought Zeke decided not to wear pants anymore.
Read yesterday’s comic
Wasn’t that the plot of Superman III? (The skimming off transactions, not the pants).
its funny cause hes kinda right. most systems would nix the issue of it being off as an error and round. so the deeper you shave off the safer it is. what you gotta watch for is a system that doesnt and tracks it.
im more interested in how he got through the encryption.
Wouldn’t you have to shave off a cent though? How do you take any amount less than a penny from anything?
Because the value goes a LOT deeper than 1c. (Look at exchange rates. The US dollar is just one of the highest valued currently. 1$ is not the same everywhere) But this also means it has a whole lotta room to be DE-valued.
So basically he is stealing from people using bitcoin?
So…..Superman 3.
If we are going to use dated references, may has well go back as far as the great recoinage of 1696, even earlier prior art…
https://britanniacoincompany.com/blog/coin-clipping-the-great-recoinage-of-1696/
Richard Pryor’s character in the lame Superman 3 movie did something similar by using his programming skills to divert rounded off fractions of cents to is bank account.
The danger of doing things ‘because I can’………
Wasn’t a similar scheme involving fractions of cents from city employees pensions part of the plot in one of the earlier batman movies?
“Technically, the fraction of a cent gets rounded down to nothing, so neither the consumer nor producer gets it.
So, if you think about it, I’m ADDING value to the economy.”
When did Zeke get internet access?
https://cad-comic.com/comic/a-new-deal-p6/
The story of how the gang accidentally become white collar villains
Some might think Zeke a Stainless Steel Rat, but this was actually the Bishop’s racket.
I called this being his source of funding immediately.
Finally gone full Ghost in the Shell.
I will say the same thing I said when I saw Office Space: When Richard Pryor did that in Superman III, he got caught almost immediately. (They also almost got caught in Office Space).
…Did Zeke just pull a Swordfish for a pair of pants?
Hey, if a bank can do it, I don’t see why an autonomous, sovereign AI entity can’t.
I’m with ZK on this one.
Phew, I thought he was going to say he used his hardware to mine crypto.
To be fair, a computer strong enough to run ZK’s mind in one humanoid sized chassis would be pretty good at mining stuff.
I presume that Zeke could just as easily farm bitcoin. In fact he might be well suited to solving blockchain. This would be legal and profitable. And probably untraceable.
As Colin Mochrie once said: “NI-ICE PANTS!”
Must admit to being slightly disappointed ZK doesn’t have his own Patreon…
Gotta love a good Gus Gorman reference.
How do you shave off fraction of a cent? Fraction of cents are not kept tracked of. So to steal the money you would have to at least be stealing a cent at a time.
Fractions of cents not being properly tracked is precisely how this method is supposed to work. People would notice if their $99.99 account drops to $99.98. They don’t notice if $99.99(99) drops to $99.99(90). Even if they aren’t actively tracked, fractions of cents regularly come up in transactions. For a simplified example, imagine a transaction of a $10.95 purchase with a 10% discount. 10.95 * 0,90 = 9.855, leaving you with an ugly impossible half a cent at the end. Normally, you might round that down to $9.85, and have the $0.005 disappear into nothingness. In this case, Zeke takes… Read more »
.5 gets rounded o the nearest even number. Otherwise they’d accumulate.
There is no money disappearing though. You would be getting 9.99% or whatever instead of a 10% discount, so there is no extra floating money. It just got rounded off.
Right, but the trick here is that you *don’t* just round it off, and instead transfer whatever amount you’d normally round off to a separate account.
Also, the US dollar is not the only firm of currency in the world. Most places have ‘coins’ that are baked at much less than a US penny. Money goes a LOT deeper than most realize.
The government, politicians, corporations, and big business people lie, cheat, and steal all the time, I have no problem with ZK doing this.
This isn’t the first time that I’ve heard about something like that, but the way Zeke is doing it is incredible. He’s leeching money from the human economy in such a subtle way that if he didn’t explain it to Ethan, there would be no way he’d get caught. You’d have to be a quantum supercomputer to even notice that there was anything amiss at all.