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I exploited existing YouTube videos with a fake Patreon profile

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Re: I exploited existing YouTube videos with a fake Patreon profile

#21

Post by Dylan16807 »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #20
Dylan16807 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A dead comment asked if stealing 100 dollars if fine if you give it back. So I'll chip in that for basic theft, one of the core elements is intent to permanently deprive the original owner. So if someone steals money, changes their mind, and then returns it, that's still theft. And taking money to spend, with a promise of returning money later, still counts as theft. But if the intent all along was to return it the n…

How was this fraud? He simply created a Patreon account. Yes, it happened to be used by someone else previously, but how is that his fault?

Why are you asking me?

Re: I exploited existing YouTube videos with a fake Patreon profile

#22

Post by bestnameever »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #20
Dylan16807 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A dead comment asked if stealing 100 dollars if fine if you give it back. So I'll chip in that for basic theft, one of the core elements is intent to permanently deprive the original owner. So if someone steals money, changes their mind, and then returns it, that's still theft. And taking money to spend, with a promise of returning money later, still counts as theft. But if the intent all along was to return it the n…

How was this fraud? He simply created a Patreon account. Yes, it happened to be used by someone else previously, but how is that his fault?

Didn't he also use images from the youtube channel to make the patreon account look like it belonged to the youtube user?

Re: I exploited existing YouTube videos with a fake Patreon profile

#23

Post by jjeaff »

unreal37 wrote: post #19
pmiller2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. It's not fraud if they don't get any benefit from it. Since they refunded the single, solitary person who pledged $3/month, then shut it all down, it's all good from the fraud angle.

I am not a lawyer, but I doubt refunding your fraud victim after the fact gets you off the hook for fraud. If the victim or the police wanted to pursue that.

I think it might make it difficult to prove intent to defraud if you immediately return the cash. Is it theft if a magician picks your pocket but then returns the wallet at the end of the trick? By the most technical sense of the term, it might. But i can't imagine a prosecutor that would go after something like that.

Re: I exploited existing YouTube videos with a fake Patreon profile

#24

Post by throw_m239339 »

pmiller2 wrote: post #10
ObsoleteNerd wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s because it’s fraud.

Nah. It's not fraud if they don't get any benefit from it. Since they refunded the single, solitary person who pledged $3/month, then shut it all down, it's all good from the fraud angle.

It's wire-fraud and it's a federal crime. "Refunding people" doesn't change the fact that a crime has been committed, period. This isn't a legal advice.

Re: I exploited existing YouTube videos with a fake Patreon profile

#25

Post by PragmaticPulp »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #20
Dylan16807 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A dead comment asked if stealing 100 dollars if fine if you give it back. So I'll chip in that for basic theft, one of the core elements is intent to permanently deprive the original owner. So if someone steals money, changes their mind, and then returns it, that's still theft. And taking money to spend, with a promise of returning money later, still counts as theft. But if the intent all along was to return it the n…

How was this fraud? He simply created a Patreon account. Yes, it happened to be used by someone else previously, but how is that his fault?

> Yes, it happened to be used by someone else previously, but how is that his fault?

Fraud is deception with the intent of personal gain.

He wrote and published an entire blog article entitled "How I exploited existing youtube videos with a fake Patreon profile" in which he describes how he registered a Patreon account with the expectation of deceiving users into sending him money.

Re: I exploited existing YouTube videos with a fake Patreon profile

#27

Post by PragmaticPulp »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #18
pmiller2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. It's not fraud if they don't get any benefit from it. Since they refunded the single, solitary person who pledged $3/month, then shut it all down, it's all good from the fraud angle.

A dead comment asked if stealing 100 dollars if fine if you give it back. So I'll chip in that for basic theft, one of the core elements is intent to permanently deprive the original owner. So if someone steals money, changes their mind, and then returns it, that's still theft. And taking money to spend, with a promise of returning money later, still counts as theft. But if the intent all along was to return it the n…

> But if the intent all along was to return it the next day, stored safely the entire time, that's not theft.

Legally, this isn't even remotely true.

If you deprive someone of their legal possessions without permission, even with intent to return it later, you are guilty of theft.

There is no loophole that allows you to temporarily steal things as long as you intend to return them.

Intent only comes into play if the person had no intention of depriving the other person. An example would be if you accidentally pick up someone else's jacket because you thought it was yours.

Re: I exploited existing YouTube videos with a fake Patreon profile

#28

Post by not2b »

jjeaff wrote: post #23
unreal37 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a lawyer, but I doubt refunding your fraud victim after the fact gets you off the hook for fraud. If the victim or the police wanted to pursue that.

I think it might make it difficult to prove intent to defraud if you immediately return the cash. Is it theft if a magician picks your pocket but then returns the wallet at the end of the trick? By the most technical sense of the term, it might. But i can't imagine a prosecutor that would go after something like that.

Clearly there was no intent to defraud. He was testing for a security issue and promptly returned the money of the one person who was fooled.

Re: I exploited existing YouTube videos with a fake Patreon profile

#29

Post by qwantim1 »

keyle wrote: post #2

I find this partially interesting but mostly lucky. I don't see this hack raking a lot of dollaroos. "stealing" someone's account would be far more dangerous. That said I'm surprised that Patreon will just let people recycle accounts like this without even a second step. This is no different than DNS parking after a domain fell off the wagon, only with direct revenues.

Not lucky- just deceptive. Deception is what scammers do, and they do it because it’s guaranteed to make money, not because they hope to get lucky.

I’m not advocating this. Doing this was wrong, and it’s not some black hat exploit. It was a scam; pretending to be someone to make money off of an unwitting victim.

Re: I exploited existing YouTube videos with a fake Patreon profile

#30

Post by MikeTheGreat »

jjeaff wrote: post #23
unreal37 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a lawyer, but I doubt refunding your fraud victim after the fact gets you off the hook for fraud. If the victim or the police wanted to pursue that.

I think it might make it difficult to prove intent to defraud if you immediately return the cash. Is it theft if a magician picks your pocket but then returns the wallet at the end of the trick? By the most technical sense of the term, it might. But i can't imagine a prosecutor that would go after something like that.

I see what you're trying for but I don't think the magician analogy is accurate. Bare minimum you agreed to sit and watch the magic show, and every time I've seen a magician involve the audience they always start with "Can I get a volunteer?", at which point it's clear you're a willing participant (yes, you don't know what's about to happen, but the magician gives the wallet back after so it's clear about the entertaining show and not an example of the magician attempting to commit a crime)
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