11–20 of 56 posts
To anyone considering reading the article, there isn't much more substance than a guy stumbling upon a book that is listed on Amazon for an absurd price.
[0] https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/02/money-laundering-via-aut...
(edit: spelligating correctivization)
This boring story has a happy ending: I contacted the author (a retired MIT professor) if he could share a PDF with me, and he generated one from his old roff sources. He also sent me a signed copy from a stack he got from his publisher back then (80's), paying over $60 porto (US -> UK). I was blown away by his kindness and generosity.
The author's hypothesis sounds reasonable, but it is most likely not arbitrage as @neilv mentioned it. It is money laundering.[0] [0] https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/02/money-laundering-via-aut... (edit: spelligating correctivization)
The author's hypothesis sounds reasonable, but it is most likely not arbitrage as @neilv mentioned it. It is money laundering.[0] [0] https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/02/money-laundering-via-aut... (edit: spelligating correctivization)
I thought so at first too, but that doesn’t explain the steady price increases. Two algorithms competing against each other does.
As for the pricing, I am guessing it is just a side effect of the normal behavior. It would make sense for the criminal to not change from default settings when setting up the account, ergo include it in these algos.
To anyone considering reading the article, there isn't much more substance than a guy stumbling upon a book that is listed on Amazon for an absurd price.
Did you miss the part where they reverse engineered the pricing algorithm? What exactly were you expecting here?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you miss the part where they reverse engineered the pricing algorithm? What exactly were you expecting here?
They didn't reverse engineer anything. They made false assumptions based on nothingness.
I think I stumbled across similar behaviour, but for a used book. I was looking for a particular computer science book, couldn't find it new, and then decided to buy a used one from Amazon, ordering from the store with the best rating. It didn't arrive, and after a while (a few weeks) I received a notice that the delivery service had lost the book. I was refunded the money, though. The tracking number I got for the b…
This happens a lot, and has recently become very visible with the death of Queen Elizabeth Ⅱ.
A lot of people suddenly hit Amazon and other online shopping sites to buy Queen merchandise, only to have their orders cancelled because the sellers weren't real stores with inventory, but just randos on the internet used to going out to tourist shops and buying one or two items a month as orders came in.
When the flood of orders arrived, they couldn't handle it, since their local shops ran dry of the specific items they listed, too.
Example: it is very common to find people selling a pen for 50 Euro, by buying the pen you are gifted with concert tickets which are illegal to re-sell.
So think anything ilegal to sell or serve, that can be gifted if you buy that book.
edit: I agree with what user WaitWaitWha is saying.
Hmm. Is there a way to short-sell physical items like books?