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Crime Software

Software Engineer Charged For Theft Inspired By the Movie 'Office Space' (komonews.com) 99

An anonymous reader quotes a report from KOMO: Ermenildo Castro, 28, of Tacoma, allegedly told detectives that he was inspired by the 90's movie "Office Space" when he devised a plan to divert customer fees from his employer, Zulily.com, into his own bank accounts. According to court documents, Castro wrote software code that manipulated the online retailer's checkout page to send the shipping fees into his own account. The charges allege Castro netted $260,000 in stolen shipping fees. Seattle police detectives said Castro also used his position as a software engineer to manipulate prices on Zulily to purchase approximately $41,000 in merchandise for 'pennies on the dollar'.

According to police, the company's cybersecurity staff found a document on Castro's laptop titled 'OfficeSpace project', which outlined Castro's scheme to 'cleanup evidence' by manipulating audit logs and disabling alarm logging. The theft began in February and by March the company had identified discrepancies in the shipping fees being charged to customers, an SPD report states. Castro was part of the team assigned to investigate the discrepancies in shipping fees, according to the report. Zulily investigators eventually caught on to Castro's scheme and went to his house in Tacoma where they found boxes of merchandise piled up outside the front door and driveway, the report states. In total, Zulily's team said Castro had sent over 1,000 items sent to his house.
Seattle police detectives wrote a narrative explaining how Castro's alleged scheme related to the movie "Office Space," including the plot outline on IMDB.com.

"In the Initech office, the insecure Peter Gibbons hates his job. His best friends are two software engineers Michael Bolton and Samir Nagheenanajar, that also hate Initech. When he discovers that Michael and Samir will be downsized, they decide to plant a virus in the banking system to embezzle fraction of cents on each financial operation into Peter's account. However[,] Michael commits a mistake in the software on the decimal place and they siphon off over $300,000. The desperate trio tries to fix the problem, return the money and avoid going to prison."
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Software Engineer Charged For Theft Inspired By the Movie 'Office Space'

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  • by evil_aaronm ( 671521 ) on Thursday December 29, 2022 @10:44PM (#63167214)
    Diverting entire shipping payments instead of smaller, fractional amounts. Conspicuous consumption. Leaving incriminating documents on your work laptop.

    And, of course, coming up with this idea in the first place.
  • by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Thursday December 29, 2022 @10:51PM (#63167222)
    Gotta have those TPS reports in on time.
    • by Strider- ( 39683 )

      Did you remember to use the new cover sheets?

      No?

      Let me send you the memo...

      • Did you remember to use the new cover sheets?

        No?

        Let me send you the memo...

        TPS cover sheets.

        Toyota Production System, for all you old-timer trivia buffs who want to stump people.

        • by tragedy ( 27079 )

          I think it's normally supposed to be Test Procedure Specification. In Office Space though, it was supposed to be Test Program Set.

          • This is long before the current tech craze. Completely different context. As an example, remember the scene with the guy selling magazine subscriptions? In the background on a bookshelf is a copy of DOS 4.0 Upgrade. I still have that box. We didn't work the same way back then. No unit testing, no agile development, no nothing.

            Toyota Production System was the big thing then for getting your business in order - but as you can see in the movie, North Americans didn't understand it was far more than going thr

            • by tragedy ( 27079 )

              "Test Program Set" is actually word of god from the director Mike Judge. As for Test Procedure Specification, Office Space came out in 1999. IEEE 829 1998, as the name suggests, is from 1998. It's the IEEE standard for software test documentation and it specifically references Test Procedure Specifications. You can find a copy of it here [twiki.cern.ch]. Also, the main character and his friends at the company are programmers, so it seems highly likely that, even without the directory saying it or IEEE references, the TPS r

              • "Test Program Set" is actually word of god from the director Mike Judge. As for Test Procedure Specification, Office Space came out in 1999. IEEE 829 1998, as the name suggests, is from 1998. It's the IEEE standard for software test documentation and it specifically references Test Procedure Specifications. You can find a copy of it here [twiki.cern.ch]. Also, the main character and his friends at the company are programmers, so it seems highly likely that, even without the directory saying it or IEEE references, the TPS reports in question are related to programming rather than broader business process. I'm sure plenty of companies were trying to implement the Toyota Production System at the time, as you say, but that's just not what the TPS reports they were talking about were

                It's impossible that they were using the IEEE definition. Scripts are written well in advance.

                The Toyota Production System has its roots decades before the movie.

                • by tragedy ( 27079 )

                  It's impossible that they were using the IEEE definition. Scripts are written well in advance.

                  Scripts are also adapted and rewritten during filming, and the movie was filmed during 1998. Also, as I stated, they didn't use the IEEE definition. You seem to have completely missed that the writer and director of the film, Mike Judge, has very explicitly stated that, in the movie, TPS was "Test Program Set". You're also forgetting how IEEE white papers work. There's a long authorship and approval process. Also, while the term appears in that specific IEEE publication, that does not mean it originated the

                  • The writer probably heard the initialism and made up his own definition. Writers do that a LOT. They're not exactly experts in the subject matter. Just look at all the technical errors about gravity and orbits in the movie Gravity.
                    • by tragedy ( 27079 )

                      The writer probably heard the initialism and made up his own definition.

                      That's more or less what he says he did. Generally, for the audience it's supposed to be relatively meaningless and obscure. It's supposed to contrast how seriously the soul-crushing business takes details like the cover sheet on a boring report with how the main character can't take such details seriously. It's just like how the TGI Friday's clone in the movie takes the minimum number of "flair" items worn by its employees so seriously. It is interesting that we mostly see the job through the main characte

                    • Gotta love that move! Should be required viewing for all the stans out there who keep insisting, despite the evidence, that people HAVE to go back to the office.
        • Toyota Production System, for all you old-timer trivia buffs who want to stump people.

          Nothing stumps people more completely than an old fart with the wrong answers asking them trivia questions...

          • Toyota Production System, for all you old-timer trivia buffs who want to stump people.

            Nothing stumps people more completely than an old fart with the wrong answers asking them trivia questions...

            There are different possibilities for TPS. Test Program Set, Test Procedure Specification. Mike Judge says Test Program Set, although he might have been pulling people's legs, as that doesn't make all that much sense.

            Popular culture and people who have worked in cubical world sometimes Change the whole thing out into "Totally Pointless Shit"

            I prefer the latter.

        • In my industry, TPS stands for two different things: TransPuls Synergic (dating from the mid 90's) Total Process Solution (dating from roughly 2013) Different generations of the same machine, with the same acronym, but different words.
    • by guygo ( 894298 )

      "Yeah... so... I'm, gonna need you to work this weekend and change those reports to the new cover sheet, OK? That's great. Thanks!"

    • PC Load Letter? What the fuck is that?!

      • TPS reports were one of the jokes in the movie "Office Space"

        https://www.mentalfloss.com/ar... [mentalfloss.com]

        There is some discussion about what TPS actually means, but "Totally Pointless Shit" is accurate if not exactly right.

        If you haven't seen the movie yet, you just have to - If you've worked in cubicle world, it will seem like reality, only funny.

  • That's all I came here to say.

  • by Babel-17 ( 1087541 ) on Thursday December 29, 2022 @11:01PM (#63167260)

    Superman III — Richard Pryor — half cents and Ferrari scenes

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • "He'll keep a low profile and won't do a thing to draw attention to himself... unless he is a complete and utter moron!"
      (Tires squeal as Richard Pryor drives up in his new Ferrari)

      Overall the movie wasn't much to talk about; but I loved that scene!

  • by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Thursday December 29, 2022 @11:07PM (#63167278)

    But will he be happy working in construction?

  • Michael Bolton: If we get caught, we're not going to white-collar resort prison. No, no, no. We're going to federal pound me in the ass prison!
  • by linuxguy ( 98493 ) on Thursday December 29, 2022 @11:35PM (#63167314) Homepage
    Instead of diverting pennies, he was stealing much larger sums. And on top of that buying stuff for pennies on the dollar? Greed is strong with this one. It is no surprise that he got caught fairly quickly. I did not realize it was possible to be this dumb and still be an employable software engineer.
    • by slarabee ( 184347 ) on Friday December 30, 2022 @01:43AM (#63167434)

      Ha. Ha ha ha.

      Devs man. Some of them are pretty far left.

      Whole team of web devs after being given a penetration test report with an industry standard description of XSS along with screen shots of the payload, the payload in the response and the payload firing along with several links for references still need three followup phone calls to explain Why This Is Bad.

      A dev who *knew* that host AV was causing him problems. "Okay, let's see what the AV console says the agent has been doing. What's your IP?" "I don't know. How do I find that?"

      A dev who introduced a bug by not understanding that case matters. And fought back when it was pointed out that case matters.

      A dev who posted the corporate custom JWT verifier code online asking for help debugging.

      A dev who fixed performance issues on an overloaded server by installing a virtualization layer on that system to 'install more servers'.

      A dev who insisted they get a USB corded mouse because the wireless USB receiver for their wireless mouse would trigger the DLP agent and get them fired.

      A dev who ran their World of Warcraft addons site on the corporate web server. Using a five year old unpatched WordPress install.

      A dev who submitted a request for an emergency to bypass normal change control process to push a patch because he had hardcoded his AD creds into an internal application and the domain controller had forced him to change his password. He needed to update the password in the app.

      Gonna stop now. Cause I keep remembering them.

      • Dude, these are gold.

      • by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

        That last one.... Oh my god....

      • An admin that insisted each database have its own schema and that all db references in all indexes and stored procs explicitly reference the schema then made search and replace scripts to rename all the references on deployment. An admin that setup test and production databases on the same server but didnâ(TM)t secure them from each other so production regularly accidentally got updated with test data. An admin that misconfigured adding more drives to a server causing instability and terrible perform
      • The Web dev who blindly installed Wordpress code onto our production Web server, causing it to spam porn to all our visitors.

      • by leonbev ( 111395 )

        My favorite was the one where a contractor posted his AWS shell script (complete with embedded AWS security keys with admin access) to StackOverflow to ask for their help debugging a program.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        *sigh*

        There always has to the that one asshole who insists on making every random discussion political. Hate to break it to you, Bub, but the "far left" hardly has a monopoly in corruption and workplace shenanigans.

        • by slarabee ( 184347 ) on Friday December 30, 2022 @02:01PM (#63168632)

          And that asshole would be you in this case. Although in hind sight I can see where a person would go down that path.

          In this context, 'far left' was an oblique reference to a bell curve. Right tail is genius. Left tail is derp.

          • And that asshole would be you in this case. Although in hind sight I can see where a person would go down that path.

            In this context, 'far left' was an oblique reference to a bell curve. Right tail is genius. Left tail is derp.

            Ah. Like the AC, I thought the OP *was* making it political. Thank you for the clarification. I hate making everything political, and here I am, making everything political.

            I guess I have to hate myself now.

      • the USB one has actually got some merit. at the company i work at we identified several cheap wireless usb dongles (for use with wireless mice for example) contain trojan code that sends all your input to China/Russia. therefore it's company policy to not use wireless/bluetooth devices on company laptops (outside of wifi)

        • by Jeremi ( 14640 )

          at the company i work at we identified several cheap wireless usb dongles (for use with wireless mice for example) contain trojan code that sends all your input to China/Russia.

          Disturbing, but I imagine a wired mouse could be designed that did much the same thing. Probably the real lesson (if there is one) is not to trust cheap/generic Chinese electronics with your data.

        • Wait. Does that mean said dev has *already* had a device that triggered the DLP agent, and they are keen for that big scary warning to not re-occur?

      • Yes, I find the majority of "developers" interviewed these days really have no idea how to use a computer, let alone basic network security. It's a sad state of affairs.

        Here's another one:

        A dev demos his code with a browser filled with spyware toolbars. It's time to find another developer.
    • despite the rabid defense of developers on here and a penchant to always blame their managers, a good portion of them are useless lazy pieces of shit that can't tell their arses from their elbows. Some of the deadbeat developers I see in enterprises at the moment it shocks me they could get a job at help desk let alone as a developer.
  • When I read the headline I immediately thought of Superman III (1983) [imdb.com]
    Richard Pryor plays a character who is a uniquely gifted software guru.
    Early in the movie he gets a corporate job and skims the company by diverting the fractions of cents from all money movements and transactions to his own account.
    I always thought that was clever, and discrete, enough that some rascal would ape it in real life.

    • by nyet ( 19118 ) on Friday December 30, 2022 @01:23AM (#63167420) Homepage

      Superman III is *literally* cited in Office Space.

    • by Calydor ( 739835 )

      The great thing about these tiny little discrepancies, at least back then, is that people had to go over the calculations manually. Imagine you've added up a couple of thousand entries, and the end result is ... nine dollars off. Out of a few million.

      Are you going to enter all those numbers one more time to check your math, or just go, "Close enough." and sign off on it? Are those nine dollars worth your time?

  • The crime in office space was based on an actual crime whose details escape me but I havent heard mention of it in the entire thread and at least one poster who is definitely unaware. IIRC security grifters even had a scary name for the crime to imply it happened all the time and of course that they could stop if you purchased their services.

    I’ll leave the googling to you but recommend starting with office space.

  • Salami Slicing didn't come from Office Space. This had been shown in Superman IV, Richard Pryor's character does it, and the dumbass shows up the next day in a red Ferrari 308. Hardly a slip-under-the-radar kinda car. Even today it'd raise an eyebrow or two, they're up to six digits again.

    And if Superman IV had it, that means they got it from somewhere else -- I just dunno where. I suspect this scam goes back to Roman times, or maybe even to the beginnings of currency itself.

    • by nyet ( 19118 )

      No, really?

      https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/a... [getyarn.io]

      • ...damn. And I have Office Space on dvd. Should watch it more often.

        And it was III, not IV? My brain, it's starting to fail me.

    • And if Superman IV had it, that means they got it from somewhere else -- I just dunno where. I suspect this scam goes back to Roman times, or maybe even to the beginnings of currency itself.

      Clipping: as the name suggests, you clip small pieces from the coin.
      Sweating: put some coins in a leather pouch and give them a frequent shake. The dust will collect slowly in the pouch.
      Then there's acid, but I can't remember what the process is called. Dip some coins briefly in an appropriate acid; some metal will dissolve but so long as you don't leave them in too long no-one will notice.

      It goes without saying that these methods are all slow, take much more effort than legitimately making money and only w

      • American dimes and quarters have those little ridges on their edges for exactly this reason. Years ago when the coins were still made of actual silver, some people would shave off the edges, eventually collecting enough silver to turn a small profit. The ridges are there to make the practice more obvious.
    • by tragedy ( 27079 )

      And if Superman IV had it, that means they got it from somewhere else -- I just dunno where. I suspect this scam goes back to Roman times, or maybe even to the beginnings of currency itself.

      Well, coin clipping has certainly been around a long time. There were less conspicuous versions too, like using abrasive materials to wear down coins and collect the metal dust so the coin was not obviously clipped. In software, it's probably been done numerous times, but I can't really say where it started.

  • ... and will be sentenced to federal-pound-me-in-the-ass prison.

  • by wdr1 ( 31310 ) * <wdr1 @ p obox.com> on Friday December 30, 2022 @12:28AM (#63167376) Homepage Journal

    Technically, the idea originated in Superman III.

    That's where the guys in Office Space lifted it from.

  • by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Friday December 30, 2022 @12:53AM (#63167394)

    So it could have been 99 cents?

  • Promotion (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The Evil Atheist ( 2484676 ) on Friday December 30, 2022 @01:04AM (#63167400)
    Imagine if you spent all that energy on getting a fucking promotion instead, whether it be moving up the ladder, or upskilling to another, better paying, company.

    I swear, some people just grow up constantly thinking about how they can get away with breaking the rules, when they could have spent that energy learning how to play the game better.

    Like those Karens that try to score free product with variations of the "customer is always right" scam.
    • Imagine if you spent all that energy on getting a fucking promotion instead, whether it be moving up the ladder, or upskilling to another, better paying, company.

      I swear, some people just grow up constantly thinking about how they can get away with breaking the rules, when they could have spent that energy learning how to play the game better.

      As you said, it is a game. Depending on were you work, it can be very boring game.

      To have excellent work performance is not enough. You also need to catch your supervisors' attention. That depends on your boss. You are lucky if he is a fair and intelligent person.

      In big corporations it is expected that you will work one year for the same salary doing the work of promoted position before you will get promoted.

      And the Internet is full of strategies how to get promoted [indeed.com].

      • It should be noted that if you work in a research institute, you will get a fair table. Your position is based on the level of your education, years worked and the number of published articles. You do not need anyone's subjective opinion if you are "ready". You do not need strategies.
      • Depending on were you work

        Yes, if you've read the rest of my very FIRST sentence, you'd notice I said this:

        or upskilling to another, better paying, company.

      • by waspleg ( 316038 )

        "the game" is heavily rigged in favor of corporate and your chances at any kind of promotion are meritless and entirely based on politics. I can completely understand why someone would do this kind of shit to escape the rat race.

        You can watch old Twilight Zone episodes and even 1800s English history documentaries about work houses and slums and whatnot to see the "capitalist" world has been a shit show for most people for a long long time.

    • promotion

      exercise in futility. Looking for a better job, that's what people do.

      • Why don't you read to the end of the fucking sentence?

        or upskilling to another, better paying, company.

        Is it really that fucking hard?

        • No need to become very emotional about such a minute detail.

          I object to even "or" in this sentence. Promotion needs to be excluded as a hope, period. When you get the offer show it to your manager, if the manager gives you promotion then it's "or".

          • Nothing emotional about it. That's just how I am. You and the other guy both failed to read to the end of even a fucking sentence. Reading to the end of a sentence that literally pre-empted your response is not a minute fucking detail.

            I object to even "or" in this sentence.

            Okay, you object to reality.

            The reality is, some people do get promotions within a company. Even in tech companies. It maybe be anathema to nerds, but playing the game often involves heavily developing soft skills, especially related to communication (such as reading to the

  • His lawyer could spin the whole thing as suspicious. An IT professional suddenly becomes an impulsive dunce who botches a textbook scam, confesses to it on a workplace machine, and cites a movie that will get media coverage so that he's made an example of? Stupidity is the rule in all walks of life, but you can convince people that a broader conspiracy is more likely than one person losing his marbles (thus proving the stupidity rule).
    • Lately I'm starting to think there's people getting caught on purpose in order to defame entire industries, technologies, or practices.

    • His lawyer could spin the whole thing as suspicious. An IT professional suddenly becomes an impulsive dunce who botches a textbook scam, confesses to it on a workplace machine, and cites a movie that will get media coverage so that he's made an example of? Stupidity is the rule in all walks of life, but you can convince people that a broader conspiracy is more likely than one person losing his marbles (thus proving the stupidity rule).

      I would suggest that his lawyer lay this on the code-review process at Zulily. Because they obviously need an improved process.

      • by Entrope ( 68843 )

        I would suggest that his lawyer lay this on the code-review process at Zulily. Because they obviously need an improved process.

        They do need an improved process, but in terms of legal liability, your suggestion is right up there with "she was practically asking for it by carrying that flashy purse through that neighborhood".

        • A criminal defense lawyer doesn't have to prove liability. Their one and only job is to fart out a cloud of innuendo into the air until the jury loses touch with reality. The good old "security guard was drowsy, ergo the camera footage of what he saw is unreliable."
          • by Entrope ( 68843 )

            A criminal defense has to establish reasonable doubt of criminal liability [criminalde...lawyer.com]. The guy in this case probably doesn't have a basis to establish that much doubt -- especially not through blaming the victim.

            • Theory is not reality. A lawyer (especially a criminal defense lawyer) is not a scientist or philosopher committed to some ideal of evidence: They are a salesman whose job is to weave words into a story that a jury believes. Since the overwhelming majority of criminal defense clients are guilty, this can't consist of rational arguments most of the time, only misdirection. So if a defendant has a good lawyer, and the prosecutor isn't especially motivated, obvious guilt isn't much of an obstacle to acquitt
              • by Jeremi ( 14640 )

                Since the overwhelming majority of criminal defense clients are guilty

                [citation needed]

                • The Encyclopedia of Adulthood, Obviousness, and Common Sense, available through any functioning human brain familiar with probability and logic: "People who make a habit of committing crimes (aka criminals) are overwhelmingly more likely to be charged with crimes than people who do not make a habit of committing crimes, as they are actively contributing to this likelihood while others are not."
      • "Your honor, the company wanted to get ripped off. Look at the code it was writing!"
    • by nasch ( 598556 )

      An IT professional suddenly becomes an impulsive dunce

      That would require some kind of demonstration that he wasn't an impulsive dunce all along.

  • ...it was Superman

  • Peter Gibbons : I don't think I'm explaining this very well.
    Joanna : Okay.
    Peter Gibbons : Um... the 7-11. You take a penny from the tray, right?
    Joanna : From the crippled children?
    Peter Gibbons : No that's the jar. I'm talking about the tray. You know the pennies that are for everybody?
    Joanna : Oh for everybody. Okay.
    Peter Gibbons : Well those are whole pennies, right? I'm just talking about fractions of a penny here. But we do it from a much bigger tray and we do it a couple a million times.

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