Now, Sam Odio has apparently decided to hack Stark's card and use the money for his own purposes. He wrote a script that would run, take the money off Stark's card and move it to his own. He says he's going to sell the card (which now is $625 on it) on eBay and donate the money to charity. Personally, I don't believe that for one second.
Sam's reasoning is that he doesn't "find the idea of yuppies buying yuppies coffees very interesting". I think this is just really sad - you may not like Starbucks or the idea of it but other people do. And ignoring the whole Starbucks aspect, I thought this was a pretty amazing experiment. Basically, people were giving money to strangers for nothing. That never happens in our society! People were trusted to be honest with this gift they were given and although I may be wrong, it didn't seem like they were really taking advantage of it. People would reload it, people would buy coffee with it. What's the problem with that?
Personally, I think anything to make the world a nicer place - even if it is just buying a stranger a cup of coffee - is amazing. Odio's reasons for doing this is basically his way of justifying stealing other people's money. It's not even Stark's money - it's random strangers who decided to do a kind act by putting money on this card. They did so with the intent that someone would be able to get a coffee - not so that some random guy could steal their money.
It just made me feel so outraged when I read this article. I understand that this is Stark's social experiment - and it is interesting to see what happens - but it makes me angry that there are people like this. Personally, I feel this just paints "hackers" in an even more negative light. I just don't think technology should be used for purposes like this.
Maybe it's just my naivety, but I wish we could use technology to HELP people like Stark tried to do, instead of for selfish, odious purposes.
Yours,
