It's actually fun story.
Back in 2014 I noticed that Google Analytics code is not random, but digits in sequence (like UA-2839482-1).
I went for a beer with my friend, who was Java developer, and we made super simple script:
We took every possible combinations of digits, paste it into GA java script and run localy on a loop, in referer we used our own domain, which was redirecting to Aliexpress through Commision Junction.
We had no idea about anything, all domains were registered on our real adresses etc.
As a result, referal traffic from our domain was showing on every single Google Analytics panel on the planet.
We were flooded with traffic from webmasters who wanted to check what the hell is that site. Tens of thousands of views.
Aliexpress at the time was giving 1% comission with 30 days cookie length, so we started to make like hundreds of dolars per day.
Funny enough, the method was so obvious to track (no real referers, not spoofing anything, single server IP), that we were shocked that they didn't block it straight away. We were shocked it even worked in a first place.
Well, they didn't know how to block it for next few months. Every single marketing blog wrote about us, we made absolute trash from everyones analytics data. It made me think that these huge corporations are not so smart they want everyone to think. They just have huge competitive advantage because of their market position, so they think they are geniuses, when in reality everything is just so much easier for them. That's what unfair, not earned power makes of you - you start feeling like king of the world, when in reality you just lazy douchebag. I never looked at the world the same ever since.
And of course, we were quickly sued by Amazon because we were smart enough to name one of our websites "chinese-amezon" , my mom was not happy when she collected the mail. We freaked out and deleted whole thing xD
