At the Rose Bowl this year as I entered the gate about 6 or 7 scalpers selling fake tickets were being lead off in handcuffs. I was amused.
Where is the scam? They weren't selling fake tickets. All they were doing is outsmarting Tickemaster's methods of thwarting automating ticket buying. Bernard
Surely you can see that the various ticket selling organizations set up a system to fairly distribute tickets to the general public, and the scam is that these guys jumped ahead of everyone in line. That is unfair, just like physically waiting in line and having some assclowns cut in front right when the ticket window opens. We have all tried to get coveted ducats online when the opening bell rings, and have been frustrated when the tickets were all gone in ten minutes as we repeatedly reenter the data. Now we know hackers got all the tickets in fractions of a second. Hope they sit in jail for 10 years, and when parole is mentioned, they let 50,000 other cases go ahead of them before consideration.
Good. I remember trying to buy tickets for the 2006 Rose Bowl game at the stroke of 8am, only to see every one of them sold out in nanoseconds. Guys like this were the culprit.
it pisses me off, but the article seems to be a little misleading. it seems like they just wrote a program that would execute all of ticketmaster's requirements for purchasing a ticket, like the "code" you have type in etc. they weren't selling fake tickets and they didn't "hack" into anything. i hate it when people use the word hack in the wrong context. people on facebook are always saying... "my account got hacked".... no, no it didn't. someone tried to trick you into giving your password, and you did. hacking it would consist of them getting into your account without you GIVING them the password. i understand this was illegal and all..... but i kind of admire their work here. and it goes to show that ticketmaster probably really doesn't give a **** what happens to the tickets as long as they sell them.
You can call it whatever you want to but it's illegal, creates an unfair advantage over the public and is just plain wrong. Unless of course you like paying 6-7 times face value for tickets.
but they didn't modify the program, they created a program that mimicked the actions of an individual user such as registration and entering in the codes. they didn't penetrate TM technology nor did they change any programming on the TM site. that is not a hack. sorry. it is very awesome automated program, but it didn't compromise any security... it appears.... to do so, nor did it change or alter the TM system. further, no one STOLE anyone's password. when someone presents you an email with a link, and you click on the link, and it looks like your standard bank of america page.... or facebook page.... or paypal page.... or whatever page the person that wants your password presents..... and then you type in your username and password into that form. that is not hacking. at all. it is a trick for you to GIVE the person your password. it is called phishing and it is not hacking. hacking would be where i somehow bypassed the secuirty on the TM site and was able to manipulate code/data on THEIR system. or i hacked into facebook and steal your password. or i have a password cracker that somehow figures out your password without you GIVING it to me. glad to clear this all up. now you won't need to post on facebook that someone "hacked" your account and all those porn emails that went out were not from you.
I "admire" the skill and daring of the Great Train Robbery gang, Butch Cassidy and Sundance, and Al Capone, but I still think they did a few illegal acts.
Do you notice how many of the ou posters on this thread seem to think what the scammers did (cheat) was ok (or at least admire them for it)?
He's right about the hacking vs phishing. Unless I missed something, he never said that what they did wasn't wrong, just that "hacking" is the incorrect terminology.
yeah, i don' t exactly like not being able to ever buy a ticket through ticketmaster because of these asshats either. but as an IT professional, i admire their skill, because most of the standards that TM employs on their site.... are pretty much the standard for all web security transactions. they beat it, and beat it badly. i admire their skillset. not to mention i have sort of a bias against ticketmaster because of their control over much of the concert/even history. but that is another thread. that being said, they should be prosecuted accordingly. i didn't think it wasn't illegal or wrong, just innovative... and VERY time consuming. and as stat pointed out. i just don't like it when my friends say their "insert password protected device/site here" was "hacked".... when they actually gave their authentication credentials to someone unknowingly. i would call that theft for sure. just not hacking. why don't i like it? well, it's not because i am the "terminology police." the reason i don't like it is because it somehow implies the "hackee" played no part in their loss of security, when in fact they actually assisted the thief through their own ignorance. and just so you know i'm not calling them all idiots. i have fell for a phishing paypal page. it happened years ago before they were so common, but i immediately realized what i had done, that i was careless and stupid, and immediately went and changed my information. so, it happens to the best of us.... i just didn't go around telling everyone i got "hacked" because i gave them my username and password. they didn't figure it out or anything. they just figured out a way to combine and leverage my ignorance, fear of the web being insecure, and my established relationship with paypal to make it happen. and they did.
