Live data from Hacker News

Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

arstechnica.com

81–90 of 337 posts

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#81
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of like saying "the 49ers didn't lose, their players did"...

When Barry Bond got caught doping, nobody said "The SF Giants were doping". Barry Bond owned that. That's all I'm looking for here.

When accountants at Enron defrauded the State of California and the SEC, we didn't say "accountants at Enron." We said "Enron" and held Enron, the entity, responsible.

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#82
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I wasn't as clear as I thought here. Corporations can't act, people inside the corporations act. If laws get broken, the individuals who made that choice should pay the price. This wasn't a defense of the company, I'm fine with the company getting fined here, so long as the people who did this get penalized as well. So long as we let companies be a sort of shelter for the people inside the company, this kind…

Kind of like saying "the 49ers didn't lose, their players did"...

Fines are issued to players, coaches, and the team depending on the severity and type of offense.

Examples:

Mike Tomlin fined for blocking an on-field player, the team may have been penalized by forfeiting draft picks: https://www.nfl.com/news/mike-tomlin-fined-100-000-for-actio... They weren't: https://www.nfl.com/news/steelers-won-t-lose-draft-pick-for-...

Coaches fined $100k for not wearing face masks, teams fined $250k: https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-fines-broncos-49ers-seahawks-fo...

Saints fined $500k and stripped of draft pick: https://www.nfl.com/news/saints-fined-500k-draft-pick-patrio...

Controversial team fines: https://www.nfl.com/news/draft-picks-that-have-been-stripped...

- Falcons for fake crowd noise

- Patriots for "deflategate"

Saints were fined as a team, head coach suspended, players suspended for "bounty gate": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans_Saints_bounty_scan...

Team sports can be lost by a player, but must be won as a team. E.g. Kyle Williams of SF 49ers muffing two punts in the 2012-Feb-22 game against the Giants (off his knee, and the strip).

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#83

I hate the way this article is worded. Or perhaps the problem is the source documents. "Ticketmaster" didn't do anything. Ticketmaster is a company which cannot make decisions or take actions. - An employee at Ticketmaster stole a password (and financial documents) - Multiple other Ticketmaster employees abused that stolen information to actively attack a competitor. - Ticketmaster management was aware of this and re…

> - Ticketmaster management was aware of this and rewarded that employee with a promotion and additional responsibilities.

At some point the employees involved were fired. So there was some short term reward, and long term... I don't know.

Also, the article says that Zeeshan Zaidi, plead guilty to 26 months ago. So obviously this is the last in a series of consequences.

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#84
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discussing the length of a prison sentence strictly in terms of income lost is also greatly understating the actual severity of the punishment. I would gladly give up say 10% of my lifetime earnings for all sorts of things, but I wouldn't trade 4.5 years of my healthy adult life for anything.

> I wouldn't trade 4.5 years of my healthy adult life for anything But you probably do, just not on purpose. It's smaller decisions that you don't realize involve trading 'healthy adult life' for money/convenience/pleasure/release. And of course, the work hours you put in are very directly trading healthy adult life for money. Opportunity cost is not something that we, as humans, are particularly good at. It is of co…

No, marginal cost of free time gets very expensive for most people.

While I'd be willing to do my current job for X, if you wanted to double my hours, you'd need to pay me than 2X.

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#85

I hate the way this article is worded. Or perhaps the problem is the source documents. "Ticketmaster" didn't do anything. Ticketmaster is a company which cannot make decisions or take actions. - An employee at Ticketmaster stole a password (and financial documents) - Multiple other Ticketmaster employees abused that stolen information to actively attack a competitor. - Ticketmaster management was aware of this and re…

> As usual, the executives in charge walk away.

As usual, the DoJ has little appetite to prosecute non-weak people.

It is the most maddeningly predictable outcome of every DoJ action against a corporation (w/ well funded lobbyists). We can thank every administration ever for this.

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but LiveNation doesn't hold stock worth $16B and cannot easily issue new stock.

I didn't realize paying criminal penalties was supposed to be fun and easy ;) this is literally restitution for a crime. "Uh, no Judge, I don't think I should be forced to go to prison, that's hard " [edit] Maybe this is controversial, I dunno, I might just be old fashioned that way, but my opinion is if you find the punishment too onerous maybe don't do crime .

I don't think that's what the person you are replying to meant by not easy, I think they meant blood from a stone not easy.

The stone might've committed a crime for which it should bleed, but that doesn't mean you can make it do that. Get it?

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#87
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I wasn't as clear as I thought here. Corporations can't act, people inside the corporations act. If laws get broken, the individuals who made that choice should pay the price. This wasn't a defense of the company, I'm fine with the company getting fined here, so long as the people who did this get penalized as well. So long as we let companies be a sort of shelter for the people inside the company, this kind…

>Corporations can't act, people inside the corporations act. I'm not really sure why you think this distinction is important. If a sufficient enforcement/punishment was laid on a company you can bet the employee responsible will feel it. Rather in this sense because there was no real punishment the employee was commended.

> If a sufficient enforcement/punishment was laid on a company you can bet the employee responsible will feel it.

The employees most responsible are the executives who signed off on, were aware of and/or managed the criminal activity.

What they felt was a gentle caress across their wrist, which some may pretend was a slap.

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but LiveNation doesn't hold stock worth $16B and cannot easily issue new stock.

I didn't realize paying criminal penalties was supposed to be fun and easy ;) this is literally restitution for a crime. "Uh, no Judge, I don't think I should be forced to go to prison, that's hard " [edit] Maybe this is controversial, I dunno, I might just be old fashioned that way, but my opinion is if you find the punishment too onerous maybe don't do crime .

Punishment is meant to deter others from doing the crime (whether or not that works is another issue), so I think you're correct.

If people/organizations are committing a crime, then one reason may be that the punishment/deterrent is too lax.

(There's of course other reasons, like the law making the act a crime is bad in some way, or the individual/organization has no, or knows of no, alternative.)

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#89
post #45

> Ticketmaster has agreed to pay a $10 million criminal fine Live Nation is worth $16 Billion. This is like a person with a $100k net worth having to pay a $62 fine, basically an expensive parking ticket. They might as well tell them to write "I will not hack my competitors" on the blackboard 100 times.

Worth noting that TicketMaster also paid $110MM to "acquire" SongKick in order to settle the original (civil) lawsuit.

This could be a business model.

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#90
post #83

I hate the way this article is worded. Or perhaps the problem is the source documents. "Ticketmaster" didn't do anything. Ticketmaster is a company which cannot make decisions or take actions. - An employee at Ticketmaster stole a password (and financial documents) - Multiple other Ticketmaster employees abused that stolen information to actively attack a competitor. - Ticketmaster management was aware of this and re…

> - Ticketmaster management was aware of this and rewarded that employee with a promotion and additional responsibilities. At some point the employees involved were fired. So there was some short term reward, and long term... I don't know. Also, the article says that Zeeshan Zaidi, plead guilty to 26 months ago. So obviously this is the last in a series of consequences.

Fired after the company was caught, or before?
Post reply on HN