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Reverse engineering Ticketmaster's rotating barcodes

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Re: Reverse engineering Ticketmaster's rotating barcodes

#321

Post by kccqzy »

RScholar wrote: post #55

> Software developers are the wizards and shamans of the modern age. We ought to use our powers with the austerity and integrity such power implies. This is one of the most powerful truths underlying the world we currently inhabit. The sooner we can agree to behave accordingly, the better our prospects for ripping the reigns of society from the hands of those whose only animating principles are avarice and exploitati…

I cannot agree more. And this is exactly why the old Google motto of "don't be evil" was so important. And the decline of Google is highly correlated with the removal of this motto from its culture.

I sincerely hope all tech companies can take a page from old Google and truly instill an innate rejection of evil among all software engineers.

Re: Reverse engineering Ticketmaster's rotating barcodes

#322

Post by bonestamp2 »

financetechbro wrote: post #281
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #269

I am sure this is pointed out elsewhere, but ticketmasters business model is based on lying to the public so that the artists and venues don’t have to. Taylor Swift is a nice-ish person and wants her fans to think they can buy tickets for her shows at about 25 bucks because that’s a lot of money for a 12 year old and she does not want to alienate her fans. Her manager is an evil cackling bastard and wants to get as m…

As much as I dislike Ticketmaster this is pure conspiracy unless you provide sources

I can't confirm what they said, but TicketMaster does have a "partner" reseller program for scalpers where they have tools to help scalpers list and manage resale tickets in bulk. They also have events where they help teach scalpers how to make more money, which is good for TicketMaster since it makes even more money on secondary sales. Ticket scalping used to be illegal, and now TicketMaster is helping facilitate it.

Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/ticketmaster-resellers-las-...

Scalping aside, TicketMaster is taking massive fees each time the same ticket is sold. For example, I went to an event last year and the fee was $50 on each ticket, and these were reseller tickets so TicketMaster had already taken a fee on each of those tickets at least once already (perhaps more than once).

TicketMaster also owns many venues or has exclusive deals with most large venues that prevent those venues from using any other ticket selling platform. The DOJ is currently investigating this monopoly. TicketMaster alleges it is not a monopoly since there are many smaller venues that they are not involved with.

Re: Reverse engineering Ticketmaster's rotating barcodes

#323

Post by MarketingJason »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #269

I am sure this is pointed out elsewhere, but ticketmasters business model is based on lying to the public so that the artists and venues don’t have to. Taylor Swift is a nice-ish person and wants her fans to think they can buy tickets for her shows at about 25 bucks because that’s a lot of money for a 12 year old and she does not want to alienate her fans. Her manager is an evil cackling bastard and wants to get as m…

I'm not sure this is true. Most (~80%) large venues are owned and operated by Live Nation, who also owns Ticketmaster. They also have exclusivity agreements with hundreds of others.

It's, in effect, a shell operating as a scalper and a customer service disruptor. This has very little to do with the artist beyond selecting venues.

Re: Reverse engineering Ticketmaster's rotating barcodes

#324

Post by colmmacc »

Closi wrote: post #219
colmmacc wrote: post #185

It's one thing for customers phones' wifi issues to be a problem, but it's an even worse problem if the scanner itself needs reliable connectivity. That makes me wonder if there is some kind of delegated deterministic derivation step in the secrets too (which wouldn't be obvious in this kind of analysis), so that the handheld scanners can avoid an on-line dependency.

They needed reliable connectivity in the previous scenario (checking barcodes against a central db) - they just setup a local private wifi network for the handsets and all the venue devices. Otherwise I can't see how you would avoid replay attacks.

You can do time-based binding. Many TLS/Quic 0RTT take this approach; where the signature is only valid for a second or so. It's not as good as a real strike register, but probably ok for this kind of environment. Of course the barcodes would need to be more dynamic, but that's doable.

Re: Reverse engineering Ticketmaster's rotating barcodes

#325

Post by xg15 »

> This ticket is digital. Saving data offline is the same as copying it to your hard drive. If data can be copied, it can be transmitted. If it can be transmitted, it can be shared. If it can be shared, it can be sold.

Is this still true in the age of locked-down bootloaders, secure enclaves, TPMs etc?

Re: Reverse engineering Ticketmaster's rotating barcodes

#326

Post by bonestamp2 »

LeonM wrote: post #315

Let's face it, the real problem with ticket sales is scalping. OP may not like Ticketmaster, and doesn't want to install the app, but the majority of fans don't have a problem with that. The real problem for most fans are the scalpers who push prices out of their budget. Of course we all like to dream up all sorts of technical crypto solutions to this, preferably decentralized to remove evil Ticketmaster from the equ…

Yes, non-transferable tickets would fix the scalping part of it. I'm guessing the face value would go up a lot in that case, and that's fine... at least it's an honest market then and ticketmaster cannot pass the blame on to the scalpers.

Re: Reverse engineering Ticketmaster's rotating barcodes

#327

Post by orangecat »

ihumanable wrote: post #285
jjmarr wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying something at a low price and selling it at a high price is arbitrage 101 and is free money. The "true solution" is to sell tickets at their actual market price instead of pretending that the face value of concert tickets isn't increasing due to a larger population and greater demand.

It's interesting how the real problem here is that our economic system has no way to sell a product at what the seller will bear, only what the buyer will bear. I think this is a fascinating feature, a lot of artists would be more than happy to make $X for a show so that their fans can come see them. The problem ends up that a free market has no mechanism for that, the artist can sell the tickets such that they end u…

The scalper provides no value to the market

The scalper allows the devoted fan who is gladly willing to pay $X+N to actually get a ticket rather than having to wake up at 6am and repeatedly refresh the site and probably still not get one.

I find market failures like this fascinating because it really shows the limits of how "free" markets operate.

How would central planning handle this better? There are more people who want to buy a ticket at $X than there are seats available; lots of people are going to be unhappy regardless of how they get distributed.

Re: Reverse engineering Ticketmaster's rotating barcodes

#328

Post by TylerE »

lmz wrote: post #153
cogman10 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that's where I'd argue they are negatively impacting their bottom line. > These rotating barcodes on the other hand are far from perfect. I experienced this first-hand last year when I attended another very popular concert where they used a similar rotating-QR-code-ticket system. Numerous people including myself and my friends were floundering at the entry gate citing a bevy of broken barcode problems. ... > The…

> I experienced this first-hand last year when I attended another very popular concert where they used a similar rotating-QR-code-ticket system. Numerous people including myself and my friends were floundering at the entry gate citing a bevy of broken barcode problems. That's a different system. The article makes it clear that the Ticketmaster system works offline if you have opened it on the mobile app. Which they d…

You don't even have to use the app. You can just visit the ticketmaster website and add it to apple wallet straight from there. Can do it months in advance, too.

Re: Reverse engineering Ticketmaster's rotating barcodes

#329

Post by GuB-42 »

> My phone has no internet connection...

Who thought it was a good idea to require an internet connection at an event. For anything, not just ticketing. It is as if the people who designed these apps never went to a large event.

No internet is the rule, not the exception. Sometimes, you can't even send a SMS. Apps designed for use in events should always work offline, and if internet use is justified, take into account latencies in minutes and use bandwith sparingly. Failing to do that will make the experience terrible for everyone, as bandwidth will be saturated by thousands of phones trying to do something with that damn app.

At least Ticketmaster does it somewhat right here. The app is supposed to refresh the ticket 20 hours before the event, to account for the fact that the internet may be unavailable at the gate.

Re: Reverse engineering Ticketmaster's rotating barcodes

#330

Post by telotortium »

axus wrote: post #320
Decker87 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taylor Swift's manager is a woman. And an artist like TS is going to know exactly how it works behind the scenes

If Britney Spears's book is to be believed, the talent can be kept in the dark.

Britney Spears ended up forced into a conservancy. Taylor Swift is much more savvy (gets songwriter credit on everything, successfully rereleased her early tracks to get better royalties from her back catalog, manages her fanbase really well in general). She definitely knows the game with Ticketmaster.
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