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Reverse engineering Ticketmaster's rotating barcodes

conduition.io

491–500 of 737 posts

Re: Reverse engineering Ticketmaster's rotating barcodes

#491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Programmers being analogous to wizards or martial artists made more sense back when one used to need to train years or decades to become one. You can be a shitty wizard with only one year of training, same goes for programmers.

that's kind of exactly OP's point. you can get hired and call yourself a "programmer" after a year of training today ... that was not true in quite the same way 30/40 years ago. and we're in agreement that someone with a year of training is probably not all that good.

>you can get hired and call yourself a "programmer" after a year of training today

That might be true 3 or 4 years ago, but I find that difficult to believe in the current job market. All the programming jobs that have come across my screen lately require a 4-year CS degree. Companies aren't hiring noobs lately. They're laying off more than hiring.

Re: Reverse engineering Ticketmaster's rotating barcodes

#495
post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just vote with your pocket and don’t buy tickets from them. I do that - yes I don’t get to go to major concerts but there are still so much more that is not on ticket master. I found a lot of new entertainment and was happy to pay $4 fee instead of whatever TM charges nowadays.

See Tickets seems to be on the rise recently, which I've been glad for

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Re: Reverse engineering Ticketmaster's rotating barcodes

#496
post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that has literally nothing to do with their app. If you submitted your data on their website, it'd be leaked just the same

You're implying that the data from the app is stored in a different more secure manner than the data from the website? That makes zero sense. The fact that they got hacked and is the only thing that matters, not which mode of input you provided the data they did not protect.

No, I'm asserting that the app acquires as much data as the website (ie. whatever you typed into their forms) and it gets leaked all the same. Refusing to install the app makes no sense if you still use the website

Re: Reverse engineering Ticketmaster's rotating barcodes

#497

There's a faire this week in Oregon that draws people in from 500 miles away. I've been a couple times, and what I've learned that was still not common knowledge to faire vendors as recently as last year is that T-Mobile brings out a mobile cell tower to support the faire, and no other cellular network does. So if you're trying to accept electronic payments, the whole thing tends to fall over and you only get to sell…

That's a pretty smart business move by T-Mobile, I didn't know mobile cell towers were a thing

I’ve never been clear what the main purpose of these things is but they do seem to get deployed for trade shows and such. Maybe for natural disasters?

Then there are microcells, which can be privately owned. I worked at a place that had one when I was in mobile. There was a period of time when one of the carriers would sell you one if you were having connectivity issues. It’s possible for instance, living on a hill, to have a cell signal on your roof but not in the rest of the house and they can work as a repeater.

Re: Reverse engineering Ticketmaster's rotating barcodes

#498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve heard the argument that forcing people to have an ID is anti folks with disabilities and anti-poor since it requires someone to go to an issuing agency to obtain and pay for one, which could be putting someone out who has a mobility disability or doesn’t have a lot of money. I’m not making the argument but it’s an argument I’ve heard.

If the government needs people to have IDs, then maybe the government should provide those IDs for free...

I happen to agree, but it isn’t only the government that requires IDs if private companies are asking for them as well.

Re: Reverse engineering Ticketmaster's rotating barcodes

#499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they will still be marking the ticket as used in their backend. I assume that's true, but it makes me wonder how their scanners are connected to the server. I mean, if 10,000 people showing up to an event with smartphones overwhelms wireless networks, wont that also kick their scanners off the network? They'd probably like to have a system where, if a scanner loses its connection, it can still validate tickets. It…

I have no idea what connectivity options are available in current scanners, but it sounds like a viable solution could be to use an RF band that customers don't overwhelm, similar to wireless microphones perhaps, with a little hub situated nearby that consolidates the list of already-scanned tickets, possibly standalone or possibly on a wired network that includes other far-away entrances.

Was going to say it shouldn't be hard to run a wire around an entire stadium, but maybe some popup outdoor venues that might be complicated. Could use line of sight towers for fun.

Re: Reverse engineering Ticketmaster's rotating barcodes

#500
post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent point. I wonder if Ticketmaster profits by making interest off of holding those funds?

Wonder no more—yes.

Do you work at ticketmaster? Otherwise, how do you confirm this?
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