Ticketmaster New Security Measure
farfetchedfan
Posts: 3
I was just poking around on the EV LA Presale at Ticketmaster and was prompted to enter not one but TWO words for the security check. Not sure why it has changed from this morning but thought I would give a heads up!
Security Check
Type both words separated by a space below:
carried Opera (this is the example)
You do not have permission to access this website
if you are using an automated program.
Security Check provided by reCAPTCHA.
© 2008 Carnegie Mellon University, All rights reserved. The Security Check allows us to:
Ensure Fair Access to Tickets
Automated programs known as "Bots" cannot read distorted text as well as humans. The Security Check helps prevent automated programs from blocking other customers from getting tickets.
Digitize Books One Word at a Time
By entering the words in the box, you are also helping to digitize books from the Internet Archive and preserve literature that was written before the computer age.
Provide an Audio Option for Visually Impaired Customers
An audio option allows visually impaired customers to hear a set of 8 digits that can be entered instead of the word challenge.
Security Check
Type both words separated by a space below:
carried Opera (this is the example)
You do not have permission to access this website
if you are using an automated program.
Security Check provided by reCAPTCHA.
© 2008 Carnegie Mellon University, All rights reserved. The Security Check allows us to:
Ensure Fair Access to Tickets
Automated programs known as "Bots" cannot read distorted text as well as humans. The Security Check helps prevent automated programs from blocking other customers from getting tickets.
Digitize Books One Word at a Time
By entering the words in the box, you are also helping to digitize books from the Internet Archive and preserve literature that was written before the computer age.
Provide an Audio Option for Visually Impaired Customers
An audio option allows visually impaired customers to hear a set of 8 digits that can be entered instead of the word challenge.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
It was too late to save the KROQ pre-sale... my first character recognition avoidance word was 'gemmy'.. and i got in. I passed on a 68.50 + 20something adde on for a seat in the second to the last row in the upper balcony.
It wasn't until Hannah got all of the available seats that they started with the two word character recognition avoidence. Hopefully, this will help.
Hail, Hail!!!
Also, I discovered this morning that you don't actually have to type in the phrase perfectly to get through. For example, one of my phrases was something like "unknown zero." I accidentally typed "unknoon zer" and I still got put through. Not exactly sure how close you have to be, but I purposely messed up a few other times and always got in when I was only a letter off, so there's definitely some margin of error.
Unfortunately, I didn't know this when I first tried getting through and my phrase was "27 lexington." Took me a while to adjust my mind to having to type numbers and a space, which was enough to make my efforts fall short. :(
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” - Albert Camus
Odd...I was on RIGHT away didn't have a one-character word. Maybe they're randomly distributing some one-character words to beat scalpers? I mean, if EVERYONE has a two-letter combination, everyone is on equal ground (including scalpers). But if some have only one word, then those have an advantage, and if it's truly random, chances are that many of those will be true buyers.
Make sense?
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” - Albert Camus
What they use is something called 'character recognition' in their programs. This is software that can screen scrape the value in the block, scan it (just like a regular scanner does, except this one can recognize numbers and letters and convert them. The Word is entered and they get in. all of this happens in the blink of an eye.
Once they are in, they can find out the system generated login code and lock it down. This allows their progran to block any other incoming request and they just keep using this same login code to repetedly purchase the maximum amount of best available tickets charged to different charge accounts. One scalper with 100 different charge accounts can buy up 400 tickets (if the maximum tickets per person is 4) in a matter of seconds.
Hail, Hail!!!
Weird...I tried all morning and even got through for tickets in the back row but I only got the one word security code each time. I buy tickets all the time but this is the first time I ever encountered this.
Sorry if I gave anyone hope that ticketmaster would do something to rectify this problem.
Good luck to everyone tomorrow.
Right. I understand that.
But clearly the two-word phrases are an attempt by ticketmaster to defeat scalpers. I'm not sure how, but why else would they change to this type of system, especially (not coincedentally) after the Hannah Montana issue?
You seem to know your facts about the issue pretty well...can you elucidate any on this?
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” - Albert Camus
Hmmm...maybe it has something to do with me being on my work computer?
I just went over to ticketmaster and tried to "buy" tickets to each of the events listed on their homepage (one was Bon Jovi, one was Rush, one was for the LA Clippers, etc.).
EVERY time I got a two-word security code.
Can somebody do the same and check to see if they are getting two-word codes for other shows? This is kind of worrying me, since I'll be on the same computer tomorrow.
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” - Albert Camus
I am using my work computer too...I tried a few of the same (Bon Jovi, Rush, Black Keys, Lakers) and now all I get are two-word codes. Not sure why it has changed all of a sudden...weird.
I am an Oracle Database Administrator and worked for several years before that as an Intergrapgh Computer Graphics Systems Manager. We first started to check out character recognition programs in the late 1980s as we were scanning millions of paper pages of technical and legal documents to meet our contractual requirements. The raster output or raster to vector data could make words easy fr humans to read, but to computers they were nothing more than raster dots or vector lines/arcs. Computers could not differentiate letters and numbers from lines and arcs.
Eventually, they figured it out. Now, the programs can easily recognize he difference.
...
The Ticketmaster plan is to screw with the program becaise the line through the two words will confuse the character recognition portion of the code. Computers cannot reason like we can.
The problem that still exists... you MUST get in and purchase your tickets before the first scalper. If he can manually input the 2 word block... he can still run his program that locates and reuses his login code to keep everyone else behind him out until either all of the tickets are gone or he reaches the capacity of his resources, i.e. the number of seperate accounts he can charge the maximum number of tickets to.
Hail, Hail!!!
for the least they could possibly do
Dude, that's the clearest answer I have ever received about scalpers and character recognition programs. Thank you.
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” - Albert Camus
There will be more tickets in the regular onsale than there were in the presale.
Still gonna be a bitch to get tickets, though.
Good luck!
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” - Albert Camus
who are all these douchebags that want to see Eddie Vedder? Seriously. Isn't he washed up and irrelevant?
for the least they could possibly do
Does not make any sense to me.
When you hit refresh too often or open orders in multiple windows, the website bans you for up to 24 hours.
I thought that was the case! I knew I had fucked up somewhere but then it let me go through. Interesting, Didn't matter anyways as I was shut out, but good to know.
"The leads are weak? Fuckin' leads are weak? You're Weak! I've Been in this business 15 years"
"What's your name?"
"FUCK YOU! THAT"S MY NAME!"
Fuck the fanclub and the band for allowing tickets to be sold like this. Seems to me they have enough demand to do fanclub shows only, they make the same money either way. Now ticketmaster and the scalpers will be able to fleece the real fans that want to see the shows. Thanks Ed!
1998 : St Louis, Birmingham, Knoxville
2000 : Memphis, Nashville, St Louis
2003 : Irvine 1+2, Vegas, Bridge School 1+2, Santa Barbara
2005 : Missoula, Vancouver, Gorge 2006 : LA 1+2, Vegas
2008 : W Palm Beach, Tampa, Who Rock Honors, EV LA 2
2009 : LA 1, LA 4, EV 1 Nashville 2011 : EV Long Beach
2012: EV Vegas 1+2
2013 LA 1+2 2018 Prague, Wrigley 2
2020 Phoenix, SD
Not all real fans are 10c members. Shit I didn't even join until 06 out of pure laziness. Most of my local friends are die hard PJ fans who have seen more shows than me. It's not like people that aren't members shouldn't get to go. Some people don't feel the need to be in a fan club, they're are probably lucky that they don't have to deal with all that's going down.
1998 : St Louis, Birmingham, Knoxville
2000 : Memphis, Nashville, St Louis
2003 : Irvine 1+2, Vegas, Bridge School 1+2, Santa Barbara
2005 : Missoula, Vancouver, Gorge 2006 : LA 1+2, Vegas
2008 : W Palm Beach, Tampa, Who Rock Honors, EV LA 2
2009 : LA 1, LA 4, EV 1 Nashville 2011 : EV Long Beach
2012: EV Vegas 1+2
2013 LA 1+2 2018 Prague, Wrigley 2
2020 Phoenix, SD
You seem elitist, that's cool. I'll still be at the show and so will many pearl jam fans.
Guess how many scalpers are in the 10c? 25%?
If you remember the TM fiasco from a decade ago, you'll remember that it's not up to the band or the 10C to decide on how the tickets are sold. That's the problem - if they want to play mainstream venues, then they have to play by the rules those venues set. Each of them has deals with TM about how tickets are sold for all of their shows.
If PJ wanted to do 10C only shows, they'd have to find venues in the middle of nowhere that TM hasn't signed a deal with. As we saw over a decade ago, that option is screwed up too.