Hackers get caught trying to cheat the Burning Man ticketing systemSarah Duff Burning Man

Hackers get caught trying to cheat the Burning Man ticketing system

Last Wednesday when tickets for Burning Man 2015 sold out in less than an hour, a group of hackers cut the queue line to ensure their tickets were secured, but Burning Man has responded that they will be bringing these wrongdoers to justice. Originally devised as an unrestricted gathering in the desert, the creators of Burning man have recently turned to large-scale festival ticketing sites to provide a “first come, first serve” queue for 80,000+ hopeful festival-goers.

The free-spirited festival has been said to be gravitating towards the commercial side of the festival landscape especially with the large number of Silicon Valley advocates. It is no secret that many high-level executives in the tech community have boasted about their experiences in the desert and have contributed towards the festival’s popularity. When the tickets were about to go online this year, a group of 200 or so hackers decided to use their technological intelligence to their advantage by creating a ‘backdoor’ through a hole in Ticketfly’s code to make their way in front of the line. After the hack, the perpetrators did not let their handy-work go unnoticed and let the world know via Twitter and Reddit what they had pulled off.

Burning Man has publicly admitted to the error, but also stated that they will be able to track down the hackers to put the tickets back up for grabs during the last-minute sale in August. The brunt of the criticism comes back to the ever-growing presence of Silicon Valley’s most elite at Burning Man, and this hack certainly does not help their case. The bohemian nature of Burning Man has been a point of differentiation for the festival, but with the rise in social media, it seems that it has fallen victim to the exposure of the mainstream. Hopeful festival-goers will have to wait for more information to be released about the end result of the hack.

Via: Wired

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