Caveat Emptor: Counterfeit e-Tickets

Having built an online ticketing website (with fairly advanced—even today, let alone five years ago—reserved seating features), I was naturally quite interested in security guru Bruce Schneier's post about stupid people purchasing fake concert tickets.

Apparently at a recent U2 concert in Boston scalpers sold duplicate copies of e-Tickets for up to $2,000 each. (Wow. I doubt the biggest U2 fan I know personally would have paid even a tenth of that.)

The first person in the door with the e-Ticket wins. Everyone else is left out in the cold. It's surprising people would trust a total stranger to part with large sums of money for what might very well be just a worthless sheet of paper.

—Michael A. Cleverly
Saturday, June 04, 2005 at 13:14