Some software engineers from Silicon Valley found a way to cheat the system and cut the line ahead of 80,000 co-burners
Burning Man has, by now, gained a reputation for being a gathering for theΒ bold, the hip, the outrageous and those seeking to find a different sort of thrill in life. Tickets for the festival went live last week, and the queue waiting to grab these has been immense. But in a shocking revelation by WIRED, it was found that about 200 software engineers who have the technical know-how about how the ticketing website – Ticketfly functioned, tried to cheat the queue and buy tickets for themselves ahead of others.
The festival have publicly admitted to this blunder, and issued a statement sayingΒ that these tickets would be traced and deemed void as soon as possible. For those who desire to know the detailed procedure of how this was pulled off, software engineer Michael Vacirca has broken it down for you:
” They left code in the page that allowed you to generate the waiting room URL ahead of time. If you knew how to form the URL based on the code segment then you could get in line before everyone else who clicked right at noon.β
The festival has received it’s fair share of criticism over the years owing primarily to the technical hardships of its website as well the cultural dilution caused by the VIP treatments provided at the festival. Nevertheless, the festival is not to be missed.
(All Images Courtesy: Burning Man Facebook)