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Aventus Blockchain-Based Ticketing System Aims To Wipe Out Ticket Touts (theguardian.com)
umafuckit writes: The Guardian reports on Aventus, an open-source protocol designed to eliminate fraud and touting for large events. The Aventus Protocol "would allow event organizers to give each ticket a unique identity that is tied to its owner. Since each ticket is a linked list of records, where each new one contains an encrypted version of the previous one, they cannot be faked. The software also allows event promoters to keep an easy record of who owns the ticket, which means they can control the prices. The protocol was launched at Imperial College London last week and will be trialed at this year's world cup, where it will handle 10,000 ticket sales.
Would this tech be useful for software bug report tickets, too? Take a big software organization like Mozilla as an example. Maybe it could use tech like this to collect bug reports from users. Then this tech could, using the blockchain, also automatically set the bug report ticket's status to 'WONTFIX' automatically. It would save Mozilla staff and volunteers a lot of time, and it would get a response back to the submitter much quicker, too.
Name one actual use apart from launching ponzi schemes.
Internet of shit
Big data
Machine learning
Block chains
Just the most recent venture capital story-time bullshit. Silicon valley is being run like a centralized planned economy because too few fucktards are making all the decisions.
Ticket Touting is called Scalping over here. I don't see who this will help. I _do_ see this helping outright counterfeit tickets. But at the end of the day this won't stop scalping. Also, over here we've got Ticket Master, who actively encourages scalping since it shifts the risk to the scalper (and screws over the bands, who often sell out and then play to empty venues where they can't sell t-shirts & CDs because nobody could get a ticket).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Isn't it possible to implement this using a traditional, centralized database, instead of a blockchain?
IF this gets rid of scalping, Great!
If this just allows the source to charge scalping prices, I know where they can shove some explosive devices
I managed to inadvertently generate a simple and perfect solution to this problem:
Just don't care about any event which involves a large gathering of people who you are not personally acquainted with.
No tickets, no scalpers, no queuing, no stampedes. Life stays peaceful and calm.
If not, this could just as easily be implemented on paper tickets. Just print the name of the buyer on it.
of Ticketmaster?
Textbook Economics:
A market-clearing price is the price of a good or service at which quantity supplied is equal to quantity demanded, also called the equilibrium price.
Is it the scalpers' fault that bands can't figure out what the correct market-clearing price should be?
It seems to me that a simple Reverse Auction would ensure that everyone who really wants to see a concert can actually buy a ticket while correctly setting the market-clearing price while, for the most part, put an end to middleman profiteering by scalpers.
Because we all love our Capitalism and Free Markets, right?
The way I would eliminate scalping is to schedule a decreasing ticket price. Buy on the first day, and the prices are $1000. They drop $100 for each of the next four days. Then they drop $50 for the next 5 days. Then they drop more slowly as the event gets closer.
Or something like that.
The point is that if you buy them up early to scalp them, you'll have trouble making a profit. If the fans really want to pay $500 for front-row tickets, the artists (or their promoters) get the money, not the scalpers.
Scalpers are a solved problem. Been done by many bands.
Add shows until the last one doesn't sellout. If all bands did that for 3 months, all scalpers would be broke.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
As a customer I want to be able to buy and sell my tickets. This system lacks the ability to simplify me the process of selling my tickets and imposes me who sells me the tickets. This makes me suspect that I will always buy the tickets at an incorrect inflated price, because the value once I have the tickets is zero.
This is a solution in search of a problem and the problem it found is not the main issue. This doesn't prevent fraud or the problems at all. A fraudster can just buy one legitimate ticket then flog it off to many people, similar to what they do already. As for tying an identity to the ticket, this is BS and useless. Event organisers and gate entry don't have the manpower to check the identity of people as they enter anyway. .
popular bands don't just want to cater to the megarich. just because they could sellout priced at $1000 a ticket doesn't mean they should. It alienates their fans and in the long run will hurt them. what the want is for everyone to have a fair chance at tickets across varying price ranges. Regardless as others have said this is already a solved problem, their are various systems in place to lock out the scalpers now should a band/event wish to do so including multiple shows, registered fan ticket purchasing, identity verification for smaller events, various ticket limiting systems etc etc.
The article claims that this protocol will stop "ticket touting" eg "ticket resale"...generally meaning resale for high ticket prices. Unless this is tied to electronic payment this can't work. Heck even if you force resale through electronic transactions nothing stops additional payment "off the books" so to speak.
So at best this allows stopping fake tickets which isn't rocket science with blockchain technology.
Or you just do not care that people re-sell something that is theirs. If I buy a phone, I should be able to resell it. If I buy a ticket to a concert, I should be able to sell it.
Mind you, one does not exclude the other.
I once went to a concert for Prince. The Love Sexy tour, I think. It was in Antwerp and hardly announced, so it was not really sold out. Scalpers were selling the tickets at 30-50% of the original price and they where mostly unable to do so. Great concert. Also shows that I am old as fuck.
The only way we knew was due to a 2 line article in the newspaper somewhere in the middle. (Yeah, we read paper newspapers then) No Internet to up the hype.. No cerllphones to message people and let them know.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Thank goodness that is solved now; we wouldn't want a free market breaking out or anything!!
On the very day this article is posted on Slashdot is another one saying ticket sellers are going to start using face recognition, coincidence?
Your face is your own intellectual property that gets turned into a unique digital signature. Further adding that into a block chain just makes you more trackable to event organizers or government.
Sorry, but it's too big brother for me, I will reject any such events. My likelness is MY intellectual property and any that attempt to use it agree to pay me 10 Million U.S. Dollars per incident.
The problem is that scalpers game the system and shut out legitimate buyers. This solution will solve that problem. The article does not make that clear.
Or you just do not care that people re-sell something that is theirs. If I buy a phone, I should be able to resell it. If I buy a ticket to a concert, I should be able to sell it.
Scalpers are speculators, not resellers. They are no different from the scum that drive up oil prices on speculation of potential "unrest" in Iran and Venezuela or general dislike of Russia among the masses. How did you like that nice housing bubble recession in 2008? Speculators from banks to appraisers to buyers all got caught with their dicks hanging out when it was no longer sustainable and guess who got to suffer for it? Don't confuse scalpers with regular ticket holders who find out they can't - or no longer want to - go.
The way I've seen it implemented, ID is used as a fallback.
When the QR-code / Barcode is rejected at the gate, two scenarios :
- some con artist used that code to generate a false ticket and managed to enter first into the premise, and the ticket S/N is marked as "already used". Too late to find out who's the cheater, but at least you can use the ID and verify the legitimate customer and let them in.
- the legitimate customer already went in with this barcode/QR-code first. The person refused at the gate has a counterfeit ticket that re-uses the code from the legitimate user. The person will also fail the ID check (the ID in the database is tied to the legitimate user's ticket S/N). You can safely refuse access to the user.
So in term of your exemple, you aren't adding 270 hours total of checks spread among the ~60-80 people manning the gates.
You'r only adding 10s x the number of time the system reports "Ticket S/N already used to enter the event", so only for the ticket cloning counterfeit attempts-
It's not as robust as checking every single person entering the event, but at least :
- the legitimate owner can always enter the event, no matter what
- at most 1 single counterfeit clone-ticket holder can manage to get in with a given serial number befire the system notices and require ID checks for the same ticket.
---
This is usually coupled with another details (I've mostly seen in France) :
Event organizers and/or ticket provider, makes it mandatory to use a specific web platform to sell tickets second hand.
- This platform forbids to sell second hand ticket at a higher price than the official ticket price. (It avoid scalpers)
- This platform can track change of ownership for the organizers/ticket providers. Whenever a ticket is resold, the database can be updated to match the new legitimate owner (the S/N of the ticket can even be changed so that the older barcode isn't valid anymore), and the new owner is issued a new PDF that they can print that contains an update QR-code/barcode.
---
That requires a tiny bit of infrastructure (basically servers holding the database mapping who is the valid owner of a ticket, and what is the latest S/N on said ticket).
And blockchain is typically the kind of technology that can do decentralized ownership tracking - so no infrastructure but a distributed ledger.
But it's probably overkill. I haven't seen a barcode server failing on the day of an event yet, all the e-ticket have always been working as expected.
(But you can count on France that one day one critical person in this system is going to be on strike, and the system will be non-functional)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
...and the article image is Adele - perfect!
I do not care if they buy the tickets to enrich themselves financially by selling the tickets or emotionally by going to the concert.
I would not even mind if they bought ALL of the tickets and not go at all, leaving the artist alone in an empty hall.
To me it is that if you own something, you should be able to sell it. If you make a profit doing so. Good for you. If you make a loss. Also good for you. It is yours, so you can do with it as you please.
Or are you saying I can not buy anything with the intention of selling it later with a potential profit?
Scalpers do not drive up the price. The initial price that has been paid was and is the same.
That does not mean I like what they do and I do think that they are scum of the earth. It does not mean that I also think to have a right to do what they do. Defending people that you agree with is easy. I defend the people I hate.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Wait a second, I know that answer: The banks and speculators lost their asses.
The problems were: 1. the government set insane underwriting standards, allowing anybody to buy a house they couldn't possibly afford, and 2. the government bailed some of them out, banks owning corrupt politicians (e.g. Bush, Bush2, Obama, Clinton, Pelosi) is the problem.
As to oil, that's a zero sum game. The futures price at delivery date is the commodity price. That's how it works for a consumable. If doesn't matter what you paid for the future, in the end there is a physical market with relatively little storage capacity. If someone thinks the futures market is inflated, they just have to have the balls to wait and buy on spot, that's a gamble.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Prince was one of the ones that added shows to fuck the scalpers.
I don't have a problem with scalping as a concept, but I also don't have a problem with bands adding shows to deliberately fuck the scalpers.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Or you just do not care that people re-sell something that is theirs. If I buy a phone, I should be able to resell it. If I buy a ticket to a concert, I should be able to sell it.
No one cares about people reselling things. Everyone cares about computers reselling things, and you'd be the first one on here complaining if the entire world's supply of iPhone got sucked up on day one by a computer and trickle fed to consumers at twice the price.
You are talking about reselling. The topic here is scalping.
Scope matters.
To me it is that if you own something, you should be able to sell it.
I completely agree. But what do you actually own here? A piece of paper with your name on it? Even that might remain the property of the issuer; in any case, giving or selling your ticket to someone else does not imply that they have permission from the owner of the venue to enter and participate in the event. That permission was granted to you alone, and is not transferable, regardless of who holds the ticket.
Purporting to sell access to an event when one does not have the right to grant such access is fraud.
Showing up at the event holding a ticket issued to someone else, and claiming to be them in order to gain access, is also fraud.
On the other hand, if the venue is issuing simple "bearer" tickets not tied to any particular identity at below-market prices, then any issues they might have with "scalping" are a problem of their own making. The tickets may still be property of the venue and technically non-transferrable, but dealing with that should be considered the venue's problem. Laws specifically against "scalping" are an aberration.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
> The problem is venues are booked months to in advance
Conveniently, concerts sell out months in advance. Ticketmaster is currently selling tickets for John Mayer and for Jimmy Page concerts in 2019. Even of they don't quite sell out in the first 24 hours, Ticketmaster et al have enough information within 24 hours of tickets going on sale to pretty much know whether it will sell out.
Secondly, I suspect large venues stay pretty booked on Saturdays, not so much on Sundays. So if you book a venue for Saturday and put tickets up for sale six months ahead, there's a pretty good chance the venue will be available Sunday
So you can enter the venue after your ticket has been verified, which with blockchain means you'll get verification back an hour after the event starts.
Is it like a pout? Does it need grout? Occasionally, will it walk-a-bout?
(I suspect it means "scalping" but you know, us Indians, doin' our thing... Is it just me or is the Internet full of people trying to sound Euro?)
Keep Calm and Tout On.
There have been airlines that shut down all flights because their ticketing systems had issues. {...} For most cases, I don't see any real benefit from this product that can't already be done via existing and simpler methods at the same or greater speed and cost...
Yup indeed, we're talking about concert tickets here and as you point out they are much more simple to implement in a robust.
Not a system where even the Internal Affairs Dept. of the Democratic Republic of Bannanistan should be able to append suspected terrorist to "no-fly" lists and send requests to your Airline Company to deny boarding to that suspect in almost real-time.
More a system where in worst case you can dump the whole list of currently valid S/N on the checking devices themselves
(but most often, as I've usually seen, have a local (optionally off-line) server with a local cache of the DB talking to the checking devices offline).
Send the few problematic cases to the special "customer service" queue.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Most likely point of failure is the local internet connection at the venue, not the server.
I'm merely pointing at what I'm hypothesizing is the invoked reason (so they can slap "Blockchain" to their idea and attract VCs).
Of course it's blindly simple to make a robust and mostly offline system for a music festival. (With a fall back to "customer service" queue).
And the most likely point of failure in practice is the actual physical processing of guests at the gate (bags checks, pat downs, depending on the local culture).
The personnel at the gate will start complaining not being able to process guests fast enough / The guests will start protesting that they wait way too much, long before any half decent ticketing system is overwhelmed.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]