The Unethical Engineer's Guide to Event Ticket Acquisition
Karl Koscher
ShmooCon XX (Final) · Day 1 · One Track Mind
In "The Unethical Engineer's Guide to Event Ticket Acquisition," Karl Koscher delivers a thought-provoking and technically rich presentation on the various sophisticated methods that could be employed to bypass the anti-bot measures of high-demand event ticketing systems, specifically using the ShmooCon conference as a case study. The talk delves into a "trifecta of techniques," ranging from network-layer manipulation to advanced artificial intelligence and distributed human computation, demonstrating the ongoing arms race between event organizers and those seeking to game the system.
AI review
This talk isn't just about gaming a ticket system; it's a masterclass in applying advanced offensive techniques, from BGP hijacking to local LLM exploitation, to a real-world, high-stakes problem. Koscher demonstrates a profound understanding of network infrastructure and modern AI capabilities, delivering actionable insights and genuinely novel approaches that are far beyond typical