Four men who go by the name of "Wiseguys" were charged with hacking into computers of ticket vendors including ticketmaster to buy over 1.5 million tickets to all different kinds of events such as New York Yankees games and Bruce Springsteen Concerts. With the purchase of these tickets the company made a profit of nearly 29 million dollars. The company is called Wiseguy Tickets Inc. and supposively used a software called "bots" that is able to get past internet security protocols which gives access to thousands of tickets. They also used a software that mimics individual ticket buyers in order to purchase more tickets. Three of the men live in the United States and pleaded not guilty to the charges. The bail has been set for $500,000 for Joel Stevenson while Kristofer Kirsch faces a bail of $1,000,000. The leader, Kenneth Lowson, has a bail hearing in the near future and plans to ask a federal judge to let him go free on bail. However the question to be asked in this case is whether or not this was a federal crime? Lowson and his lawyer believe that it is not a federal crime because it is not illegal according to the U.S. federal legislation or was not a crime that occured on U.S. federal property. The fourth man being prosecuted is overseas and is expected to surrender in the next few weeks.
My opinion on this topic is that I think these men were properly punished for their actions. I feel that is it more the ticket companies fault for not having a secure ticket database where they sell their tickets. If anything the online ticket companies can learn a lesson from these men and hopefully buff up their security so it doesn't happen again. These men didn't commit a federal crime but they just simply got past the system and made a ton of money selling tickets.
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