Hackers Using Bots, Scripts To Lock Down Restaurant Reservations 214
Nerval's Lobster writes "Forget about hacking an app or database: for a small cadre of hackers in San Francisco, it's all about writing code that can score them a great table at a hot restaurant. According to the BBC, these developers and programmers have designed bots that scan restaurant Websites for open tables and reserve them. Diogo Mónica, a security engineer with e-commerce firm Square, is one of those programmers. A self-described foodie, he decided to get around his inability to score a table at the ultra-popular State Bird Provisions by writing a script that sent out an email every time the restaurant's reservation page changed. 'Once a reservation got canceled I would get an email and could quickly get it for myself,' he wrote in a blog posting. But soon he noticed something peculiar: 'As soon as reservations became available on the website (at 4am), all the good times were immediately taken and were gone by 4:01am.' He suspected it was automated 'reservation bots at work,' built by other programmers with a hankering for fine cuisine. 'After a while even cancellations started being taken immediately from under me,' he wrote. 'It started being common receiving an email alerting of a change, seeing an available time, and it being gone by the time the website loaded.' His solution was to build his own reservation bot, using Ruby, and post the code in the wild."
This is why we can't have nice things (Score:4, Interesting)
Heaven forbid we should have the convenience of making a reservation online. No, it's takes a bunch of assholes to game the system and screw it up. Not that it's anything new, as online ticketing for popular events has been gamed for fun and profit by scalpers for years.
If all of my family were to suddenly die in a freak accident and I was left alone with nothing to live for, I would hunt every bot maker down and shoot them for amusement. (Oh, and happy Friday everybody!)
Re:This isn't hacking (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Or... (Score:4, Interesting)
Go to a casual local place and have a backup plan if it is busy. Restaurants with mile-long reservation lists and >$100 plates are almost universally overrated.
Unfortunately I live in a resort-y area and we're overrun during the summer months. I just learn to be a better cook. I'm becoming very good at cooking these days. So much so I hate going out to eat because I can do everything so much better.
now it's time for another episode of Samurai Short-order Chef
Re:Or... (Score:3, Interesting)
Another option: have dining in parties with your friends. Have each person take a rotation, try out new recipes/variants, and in general, have a good time without the bad music/bad lighting/bad seating. Non-paying guests can stay and wash the dishes ;)
Re:Or... (Score:5, Interesting)
The most I ever paid for a meal was $700 per head for a 16 course tasting menu at a 3 star restaurant. I booked 6 weeks ahead. It was money well spent.
My priorities may differ from yours.
Re:On the other hand (Score:4, Interesting)
The important part, which I failed to quote:
Update, 1:20pm: Urbanspoon has released a statement that reaffirms its earlier denial, and also refutes duplicate reservations and reservation fraud (though neither of those issues are technically in dispute):
"Urbanspoon’s data on State Bird Provisions’ reservations do not support the findings reported in Diogo Mónica’s post. While we will not disclose data about specific customers, we currently have processes in place to prevent duplicate reservations and combat reservation fraud. Urbanspoon’s goal is to give real diners the opportunity to make reservations. We’ve noticed that many diners will stop at nothing to get a table at the hottest restaurants in town, like State Bird Provisions , so we are constantly working on improving the overall reservations process to give all diners an opportunity to secure a table."
And since these bot'ed reservations aren't appearing for sale on Craigslist, nor do these popular restaurants appear to be suffering from excessive no-shows, what exactly is happening to these reservations that are supposedly stolen by bots?
Re:On the other hand (Score:5, Interesting)
you know what would work out? if the tables are really all reserved all the fucking time, make a reservation cost.
then increase cost until you hit a spot. the restaurant should just charge more, if people want to pay a months rent to eat there then so be it.
It's easier to auction off reservations rather than continually adjust the price until you find a level that works. And this was suggested by many people on Twitter early this morning already.