seti88 Posted September 10, 2019 Posted September 10, 2019 1 hour ago, skullmilitia said: FYI, It's not bots doing the split second purchases, it's running the purchasing page on script only. It's how a lot of the F5 sales get instantly sold out. This is a big issue with the products sold in Asian markets. 3A had a huge problem with it, holiday sales would be sold out in less than a minute. The Script users would have the page loaded, and checkout completed before your main page ever loaded I suspect the same thing is happening here. Bot's can't change the connection speed and site server hang ups. running with out site images... well there almost no serve lag time. They tried to combat it by only allowing verified emails and lowering amounts per customer, but the shop owners would just have multiple instances open. How feasible is it for an anti bot script checking purchases completed say within 30secs or so are instantly dropped? Ie time logging the time ipaddress/account logs in and completes the entire purchase process...
Sanity is Optional Posted September 10, 2019 Posted September 10, 2019 31 minutes ago, seti88 said: How feasible is it for an anti bot script checking purchases completed say within 30secs or so are instantly dropped? Ie time logging the time ipaddress/account logs in and completes the entire purchase process... That's I think part of the new websites that HLJ and AmiAmi got, it requires scripting for each step in the checkout process. NY has the same, but they've also gone to the queue on top of it.
Mechinyun Posted September 10, 2019 Posted September 10, 2019 I get the point of this, but its too complicated now as others have said with so many sites, quantities and technology. Especially if your focusing on Macross which the releases are just to few and far between to devote time into it to make it worth the effort with bots and what not. Maybe I'm old, but Ill just buy the few I need, enjoy them and put my limited time too other aspects of life.
Sanity is Optional Posted September 10, 2019 Posted September 10, 2019 So far I haven’t managed to fail any of the pre-orders, though my DX VF-1S is coming from Amazon through Tenso so I have to pay the proxy fees. But it gets damn close sometimes. I really do feel bad for the people on the East coast who stay up until 3 just for a chance.
sqidd Posted September 10, 2019 Author Posted September 10, 2019 (edited) 6 hours ago, CeramicDragon said: You started this thread. You taking away preorders from people who really want the item. That is scalping! Walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it's a duck! I started this thread to have an adult and nuanced discussion with my peers about the subject of scalping. Nowhere in my first post did I insinuate that I was planning on scalping (quoted below). We were having a nuanced and informative discussion with no one remotely hot under the collar until you showed up and tried to blow the thread up by hurling a baseless accusation. Quote What do you guys think of the practice of buying quite a few pre-order units to sell later in an attempt to cost reduce the units kept? For example (really rough numbers). I buy six Arcadia VF-0D Premium Editions at $450/ unit. I sell four of those units for $675 (which is less than the older Ver 1 units sell for) to people that didn't get in on the pre-orders. I net $900 in margin on the four units which covers the cost of the two units I keep. The questions: -Is there are moral problem with this? -Is it "price gouging"? -Is it just smart business? Obviously the cornerstone of making money is capitalism. But there is a line between making money, and being predatory. I'm curious what you guys think. Edited September 10, 2019 by sqidd
sqidd Posted September 10, 2019 Author Posted September 10, 2019 2 hours ago, Sanity is Optional said: So far I haven’t managed to fail any of the pre-orders, though my DX VF-1S is coming from Amazon through Tenso so I have to pay the proxy fees. But it gets damn close sometimes. I really do feel bad for the people on the East coast who stay up until 3 just for a chance. I think my first foray into this will be the DX VF-1S Focker. I'll be up at 3am (I usually get up at 4:30 anyway so no big deal) doing my impression of a bad 90's hacker movie!
HardlyNever Posted September 10, 2019 Posted September 10, 2019 8 hours ago, skullmilitia said: FYI, It's not bots doing the split second purchases, it's running the purchasing page on script only. It's how a lot of the F5 sales get instantly sold out. This is a big issue with the products sold in Asian markets. 3A had a huge problem with it, holiday sales would be sold out in less than a minute. The Script users would have the page loaded, and checkout completed before your main page ever loaded I suspect the same thing is happening here. Bot's can't change the connection speed and site server hang ups. running with out site images... well there almost no serve lag time. They tried to combat it by only allowing verified emails and lowering amounts per customer, but the shop owners would just have multiple instances open. Ehh... kind of. Running source only will give you a slight edge, but that is nothing compared to the speed a bot has. There are definitely bots buying these at split-second speeds. Anything a human can do, a bot can do as well, and faster. (Good) bots don't interact with pages waiting for them to load images and what not. They interact with the source directly, and do it faster than a human would looking at the same source. 7 hours ago, seti88 said: How feasible is it for an anti bot script checking purchases completed say within 30secs or so are instantly dropped? Ie time logging the time ipaddress/account logs in and completes the entire purchase process... Like I said above, anything a human can do on a computer (and especially a website) you can theoretically program a bot to do. Any counter-measure you can develop, can be defeated with enough time and effort. For instance, in your example, once bot makers learn what is going on, they would just put in that amount of delay, to make their bot pass the test. It's an arms race like anything else. You can definitely take steps to make your website more bot-resistant. But as long as you want to have actual human beings go through the check-out process, you'll have an avenue for bots to take, if they are sophisticated enough. Honestly, I'm surprised we don't see more CAPTCHA used on these sites. It wouldn't completely eliminate bots, but would have a big impact, at least initially. I think the frustration to the end-user, and the the vast majority of users being... less informed... and not understanding what is actually going on and why we need to CAPTCHAs to make purchases, might be preventing it. But even with all that, you'd still have actual humans buying stuff up at high speeds. So it wouldn't really feel that different to us on pre-order night. Or you can go the lottery route, which NY seems to be doing (intentionally or not), where you just let random people in to the check out screen. This doesn't defeat bots exactly, but levels the playing field between human and bot by pushing it mostly to chance. You can still put your bots in the random queue, though.
seti88 Posted September 10, 2019 Posted September 10, 2019 I tot abt the bots accounting that delay in. Main purpose is to make the bots drop out and go over the same process again. Maybe giving chance for regular users to get some in? but your captcha idea could be combined too, if after a set of time the bot is forced to go through a captcha test if it was below the set time threshold. Hmm prob just theories but if someone from the site happens to read this, well maybe it’s an idea.
Kanedas Bike Posted September 10, 2019 Posted September 10, 2019 9 hours ago, sqidd said: I think my first foray into this will be the DX VF-1S Focker. I'll be up at 3am (I usually get up at 4:30 anyway so no big deal) doing my impression of a bad 90's hacker movie! Good luck! The last few years have felt just like this, especially when I see that I’ve been up since 2:45 and my alarm is about to go off at 6. -b.
spacemanoeuvres Posted September 10, 2019 Posted September 10, 2019 I spent a little time looking at bots but didn’t find anything too promising. Can commission something for ~50-100 USD but I don’t think that’s for me. For now I’ll just stare at my computer, filled with murderous rage, whilst being cart jacked by resellers.
Sanity is Optional Posted September 10, 2019 Posted September 10, 2019 The sad part is it'd pay for itself pretty quick compared to paying NY's scalper prices.
CeramicDragon Posted September 11, 2019 Posted September 11, 2019 17 hours ago, sqidd said: I started this thread to have an adult and nuanced discussion with my peers about the subject of scalping. Nowhere in my first post did I insinuate that I was planning on scalping (quoted below). We were having a nuanced and informative discussion with no one remotely hot under the collar until you showed up and tried to blow the thread up by hurling a baseless accusation. Ok dude. You asked.
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