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Forged PAX Badges
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"If anyone sees a fake pass at the convention, I urge you to please go to the nearest Enforcer and let him/her know." "When someone discovers a fake pass, they alert security. Security takes the fake pass and escorts the culprit from the building."
See the thing is you are making possibly the victim into some kind of outcast. Also the enforcers all seemed to have there own "methods" of finding a fake pass. Some seemed to shine a flash light through it others read the back and some one else looked like he was picking away at the sides of it.
Is it a problems yes but it's one that's easily fixable and not one for people to really worry about.
<Qs23> I just need to get my dicks in a row
<prox> i work for dicks
#paforums_pax, all about the dicks.
I bought a fake pass from a forger and was lucky to find out about it at an after-party instead of the expo hall. The Enforcer who pointed it out was beyond nice. I gave her all the info to the person I bought it from. I think the only thing I could have done better was to take a picture of the guy, hahaha. I feel that all the enforcers did an extraordinary job.
I just feel bad that I helped someone make a killing off fake passes and I hope the bastard gets caught and rots, Dead Island style. ;p
Next year I'm going to attempt to pursue the life of an Enforcer myself, or at least buy tickets on the first day they're available.
We started badge checking on Saturday when the scope of the fakes became clear. The ok came down to release the estimates on the number of fake badges tonight. That number is between 3 and 5 thousand fake badges. There is a reason we ran out of swag bags and lanyards so fast, as it turns out.
And that estimate seems pretty high, but I agree that a holographic logo (not a generic sticker) would help.
Basically the badges need to be redesigned with more expensive and complicated effects used, such as foil printing.
Most counterfeiters wouldn't have the equipment or money necessary to do foil printing, and the effects are VERY EASY for watchers to spot (or not spot, which would be when an Enforcer would step in).
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One regular I noticed in particular was the grey-haired scalper with the brown pitbull-esque-dog. He showed up at like 7am every day and didn't leave until 7pm.
Here scalpers have to maintain a minimum of a half-mile distance away from the event they are selling tickets for.
edit: looking at the fake count, that makes sense now. PAX11 definitely felt oversold and at least 5,000 extra people in the expo would definitely explain that.
One of the things that I love about PAX is how well the honor system works in the actual convention, but the people making these fake badges will probably never step through the doors. I really think some kind of hologram or watermark would go a long way towards fixing this problem.
Meh, he's probably just mad because someone turned him in.
The vast majority of the faked badges were professionally manufactured in bulk. The key "tells" on the professional fake badges were raster errors on both the front and the back, markedly different color saturation, and the the fakes were laminated paper (the real badges are all plastic; this was what the "flashlight" test could easily determine).
I don't know why kazuo was singled out but we are all genuinely sorry about the upset the situation has caused. Actively checking for fakes at doorways was only in effect for about 2 hours on Saturday afternoon while policy was being decided. We felt very sorry for all of the attendees that had been unknowingly scammed and that is why we replaced their badges with authentic badges.
The estimate is based on the spread of the different numbers on the badges we confiscated (we confiscated hundreds).
We did catch and eject a few people simply using old badges.
"We know that the moment we slip, it will be taken away... and so it is of the utmost importance to be worthy of it constantly."
PAX will always be held on the best weekend for PAX. Sometimes that will be a bad weekend for you; I'm sorry.
Unrelated note: THANKS LIGER FOR THE AWESOME LANYARD. I got compliments on it all weekend long. I told them where to find you to buy their own but I dunno if anyone actually came your way.
"We know that the moment we slip, it will be taken away... and so it is of the utmost importance to be worthy of it constantly."
PAX will always be held on the best weekend for PAX. Sometimes that will be a bad weekend for you; I'm sorry.
Unfortunately, something will have to be done, because if it isn't, the risk of PAX as a whole getting shut down becomes rather high.
Mimes. Release the mimes on them.
Make the passes more complex and expensive to duplicate.
Downsides:
- They're working against profession counterfeiters here. It's an arms race.
- Slows down the entrances significantly from verification.
- Pass price will have to increase to cover costs.
Give you the passes at the door, so the counterfeiters don't know what the passes look like until the day of and kill their production lead times.
Downsides:
- They'd have to run will call for like, a week in advance just to get everyone set up.
- Slows everything down, as you have to check ID for each person.
Add an RFID tag
Downsides:
The RFID challenge-response can be easily imitated, see also arms race.
Intentionally undersell PAX and set aside a group of passes for door sales only. Account for ~4-5k people that are not supposed to be there being inside the building.
Downsides:
PA makes less money, which could lead to not being able to rent as much expo space. Then we're back at square one for crowding.
Perhaps I'm overly worked up about it. But I cannot stand thieves, liars and bloody cheats. Whether it directly affects me or not....
Using http://www.securityhologram.com/index.php?action=buy&id=70&quantity= as an example - in bulk (and we're talking, what, 100k badges at a time) these are dirt cheap. Include time to stick them to badges, and we're talking $1/badge top, which is hardly terrible. Purchasers can now validate badges themselves in many cases, meaning forged badges won't be around in such quantity. On-site verification can remain as spot checks.
Arms race is a point, but AFAIK holographic stickers are difficult enough to duplicate to make it cost ineffective.
Depends how much you spend on the RFID, but only marginally quicker to verify.
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/20321793#Comment_20321793
Still, measures are being planned; you'll see the new badges, whatever they are, at PAX East 2012.
"We know that the moment we slip, it will be taken away... and so it is of the utmost importance to be worthy of it constantly."
PAX will always be held on the best weekend for PAX. Sometimes that will be a bad weekend for you; I'm sorry.
This is really good to know....
This should be the standard response to an identified forgery.
Regarding the fake passes: To anyone who felt put off by being checked, I sincerely apologize. The fake passes this year were highly impressive, and looked very real at first glance. Please understand that the Enforcers were not profiling or singling anyone out. Detecting the fakes had its learning curve, especially when we found out just how good they were.
@Dalkor - I'm glad to hear I didn't ruin your PAX. Your info was invaluable, and thank you again. Please do apply next year, it would be great to see you in the Prime Blue.
A special, proprietary hologram and perhaps a special holepunch or badge design thats not square would help. You won't be able to ever get to 100%, but should be able to get the actual forged passes down.
Some mention not mailing passes out. I disagree with this. Security by obscurity is not a good security model. A pro scalper (the 10%) would probably already know someone on the inside (exhibitor, enforcer maybe even?) who could get the badge design a week before PAX and recreate by friday.
Security features should be published so attendees know they are not getting ripped off when they go buy something from ebay or CL. Since the security features should be hard to counterfeit, it won't be a problem publishing what they are. And if some pro manages to get a decent duplicate, at least the people buying the pass should be educated to find whats wrong with them.
Education of attendees/enforcers/old ladies who work the door and having a few simple but hard to counterfeit measures should eliminate most of this issue.
"We know that the moment we slip, it will be taken away... and so it is of the utmost importance to be worthy of it constantly."
PAX will always be held on the best weekend for PAX. Sometimes that will be a bad weekend for you; I'm sorry.
What percentage did you think were amateur fakes vs the pro ones? This will help decide what type of security measures should be taken next year
Yeah same here. Not too inconvenient but odd nonetheless.
As a way to cut down on forgeries. How about in the registration room or next to it we set up a like a badge check out or something. I know there are some people like me who don't spend their whole time at PAX, so if there was an area where the willing could stop by to sort of check out for a couple of hours and that would allow someone to check-in their place. They could time stamp
the badge or something and that way enforcers could know when to send them back.
As I type this I realize how silly this sounds but I figure there's a good idea in here somewhere.
Expect the vast majority (80+%) to be pros next year; too much money to be made for professionals not to take a shot at it.
I believe Jaber mentioned earlier upthread that we confiscated less than a dozen or so amateur fakes ( and please correct me if I'm wrong, Jaber)
Unfortunately all of the people (or the vast majority) who were affected by the fakes were unaware of it, and that made it all the much worse (especially as an E, as most of us want to help you have fun). I'm not convinced there is an easy/good solution, but I trust the PA folks to try their best to work on it. It's a very precarious balancing act, imho.
As an expo hall [E], I was surprised hearing the news about so many fakes, as were other [E]'s that I had the opportunity to talk to about this. Although we tried to be proactive, our main focus and obligation is to make everyone's PAX experience the best possible. When we were made aware of the situation, we were all reminded of our primary focus - the attendee's experience. The only people I felt that needed to be checked (other than the obvious fakes) were those that did not have their badge displayed. I carried a ton of lanyards with me and if someone didn't have a badge showing, I asked to see it and I would say 98% of them didn't have a lanyard so I hooked them up. Over 1% of them had a lanyard and didn't like to wear it due to comfort/camera whatever and I just advised them that they most likely will be checked again if not displayed and I took that opportunity to give the badge a QUICK once-over. The final >1% of those I checked were fakes or lost and weren't displaying it for those reasons.
I volunteer to provide help to those that need it and to try to make the event as fun as possible for everyone. If by providing lanyards for those who couldn't display their badge or advising that those who chose not to display their valid badge was an inconvenience, I do apologize. I would say that the majority were very gracious and understood.
I thank you all for an amazing PAX Prime and look forward to the next!
In addition to enforcers and exhibitors being able to check to see if their code is valid, make it so the participants can as well. Your barcode when you registered would be linked to the QR code so you can transfer your pass before the badges are sent out.
Its all fairly low tech, and smartphones can read the code to verify authenticity. Then educate PAX goers to check for a valid key before buying a pass.
Couple of observations:
1. My fake pass was very well made... not papery or cardboard, but a nice thick plastic. Unique # and all that jazz.
2. The enforcer was super-nice about it. It's a sucky thing pull a gamer away from the show, and he was super high-class about it. Kudos.
3. I did NOT receive a real pass even though I was an innocent. But if there were some folks that got to stay, feel lucky about it because everyone did not get that treatment.
4. I provided a phone# at the info desk for the guy I bought the fake from. Hope it helps.
Even now, I'm still incredibly angry about the whole ordeal. Not angry at PAX... the show was awesome while I was there, and everyone was doing what they had to in order to ensure the success of the show. But I'm so angry at the fraudsters to stole my money AND set me up for the fall. I hope the PAX staff literally nails their balls to the wall.
+1 to the suggestion of having a LEGIT exchange system. Not everyone has the ability to hit refresh over and over waiting for the purchase window to open, and having a blessed secondary market would really help.
Remember the Enforcers as well; we need security, but don't make their lives miserable.
We've never had this problem before on such a scale, and as such, didn't have a planned way of dealing with this. Now we have, and next year will be totally different.
I can't comment on exact details, but we have some very good leads on who the forgers might be, and we're actively pursuing them legally. I'll let Jaberwocky spill some details if that's possible.
Can you cite a source?
Not much for the fire marshal to do in that case but attempt to shut it down. The risk of loss of life is too high.