In World Series news today, (the Gorilla loves baseball!), Colorado Rockies officials said that Monday,World Series ticket sales were the target of an “external malicious attack.” However, online ticket sales were to resume at noon on Tuesday. Details of the online attack have yet to be released, but to put it mildly, of the 8.5 million attempts to connect with the computers in the first 90 minutes after ticket sales started, only several hundred tickets had been sold before the system had to be shut down, temporarily suspending all ticket sales to the event. A Rockies spokesperson couldn’t provide details, but did say that nearly 18,000 tickets were available for each game in Denver-games 3, 4, and 5, if necessary-on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. That had the Rockies putting as many as 60,000 tickets up for sale online only and team officials said their computers were “ready to handle the expected crush”. But just 2 hours after they went on sale, many reported they could not get access to the ticket-sales Web site. The attack occurred at the Irvine, California-based Paciolan Inc., which runs the computers for the Rockies’ World Series ticket sales. “Back-up” plans are now in place should this happen again. Paciolan CEO Dave Butler said the crash affected the company’s entire North American system, and stated ”this is not the Rockies’ fault whatsoever” and “ we are working hard to address the problem.” Meanwhile, people were so eager to get tickets that many lined up in near freezing temperatures outside the Denver Public Library before it opened in hopes of using public-access computers to score tickets. Clayton McLeod, a 26 year old heavy machine operator, took the day off in hopes of getting his tickets and suggested that if people weren’t able to get the tickets there, they may have to pay anywhere from $200-$300 above face value to get them. The Rockies limited sales to four per person per game. The tickets were originally to be sold at Coors Field and Rockies’ Dugout Stores in the Denver area as well as online, but the team announced Wednesday that all sales would be online, saying that would be “more fair.” The Gorilla thinks this is a good example of how easily computer security can be breached, no matter who you are! Being a baseball fan himself, this scenario would be extremely frustrating.
Oct 23