Forum Index > Trail Talk > Are there really bots on recreation.gov?
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fourteen410
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PostThu May 05, 2022 8:29 am 
Rookie question: if Rec.gov used Captcha, wouldn't that eliminate any potential bot issues?

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PostThu May 05, 2022 8:39 am 
fourteen410 wrote:
Rookie question: if Rec.gov used Captcha, wouldn't that eliminate any potential bot issues?
For the most part. A human could still monitor the bot in real time and it could pause for them to manually solve the Captcha and then continue. As a tool like Selenium would still be faster than a human for 90% of the rest of the process. This makes it unfeasible for running continuously when you're not at your computer. But it could still be functional during permit droptimes when your success window is measured in seconds. I've also heard awful stories of people offshoring Captcha puzzles to people in developing countries. Obviously not something that would happen here... But bot use is widespread on the internet for other things.

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uww
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PostThu May 05, 2022 8:44 am 
zimmertr wrote:
I've also heard awful stories of people offshoring Captcha puzzles to people in developing countries.
It’s pretty common, and not just restricted to developing countries- you too could earn $0.25 an hour solving captchas from home- be your own boss! Many services like this. https://2captcha.com/make-money-online Lots of people run bots to game these companies too- they have a dashboard showing 70k workers banned.

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fairweather friend
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PostThu May 05, 2022 8:49 am 
I could have sworn that rec.gov required Captcha at some point in the booking process, but I just logged onto my rec.gov account and took a booking for a May 5 MF Salmon launch (likely in the snow!) all the way to the point where I entered my payment information, at which point I terminated the booking. At no point was a Captcha challenge presented to me and it doesn't seem logical that it would occur AFTER you paid or attempt to pay for the permit.

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PostThu May 05, 2022 8:54 am 
Sometimes a web application will only require a Captcha if it suspects the client of being a bot. It does this by checking the client's User Agent data or other things like the public CIDR block the IP address belongs to. For example, a client request from an AWS IP is a lot more suspicious than an IP from a standard consumer ISP.

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altasnob
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PostThu May 05, 2022 9:15 am 
Some nefarious company has been monitoring this thread and just came up with the brilliant idea of using oversees slave labor to book high demand permits and sell than for $10k a pop. The dystopian future of backpacking.

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Cyclopath
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PostThu May 05, 2022 9:32 am 
fourteen410 wrote:
Rookie question: if Rec.gov used Captcha, wouldn't that eliminate any potential bot issues?
In theory yes, but in practice not really.

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Cyclopath
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PostThu May 05, 2022 9:37 am 
altasnob wrote:
Some nefarious company has been monitoring this thread and just came up with the brilliant idea of using oversees slave labor to book high demand permits and sell than for $10k a pop. The dystopian future of backpacking.
Look what years of people lying about bot infestations led to! eek.gif

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PostThu May 05, 2022 9:58 am 
Cyclopath wrote:
altasnob wrote:
Some nefarious company has been monitoring this thread and just came up with the brilliant idea of using oversees slave labor to book high demand permits and sell than for $10k a pop. The dystopian future of backpacking.
Look what years of people lying about bot infestations led to! eek.gif
I don't see it that way. In the capitalistic world we live in companies are going to do whatever they legally can to seek profits. It's true these permits are worth $10k or more, and their value will only increase with time. I don't blame the companies for using slave labor to sell these permits. I blame the government for not anticipating these problems and coming up with more equitable solutions before they become a problem. Online booking makes things easier, but it also opens up all these holes to be exploited. Personally, I'm with the people who say they just go places that don't require permits, or at least places where the permits are easy to obtain. It makes me sad that my kids will never hike the Enchantments, the Wave, or raft the Middle Fork of the Salmon in their life. But so it goes.

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Cyclopath
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PostThu May 05, 2022 10:32 am 
altasnob wrote:
In the capitalistic world we live in companies are going to do whatever they legally can to seek profits. It's true these permits are worth $10k or more, and their value will only increase with time. I don't blame the companies for using slave labor to sell these permits. I blame the government for not anticipating these problems and coming up with more equitable solutions before they become a problem.
The way we as a society and a nation do things now is farm them out to the lowest bidder and congratulate ourselves on another successful private/public partnership. Recreation.gov is making money and people are able to buy tickets to enjoy the public land they own.

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fourteen410
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PostThu May 05, 2022 6:10 pm 
zimmertr wrote:
I've also heard awful stories of people offshoring Captcha puzzles to people in developing countries.
How does that work? Someone sets up a bot and has people offshore who handle the Captcha puzzle for it?

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Cyclopath
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PostThu May 05, 2022 7:46 pm 
fourteen410 wrote:
How does that work? Someone sets up a bot and has people offshore who handle the Captcha puzzle for it?
They only have a finite number of puzzles to challenge people with. Done companies have paid humans to solve all or most of them, then just stored the files with the answer. When their bots encounter a puzzle they go to their database for the solution, and send it.

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PostTue Jun 21, 2022 6:47 pm 
Quote:
Some people are convinced that only a few users employing specialized bots are reserving all the campsites, and that it isn’t possible there is this much demand to visit our public lands and waters. However, demand to visit popular national parks, national forests, and other federal recreation sites is greater than ever. This surge in visitors means that the most popular and recognizable names in outdoor recreation (be it federal, state, or local lands) are booking up faster than before. These locations are often fully reserved only minutes after they’ve been released. For example, a popular campground with 57 campsites can see close to 19,000 people all trying to reserve the same campsites for the same dates immediately after they’re released for reservation. This leads to sites booking up in seconds to minutes as the demand greatly exceeded the number of available campsites. When it comes to bots though, our team has safeguards in place to protect Recreation.gov from spam and users attempting to abuse the integrity of the reservation system with malicious software. These protective processes and systems prevent bots from seeking out and quickly capturing availability on our site. Additionally, we have a team of dedicated experts monitoring traffic and trends during every major release to interrupt suspicious activity. All of these steps are taken to help you reserve with confidence. Please know that if you are unable to find availability, it is likely not due to a bot scooping up multiple sites but because thousands of other visitors are all trying to reserve the same campsites and tours.
https://recreationgov.activehosted.com/index.php?action=social&c=564&m=48049

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PostWed Jun 22, 2022 1:03 am 
Theres guys MONETIZING on the bot scene. If you're not hiring out these days, never gonna get in anywhere!! Gotta hire out these days, get these guys MONETIZING on your behalf!!! https://campnab.com/

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PostThu Jan 26, 2023 8:05 am 
Didn't read thread, too frustrated. There has to be bots. I've been hosed EVERY time, sitting at the computer from 645a till 7a, pressing refresh, every few seconds only to finally press at 659....659:15......659:16....:17.... all the way to 659:59.....then at 700......site taken. This has happened EVERY TIME. I'm hella pissed. Has to be bots.

GNGSTR

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