[jaysway]

[BigBrunyon]

Firm evidence of heavy bot activity occurred on July 28, 2018 on servers in the us-west-2 server format farm. Peak activity occurred at 2:21pm. This is known because Joseph Raine proclaimed it to be!!

[fairweather friend]

Permits for multi-day wilderness river trips have been required for decades, and pretty much all of the state and federal agencies who manage river permits have switched over to rec.gov, with the Grand Canyon being almost the only exception. (They run their OWN lottery system and it is head and shoulders better than rec.gov.) The subject of gaming permits on rec.gov has been discussed at length over the past ten years and I KNOW that it happens since I was personally able to identify a glitch in their system (since corrected) that allowed one person to transfer a permit to another person, which is prohibited. When I suspected this was occurring, I alerted the FS to how it could be done, but they ignored my email and did nothing. Then I dropped a hint on a rafting forum and someone PM'ed me with a request: their trip was in peril because the lottery winner/permit holder on their Middle Fork Salmon trip learned she was preggers AFTER winning the lottery and her doctor advised her not to go due to previous miscarriages... would I help them? So I told him how I suspected it might work and they tried it out. Problem solved in ten seconds. It worked like a charm. A few weeks later the FS & rec.gov made a breathless announcement that they were changing the way they handled cancelled permits. Another scam that I was aware of involved the rec.gov call center. At the time, cancelled permits were listed on rec.gov, but no one was supposed to be able to book them until a certain time/date. However, word got out that if you called rec.gov's call center, they'd let you "book" the permit in advance, but the system wouldn't actually process your booking until the instant the permit became available. At least a half dozen Selway permits got nabbed that way, and a Selway permit is the most unobtainable permit in the US. (Though now that the Wave hike is on rec.gov, I wouldn't be surprised it has been surpassed.) The bottom line (and I've been saying this for ten years!) is that a wilderness permit is a precious commodity worth THOUSANDS of dollars, and yet rec.gov treats these permits like worthless pieces of plastic junk available for online purchase. (Rec.gov's whole system is based on Amazon's model: just throw that cheap piece of junk in your cart! Who cares if you don't even have the SKILLS to do the trip!) OTOH, the lottery system is hard (but not impossible) to game, so yes, lotteries are definitely a better way to go, and follow up lotteries should be required for cancelled permits. I've written to the FS several times and made that suggestion on multiple forums, and yet nothing ever changes. Finally, the reason I said that the GCNP lottery is head and shoulders better than rec.gov is for three reasons: 1). They really track WHO you are when you enter their lottery (unlike rec.gov, where it is not difficult at all to make multiple entries into the same lottery), 2) if a permit is cancelled, it is awarded through a follow-up lottery at no extra cost, provided you paid for the original lottery, and 3) they track who goes on a trip, and limit you to one trip per year. This final point doesn't pertain to how permits are handled by rec.gov, however it's a limitation created by the GCNP which gives the agency much better control over the whole permit system, IMO.

[altasnob]

[fairweather friend]

It's been standard practice for a long time that the transfer of a river permit from one person to the next is prohibited. I think the same is true for other wilderness permits (like the Enchantments), but I don't know about campground reservations. And, yeah, campground sites have become just as sought after as backcountry permits, so if transferring a permit is not strictly prohibited, lots of people are going to do it. And if it IS prohibited, there will still be people trying to game the system one way or the other, but you don't have to make it easy for them, as seems to be the current practice at rec.gov.

[fairweather friend]

Back to Cyclopath's original question about bots, I remember there was a software engineer who claimed he would nab you a cancelled river permit for a fee back in 2014 or 2015. He got blowback immediately after he advertised his services and took the site down, but it did exist. Nothing changed in the way rec.gov released cancelled permits, however, so I assume the practice continues underground. But here's the funny thing: even if bots didn't exist, the very idea of releasing permits randomly (and having sorry saps continuously scrolling through rec.gov to find them) is obscenely inefficient and stupid. I used to boat with a Skagit County cop who spent many, many hours during his night shift scrolling through rec.gov in the hunt for a permit. And I'm not trying to pick on cops because I know quite a few desk jockeys (ahem) who have done the same thing while they were on the clock. The bottom line is this: releasing cancelled permits "randomly" is inherently inefficient, favors people with tech skills and fast internet connections (i.e., not rural folks), and is easily corrupted by people trying to game the system. Why the hell are we still using this failed system when holding follow up lotteries is so quick and easy?

[zimmertr]

What if we just scrapped the online system for backcountry areas and made people call ranger stations on the phone and request areas by name? I think eliminating the buffet of an indexed list of sites would go a long way for making permit spammers lose weight.

[altasnob]

[Stefan]

I have always thought the price for reservations is too cheap. I have thought that if you are to make a reservation, you pay at least $triple for the night....then when you show up, you get money back that was in excess of the "regular" rate. This would weed out those people from making "tepid" reservations, and mainly keep those that "have the desire" to make the reservation. Money has a way of motivating people.

[altasnob]

Except that camping at National Parks and recreation.gov reservable spots is already increasingly for the wealthy elite. Perusing any of these reservable campgrounds and I bet the average household income is well over six figures based on the vehicles driven and the fancy camping setups. Does Bill Gates (and his personal assistant who does his booking) care about having a few hundred bucks held in deposit for a few months? Lower income folks seem more likely to boondock and camp where no reservation or camping fee is needed. Not only do they want to avoid the fees, but some lack the computer skills necessary to game the system and get theses permits. No need to try to exasperate this disparity.

[Cyclopath]

[altasnob]

[Cyclopath]

[fairweather friend]

[altasnob]

Great suggestions fairweather friend. I agree on the lottery on cancelled permits. But is that only is necessary for the most sought after permits-River permits, Enchantments, primo campgrounds like Kalaloch? Is it worth the logistical headache to do the cancelled lottery for all permits on recreation.gov? There are some crummy, not so popular, campgrounds on recreation.gov as well. Maybe the logistics aren't as difficult as I imagine.