Pretty Neat eBay Watchlist Hack
Ryan posted this on his site yesterday. That is a really neat find. Although, I don’t think it is something people should do. Finding and discovering and getting a thrill from it is how I define hacking… I was raised that way, and truely believe that. Violating or causing misfortune to someone or something else is not hacking. Obviously today… you can get in trouble for both, and unfortunately hacking is looked at and considered harmful. It got coined as that and that was never the original objective.
Anyway… I don’t think using the eBay Watchlist hack is fair, and I think it causing misfortune to the other people that are trying to sell the same thing you are selling… using the hack, I would consider that cheating and not playing fair…
Honestly though… using the hack isn’t really going to give you all that much of an advantage. However, the advantage it not my beef, my issue is the character of the person that executes it to try to get the advantage. And someone who has this level of knowledge needs to respect that and not use it against ignorant people. Many people use eBay, people that don’t care about programming, computers, and stuff like that… a lot of people sell on eBay as a means to support their family. So, if you happen to use the hack, which just happens to give you a final impression on a prospective winning bidder, and the auction goes for the same price as the other auction provided by the mother out on her ass trying to survive with three kids… etc… But you sold your item! Yeah!! and she didn’t, because you cheated! Now her kids have to eat bread and beans for one more week. BTW, I will stop comments coming in saying “If the single mom is all that broke, then why does she have a computers and how does she have Internet access?” ANSWER: She stops by the public library everyday for an hour after work while waiting for the city bus to arrive.
So yeah… that was my initial thought about the eBay Watchlist hack… so needless to say, I will never use it, and I don’t support those that do… or if they have been using it, I will appreciate them for stopping. Who ever that discovered the hack, great job! I totally support that… however, it is something that should be reported to eBay… if they decide NOT to do anything about it… then the issue could easily be raised, if one felt compelled to do so…
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September 23rd, 2006 at 1:09 pm
I would think eBay knows about this because I found out about it a year ago. I don’t know how they could stop it seeing as it’s just an image calling the script unless there is a way within the script that detects that but I don’t know of any ways.
I still don’t believe that this gives anyone an advantage though, if anything its seen as an annoyance.
September 23rd, 2006 at 1:30 pm
I totally agree. No advantage at all… but I just think that the person that decides to use it feels that there is an advantage otherwise he wouldn’t waste the time doing it. If the seller believes he has an advantage by doing this, then I would also question how well I trust what he is offering. He is cheating… bottom line, and if the seller decides to do that, then I start to wonder what are some other things that he could do slightly shady… You know what I mean?
I don’t mean any offense… honestly. I am just one to play by the rules. However, I do enjoy unlocking little tricks like that… that is totally fun. I just don’t use these little tricks in life to try to gain an advance or advantage on someone else.
September 23rd, 2006 at 7:28 pm
I’ve been trying to determine what would qualify this as pretty neat?
It is a second level hack - a rather rudimentary one at that - it has been around in one form or another for longer than you realize.
Still - to call it a Pretty Neat eBay Watchlist Hack, then go on and negatively rant about it, makes no sense.
Plus, you’ve exposed more people to it - if there is a detrimental effect with it, you’ve now told more people about it. Those who might want to use it in a damaging manner wou’t be swayed by your pleas to the contrary. The rest weren’t given enough info to even know what the subject is about.