This was a single person gaming the system as a hobby with no reward. How well do you think you can trust this system when in reality there are restaurants with a real financial incentive and the ability to invest?

This has been pointed out elsewhere, but most security is based on the principle of rational actors.

To defend against amateurs, hobbyists, and insane people working without an understandable motivation is often MORE difficult, not less.

For me it was interesting to see just how successful he was with relatively little effort. Holding the #1 spot for several days _seems_ like it ought to be a big accomplishment -- yet he was able to succeed without any major obstacles. This story pulled back the curtain a bit and showed just how quickly the system can break down.

I am not sure about how little the effort was he put in. Where did all the reviews came from? You don't get a #1 spot with 5 reviews...

True, but asking a bunch of your friends to write convincing reviews isn't particularly difficult.

I think the point is that if the system is based on trust, you can't necessarily trust the system.

Did you read the article?

Besides being part comedy sketch, it's also part sociological experiment and part performance art.

It wasn't about gaming a system for financial gain in the least.

So you're saying making Steve Jobs Chinese on Wikipedia is a decent analogy?

Only if you legitimately convince people that Steve Jobs is Chinese.

That should be pretty easy considering he was born in Shenzhen...

How could he have gotten these great deals producing ipods when Apple was really struggling, were he not speaking Chinese perfectly?

Please cite where financial gain was mentioned in the previous post.

That's wasn't the point in mentioning 'financial gain", I mentioned that as an example of gaming a system for a nefarious purposes.

I mentioned this simply as contrast, that although the system was indeed gamed, it was done so with humor and without harming anybody in the process.