How DialIdol.com hijacked American Idol (and could do same for any other dial-in vote)
American Idol, the US reality-TV program that allows viewers to vote as often as they like for whomever they like best, was hijacked many moons ago by DialIdol.com, which provides software allowing you to wardial for your favourite, indefinitely. Well, this past season, it was responsible for a million votes, which held the balance of power. Not only this, it calls home (so to speak) with the patterns of busy signals, which it uses to calculate who’s ahead in the polls (more busy signals means more callers means more votes means more likely to win). It successfully picked the finalists and the pattern of the win. While it’s specific to American Idol, logically it could be marginally reprogrammed for any dial-in program. And then bet on it. [GT]
Anti-Data Mining? Welcome to the Omniscient Economy: Media Guy Knows Who’s Going to Win ‘Idol’, and You Can Too
