The author obtains a legit free ticket from the organizers, which is pretty cool. I worked with conferences for a decade and as far as I can recall we never did this.
Back in the days, there was another way to access expensive conferences without a ticket. It probably still works in some locations. Basically, almost all hotels were equipped with camera/microphone in the lecture hall. This was broadcast on the hotel's TV system, so important people could do business from their room and keep up with the event.
These old systems had security in the TV itself; it was simply restricted from tuning in to certain channels (such as pay-tv), but the signals were broadcast everywhere. It's well known that you could get free pay-TV by bringing your own TV tuner. The same trick let you tune in to feeds from conference(s) hosted at the hotel - I know some famous talks from closed corporate events were recorded this way and distributed on the Internet underground... All you really needed was a room at the hotel.
Back in the days, there was another way to access expensive conferences without a ticket. It probably still works in some locations. Basically, almost all hotels were equipped with camera/microphone in the lecture hall. This was broadcast on the hotel's TV system, so important people could do business from their room and keep up with the event.
These old systems had security in the TV itself; it was simply restricted from tuning in to certain channels (such as pay-tv), but the signals were broadcast everywhere. It's well known that you could get free pay-TV by bringing your own TV tuner. The same trick let you tune in to feeds from conference(s) hosted at the hotel - I know some famous talks from closed corporate events were recorded this way and distributed on the Internet underground... All you really needed was a room at the hotel.