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Hong Kong's Octopus
Reuters is carrying an interesting story about Hong Kong's Octopus smart card system, which serves as a mass-transit fare card and is now being accepted by merchants for small purchases. A magazine cover story from last year goes more into depth. Interesting to note that the system started off anonymous, and is now being converted into a personally-trackable system.
Just because it has personally-trackable info doesn't mean that it's dangerous. Credit cards, for example, have your info attached through the credit card company. Has the world gone haywire yet?
I'd love to even see all of New York's transit integrated. Example: Last night a friend had to get a bus (which accepts the MTA metrocard) to a train (Long Island Rail Road, part of MTA but no metrocard) to a subway (6 line, definitely takes MTA Metrocard) to another train (Metro North, have to buy a ticket). I think we need to get all of our transit taken care of before branching out into other fields.
"I can't understand why people are frightened by new ideas. I'm frightened of old ones."
And another way to take away something that is actually worth something and replacing it with something plastic.
...
... since that perty paper money was worth so much more
*DrugCheese rants*
No retailer signed on because they liked the cash (there's more to it than that, of course, but the value of the system didn't outweigh the cost, in short).
Is such a system really necessary, though? And of all the things to link cash to, does mass transit fares make the most sense?
Certainly cash is overrated (unless you're a privacy nut and have nightmares about the serial numbers on your bills), but it doesn't seem like bringing everything down into one card that can be easily lost makes much sense.
I have been pwned because my
i work in transit consulting, and would be tickled to see even regional cooperation in fare collection. Of course, one of the big hurdles is that transit in the U.S. is generally all sorts of little authorities, transit districts, and other independent government instruments. ;)
one solution? EZPass-style collection, where the agencies divide up the dough after charges are incurred, according to whose facility (bridge, road, whatever) was used...
of course, for that to work, you have to tell them who you are and where you've been...
Anonymity is still an opt-out here. You can get a personalized card if you wish, but many users still use the plain-Jane Octopus card.
I really wish we had something like this here in the US. Say goodbye to pocket change...Businesses and the government don't realize how much long-term savings they could have if they abolished coin currency altogether, and yet our government rushes to put forth *new* coinage, on the thin hopes that they might get enough interest from collectors and whatnot.
Susan B. Anthony coins didn't work...you very rarely see half-dollars...and how many of you have seen Sacagawea dollars? I used a $25 roll I had a few months ago paying for a pizza delivery. Otherwise, they're useless.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
if the government already controlls the monetary system, why not do it digitaly.
If a system like this was in place in the United States, I think the WTC attacks would of been more easily preventable. These "smart card" systems that tracks purchases could be easily integrated into FBI or CIA systems, which would trip alarm bells when certain people buy certain products related to terrorism.
It would sure make me feel better when I take the elevator 50 floors up to work everyday.
Not at all amazing that this was posted by an Anonymous Coward. When that attitude leads you to become a victim of identity theft I expect your viewpoint will change drastically.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horror/Sci Fi writer Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
How appropriate, I am now in HK and I have an octopus card in my wallet!
It is a very well received device from what I experienced. It works really well in HK but I doubt that it will work as well in other countries/cities.
What makes HK unique is the high concentration of people in a "homogenous" society. Being a "special administration region" under China, efficency has a higher priority over privacy. I personally think that it is a wonderful system for HK, but not very well suited for North America.
Ha, ha, ha. How many five buck coffees do you think people are really going to buy?
If Sony makes the card, and the card is cash, is Sony a mint? Is anyone with a clever piece of plastic a mint? Banking Segfault, ahh! Can no longer distinguish between legal tender that are nothing more than tokens and prommisory notes, tokens for tokens, and digital promisory notes, tokens of tokens that simply change state instead of hands.
Now for something that has nothing to do with the price of tea in China or Octopussy, the famous Hong Kong Spy.
Condoms? Only sailors wear condoms, baby!
Not in the 90s, Austin.
Well, they ought to, the filthy beggers go from port to port.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
there is no thing
what else could you want?
Some people act as if they haven't heard of 'credit cards' before...
n/t
the arms of the octopus are turning into the tentacles of a giant squid
Dammit, you're doing fine fine work by reposting the crap out of this classic troll, but you're dropping the last line! Bugs the shit out of me. Pls fix thx.
I can't remember his name, but we had a sort-of computer ethicist come and talk to my software engineering class, and one of the examples he used was the Octopus. I guess his involvement with the project ended before this whole anonymity thing came up, but he was quite disturbed about the actual mecahnics of paying.
You walk up to the metal plate and wave your card in front of it. If it goes withon about a cm of the plate, it is automatically debited some set amount. The disturbing thing is that, unlike nearly every other transaction in the history of trade and commerce, you do not have an option to back out when you see how much it costs, nor do you get any permanent record of the transaction. You could walk past the scanner and have your card debited a few times while it's in your pocket, and you'd never know.
It was a very interesting talk, raising issues that I'd never thought about before, but I think are extremely important to consider.
I don't know what to think about those kinds of cards. In the Netherlands we have ATM cards that have little chips on them that you can charge and then use to make small payments. We have paper tickets called ``strippenkaarten'' that have a number of units on them. These can be used for most kinds of public transportation, the notable exception being long-distance trains. Supposedly, these paper cards could be replaced entirely by the electronic ones, which are already used to pay at vending machines, phone booths, and various shops. Somehow, though, it seems that people want to hold some hard money in their hands, either in the form of cash or in the form of tickets. Perhaps eventually the chip cards will take over, but I don't see it happen in the near future.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Also, /. readers may be saddened to hear that in the past week DeeDee Ramone, of the Ramones died of an overdose in his apartment
Also, Davey Boy Smith, the beloved Bristish Bulldog of professional wrestling, was found dead. Steroid abuse may have played a role.
Lemme say this again.... The Octopus card is optional.... you can ride the Bus, Subway, Star ferry, subway to the customs for China by paying cash. No one forces you to get a Octopus card.
... if you change bus you pay again.
However saying that, I have one myself and would remark at its conviecne. When I went on vacation to HK and China a while ago, I stayed in H.K. for ~10 days and I even got one myself. No more
looking for correct change at bus stations or
subway depots. It is really convenient. And yes, you can buy one anonymously. When you go pick them up (pay HKD50 for deposit) you are given
the OPTION to personalize, but you don't have it.
For those in Canada/USA the buses operate somewhat differently, there is no 'transfers' or whatever they're called in H.K. For example in Toronto you only pay one fair for each one way trip and you get a transfer for when you change bus or subways. In Hong Kong you pay each time you get on a bus, train, subway
Whereas in most places the ticket prices for bus or subway is fixed (I know its like $2 in Toronto, Canada) its different in Hong Kong. The price for subways and buses depends on approximately how far you travel (by approximately I mean say they divide one bus route into 5 zones and set a certain price if you travel within one zone and different if you travel though one zone, two zone,etc)
The combination of the above two factors is probably why the Octopus system became popular. People got really annoyed carrying large amounts of change at all times (remember, buses don't give change). This is very different from the way most public transit (bus/subway) work in North American cities.
-- Note: These Comments are Generated by ME! Not You! ME!
Question: Why are you posting this? Really, why?
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The Signapore goverment has a system that has been cracked wide open. Its not a major problem because if you get caught, your in jail for decades and can never get a job. The result is most of the people who have the ability to casually hack the system aren't about to even try.
Once cool thing with these (and Mondex) is that if you lose the card, someone else keeps the cash. Anyone who has ever worked in a student ID office or drivers license department can tell you how offten people lose these things.
So far no one has built a smart card that has enough grunt to do real hard crypto in a reasonable about of time while making the chip so it can't be inspected in a way to find out its secrets. We have a long way to go before someone comes up with a contactless card that can do a transaction faster than two people who are good at handling cash.
The government can track our spending habits through credit card purchases, our interests through our web-site trails, and our movements with this new card. They spy on our houses with their spy satelites, bug our phones in the name of National Security. However, even worse, salesmen can use this information to bring us the latest in crap we don't need but might buy anyway. It's time every car in it had an 'electronic leash', or a chip so we can never get lost...or so they can never lose us.
So is Canada the only country with a system like Interac? Who needs a smart card when you have a bank card.
What is interesting is that it is so wide spread throughout Hong Kong and rapidly growing in Asia. Areas where mass transportation due to overcrowding provide the perfect opportunity. Keep in mind, however, that while your money is sitting on that pre-paid card, its not accruing interest in your bank account.
I have one in my wallet at the moment. One of the best things about it, is that I can charge it up with HKD1000 or so, and then just leave it in my wallet. Then, whenever I am in HK (once a month or more) I can just get on and off the subway, buy lunches and newspapers and more, without the hassle of carrying currency every single trip, no making change, no collecting coins, etc. It's wonderful.
And let me stress again, it's completely anonymous. You buy the cards with cash; you refill them with cash.
That's not to say that some future system will have "opt in for a special deal" features, which you can accept/reject just like you accept/reject loyalty cards. In fact, having some sort of personalisation may enable you to make a phone call to cancel your card should it be stolen. And that would be a good thing.
I can't help but think much of the knee-jerk negativity in here is simple jealousy. Octopus is a fantastically popular, totally secure, wonderfully convenient system. Perhaps some posters secretly wish that their local governments had the balls to introduce something as clever.
Also, it's OLD NEWS. The system has been running for ages.
I like how it "started out anonymous" (read: Hong Kong was part of the UK) and now is becoming "personally trackable" (Hong Kong is now part of the PRC).
The same thing happened when Hawaii became a state.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
For years now highway fares are being paid with a smartcard that's put on the interior of the car; the subway is payed with a smartcard. The fuel can also be paid with a smartcard.
What's interesting is that some years ago they deployed hundreds of small terminals that could read a smartcard (called in a loose translation 'electronic wallet') nation-wide anywhere where payments were to be made; transportations, stores, malls, even taxis carried the small terminal. One would transfer money from the main account to that card and that was it, the card had no apparent identification mechanism (to the point were loosing the smartcard was the same as loosing a wallet). It was pretty neat, but never really caught up. Inertia, people's confusion about the device and the fact that ppl are so used to having money or paying everything with a card...
Which brings me to a question: just about everything is payed with a bank card (VISA Electron, put in, confirm value, insert PIN, done). Every example above can also be payed with this card (except taxis) and the terminals are prepared in many cases to be self operated e.g. gas stations, public transportations, etc). Doesn't that count as 'moneyless society
In a way we are more and more dependent on plastic ; I suppose that the thing that's interesting about this Octopus thing is that it putis it all together, the 'scanning' capability used in highways, the portability of a 'electronic wallet' and the availabilty of VISA Electron.
Just my 2 euro cents,
fsmunoz
Another important advantage of the Octopus card is the speed in which the entry and exit checkpoints can read the cards. Before the Octopus, Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway used magnetic cards similar to Washington D.C.'s metro. After inserting the magnetic card into the turnstile checkpoint, it takes less than a second for the computer to process and return the card and unlock the turnstile.
With the Octopus card, you don't even need to take your card from your wallet or purse, you simply swipe your wallet/purse over a square area at the checkpoint, and it actually saves time!
While it may seem like a small savings of time, the MTR carries on average of 2.3 million passengers per day, which is remarkable since (a) it is a highly congested system, and (b) the population of Hong Kong is a little over 7 million.
It should be noted that the MTR still uses magnetic cards for single-trip fares; assuming you've paid the correct fare the exit checkpoint will keep the card and let you out -- very environmentally friendly indeed.
I'm not entirely up to date as to the security or privacy issues since I only visited recently, but here is why a lot of people choose to use it: it is fast. In fact, if you have no other cards with magnetic stripes on them, you can just stick your purse/backpack/wallet close to the reader and it will take your money. It is that fast.
Of course, if privacy or security is a concern one can always opt for cash which works just as well.
--------
It's OK to be social, just don't tell anyone about it.
While this post was the first, it doesn't really appear to be a first post attempt, so it's not a troll. It's also not necessarily flamebait either, he's just stating his opinion. It's not offtopic. He's the first one to say it, so it's not flamebait.
Is it mandatory now that all first posts are -1 or something? waste your mod points on comments like this one.
Here in Tokyo, Japan Railways East introduced a contactless smart card called "Suica" last year. It's particularly convenient because one card can serve as both a stored value card and a commuter pass. When part of my trip uses the line for which I have a commuter pass, I swipe the card at the end of the journey and it deducts for only that portion of the journey that was not using my commuter line.
Unfortunately, this card, though good on JR, can't be used on the subways or private railways. But I hear that this may be coming.
The biggest cellphone provider here, Docomo, is set to introduce a contactless smart card chip in its new mobile phones later this year, which should be particularly interesting.
cjs
The world's most portable OS: http://www.netbsd.org.
It pisses me off to see crap like this on the front page when I've had all my timely, relevant writeups rejected every single time I've submitted a story. F*#& you, stupid editors.
Here in Oz we did away with 1 and 2 cent pieces years ago. (Can't say that I miss them though I do have about 1 kg collection). But we still have prices set to the nearest cent (ie $9.99). What we do is add all the amounts up and then round to the nearest 5 cents (of which we still have a coin) Sometimes you win, sometimes store wins .. big deal . I think it all evens out in the end.
.. it is something for you guys to consider .. how do you want prices to be set when you can't pay pennies as cash ???
A few years ago I was visiting the Denver mint, where I think the majority of US coins are made. I suggested to the tour guide that the US pennies are pretty lame and how we got rid of the equivelant. He then went into this big litany of how what we do must be cheating the people out of all that money, especially when it came to paying your taxes, and how you need the pennies to ensure that teh government was honest. Personally I think he was a nutter.
Anyway
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
either. What a stupid thing to say.
Be sure and pick up one of these. They have a great tourist deal that has a 3-day unlimited use of the subway and a return trip on the airport express. If you do this, be sure and check your bags in at the downtown station. They will be checked through all the way to the plane.
Neato! I just love seeing oppressive commu-capitalist oligarchies improve their efficiency through technology!
I mean, why bother? You might strain your back and be out $50 a co-pay visit to the chiropractor.
A cashless society could have happened here (New Zealand), I guess, if it weren't for one thing: Bank fees.
Almost everyone these days has an EFTPOS card (Electronic Funds Transfer at Point Of Sale). I guess you might call it a debit card --- it is like a credit card, but with no credit. You can only spend money you have in your account.
And virtually every shop can take EFTPOS, from dairies to retail to second hand bookshops to cinemas...
The only problem is the banks. Typically, they allow a small minimum number of free transactions per month, and beyond that, you start paying fees per transaction. So unless you really want to donate money to your friendly (foreign-owned) bank, you use cash for small transactions...
Maybe we need someone to start something like Octopus here. If everyone suddenly stopped using EFTPOS, the banks might finally get a clue...
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
It's true that the normal Octopus Card doesn't identify the holder as such, but the card itself has an identifying number blind-stamped on the front as well as an identifying code in the chip, which also retains the details of the last trip made. The identifying code and travel information are recorded each time the card is used; if the chip gets damaged, this information is used to reconstruct the value of the card.
o ct _2.htm
t s0 2b.html
That the card doesn't identify a traveller by name doesn't mean there isn't a privacy concern; since most people use just one Octopus Card and keep adding value to it from time to time the record of that card's use is also the record of that user's travels. I haven't heard of police taking down the details of a suspect's Octopus Card for investigation, but it's certainly a possibility.
Though Octopus has the form of a private venture, it is wholly-owned by the SAR's transport operators and indirectly controlled by the HK Government, which holds a 66 percent indirect interest in the venture. The MTR, which operates the HK subway, holds a controlling interest of 57.4 percent in Octopus and the heavy and light rail operator KRC holds 22.1 percen in it. While the bus and ferry system operators are private operations, both the MTR and the KRC are government-controlled. Government-backing and acceptance of the card by the practically all public transport operators has almost guaranteed its success. (In his interview with Reuters, Eric Tai of Octopus disingenously down-plays the HK Government's role in transport. The MTR was 100 percent government-owned at the time Octopus was established and, after a partial privatisation, remains 77 percent government-owned; the KCR is still 100 percent government-owned.) An alternative cash card for shopping alone, the Mondex Card, sponsored by HSBC, the SAR's biggest bank, failed big.
Technical details about the Octopus Card are at these links:
http://www.octopuscards.com/octopus_eng/e_what_
http://www.sony.co.jp/en/Products/felica/conten
Somewhere along the line in this system, someone is sitting back in the dark and collecting software fees on every transaction? Who is this company does anyone know? It isn't listed in either of the articles.
the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. The banks merely issue banknotes.
The correct links are here and here.
Although it is highly effective in HK, this system won't work in the US. It has nothing to do with privacy issues, because we already have grocery "discount" cards that give away our buying habits. Most of what people buy with the Octopus card is trivial -- it's the "who cares?" stuff like subway tickets or Starbucks. A conventional credit card has all the same privacy issues anyway, and we use those all the time, right?
Any attempt at deployment in the US will fail because of
Notice that the HK system is limited to small transactions. If there was real money involved, you can rest assured the "smart" cards would be hacked by "smarter" hackers. Keeping the value of each card "under the radar" is essential to prevent theft and serious, well-financed hacking operations. Everybody knows how secure those DirecTV cards are!
Off-topic, but I don't care: Mass transit is another thing they do really well in HK. You can travel all over the place for peanuts, almost 24 x 7. The US could learn a few lessons from HK on how to make mass transit work. After all, it was the mass transit infrastructure that made the Octopus card viable in the first place.
You can sign up for the "link with credit card" option. That means if the stored value on your Octopus card goes negative, a sum of HK$250 is automatically deposited into your Octopus card. You receive the charge on your credit card bill.
Octopus collects every transaction you do with your Octopus card. Big deal! Unless you enable the personalization option or link the card with your credit card, you can remain anonymous. And look, no coins!
Couple of things -- (1) Stephen King died exactly this way back in November. (2) Stephen King lives alternately in Fla (his home) and sometimes vacations in Britain, from what I've heard (3) No news of this on any of the Stephen King websites (4) I'm sure that any fans of his Dark Tower series *already* miss him (Hey, publishers, would you hurry up with "Wolves of ...." already?]
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
here in Melbourne (Australia) we have introduced magstripe ticket for Public transport (ie one card for any bus, tram or train) - they (the company running it "one-link") had planned on introducting rechargable contactless smartcards to be used in addition to the magstripes, but that plan has been shelved because of management incompetency, even though the readers are already installed...
also - we have "e-tags" which are small little boxes that you put in your car to travel on the tollways in town without having to wait at any tollgates - its all electronic, billing is done by accounts or by creditcard pre payment, inspite of what some people winge about the system, it works very well.
Granted, this isn't necessarily a huge invasion of privacy, much like buying things with credit cards isn't necessarily a huge invasion of privacy. But as I live in what's commonly regarded as one of the most dangerous parts of the Tokyo metro area, I'm not at all thrilled about the possibility of thieves finding out exactly what time I get on and off the train each day.
As a side note, Suica is anonymous (I think) when you use it as a plain charge card; but there are already magnetic charge cards which do the same thing (plus give you a printout on the card of each transaction), and I really can't convince myself that saving the extra 0.7 seconds or so I'd gain by using the IC card is worth it.
Most of you are missing the point. I'm from HK and have used this card on a daily basis for years.
Yes, you do have the choice of a plain Jane card or a card that can be linked to you (they even came out with a watch version a while back so you wave your watch in front of the sensor!) but the plain Jane card is not as anonymous as it seems.
When you recharge the card, you put the card in this machine and then either add cash or a bank card. All it needs is for you to be low on cash just once and use your bank card, and there you go, it's linked to you despite being an "anonymous card".
The tracking capabilities of this card is truly frightening. Anyone working for the subway or anything can pull up your travel history with the card, e.g.,
08/08/2001
11:07 - 11:16 X station - Y station
11:18 - 11:32 A station - B station (line change?)
14:32 - 14:46 B station - Y station
14:50 - 15:01 Y station - X station
Now, add to this bus rides, mini-bus rides, tram rides and you can track a person perfectly. And most people use these cards, even for five buck coffees!
So, now the data is completely collated: your petty purchasing habits (as it's a bit of a pain to refill it constantly and there's an upper limit so it's unlikely someone will spend more than say US$20 in one go with it - for the time being) and your movements are tracked perfectly. Forget CCTV's, there should be more of an uproar over accountability with regard to these types of cards.
Of course, I'll still keep using mine. I love the Octopus card; their convenience cannot be overempasised. But I'll have to try to resist the temptation to recharge, even just once, with my bank card. Call me paranoid...
On a side note, when they first starting promoting it, they had a big sign by the bus stop saying something like "Ride the buses with the new Octopus card" but as the letters were cut out stickers stuck onto the road-level billboard, someone switch around the letters so it read "Ride the pussy" for a good couple of weeks before anyone noticed. A catchier slogan I'm sure than whatever they came up with! (Yes, I realise that the anagram doesn't quite work with the original phrase but it was a while back...)
this is certainly an issue worthy of debate, but as i am a hong kong resident myself, the article is somewhat misleading
when purchasing, yes, "purchasing" an octopus card, you are required to present no identification whatsoever, unless you wish to purchase a student octopus card, in which case you must produce a valid hong kong student card, no details of which are recorded.
you do have the option, however, to purchase an octopus card with a photograph of yourself on the back. these are more expensive, and i personally see no benefits of this other than the feel-good factor, and possibly to circumvent theft of octopus cards, which is becoming a growing problem, particularly amoungst students.
octopus cards are now very widely accepted in hong kong. everybody is expected to have one, and although it is not required in any circumstances, just about everybody has one. you can use your octopus for slightly discounted MTR (hong kong's widely used subway system) fares, its original intended purpose, and today to pay fares on just about all buses, ferries, as well as today a large number of 7-11s and McDonald's restaurants. using the octopus card is just a matter of placing it over a sensor, and refilling it is just a matter of handing your card and a couple of hundred bucks to a 7-11 storeclerk.
however, every purchase is recorded on a hong kong central network, and any MTR customer service staff, 7-11 store clerk, and McDonald's trainee can view your entire spending history by simply placing your card on the reader and hitting a diagnostics button--and it is not uncommon for them to do so.
Here's hoping this 'Octopus' is not another one of those abysmal Philips implementations. On my way...
In Hong Kong, there is no central bank that issues coins and bills, but 4 (at least I think its four, havent been in HKG since last year) different banks issue the same bills, each with a different building (the bank building, of course) in the back.
Its a hoot! It Corporate Money, like in cyberpunk novels!
No sig for the moment.
And this is new(sworthy) how? In Tampere, Finland (and also in Turku, I think, but not in Helsinki for some reason) we have had a card to pay for local busses for a long time now. Everyone uses it, very convenient. The fare is 2 with cash, but something like 1.2 with the card, less for students. You load the card with money in one of several offices/stations around the city.
;)
It can also be used in swimming halls etc.
I think you have to give your name when you get one, but I doubt they check it - except for students or other people who get a discount.
There is no danger of you being accidentally charged, you have to place the card *between* two plates (at an incline) in the reader, and I fail to see what's so very disturbing about not getting a receipt or not being able to cancel (although that may actually be possible, I don't know), as some other poster said someone else had said.
Will we be seeing an article about exciting, exotic short text messaging next?
Backpacking through Hong-Kong the Octopus Card was a godsend. Admittedly I haven't given much thought to the ethical aspects of using it - what impressed me was the smoothness and elegance that was apparent in all aspects of using it: getting a hold of one, actually using it, putting more money on it and getting your deposit back when finished using it.
Whenever you'd spot other backpackers manically trying to figure out the price of a busfare not the least scrape the exact amount together I thought warm thoughts about the Octopus card.
Needless to say that the efficiency in use rubs off on the flow of the general public transportation system; I've never experienced public transportation this hassle-free and smooth. I wish we had this thought of thing where I live.
Praise the Octopus I say.
naah sig schmig
Wait, we've got a transit/rail company that intentionally naming something Octopus? That would never fly in California.
(For those who never had the pleasure of taking California state history, there was a period in the late 19th century when the railroad monopoly controlled much of the state. Frank Norris wrote a scathing novel about the railroads' misdeeds titled... The Octopus.)
Of course there's a linkage between Octopus and the HK Government. The HK Government controls the MTR and the MTR controls Octopus -- see my post above for the numbers. Yes, the HK Government tends to keeps its hands off the day-to-day operations of its proprietary enterprises (too far off, many would say -- think of Siemens and the KCRC) but the link is undeniably there.
When I was working on this project, three years ago, there were two types of cards available. The first was completely anonymous, the card could be tracked, but it could not be linked to anyone. It was sold over the counter, without identification, and had way of associating itself with it's user.
The second type of card was personalised. This card could also be linked to your savings account, and when your travel card got low on funds could automatically top itself up. You had to request this specifically! Lots of people did, because it is incredibly convenient, since you never have to buy a ticket ever again. And, since the cards are contactless you never even needed to take it out of your wallet/purse.
So, unless they have changed the system quite dramatically in the last three years, then there is no difference, and it has not been "converted", and you can still be anonymous if you wish.
A similar system is being deployed to various cities around the world - rome, singapore, sydney, seattle, san francisco...
Check out http://www.erg.com.au/ - ERG designed and built the Octopus system.
Yes, and if you were in Germany you could have a Geldkarte ("Moneycard", an electronic purse which will hold up to EUR 200 (about USD 200)), and you could use that for public transit, parking garages, restaurants, buying merchandise, in short, nearly everywhere where you had to use cash and small change before. Geldkarte has been very well adopted in Germany and it's been there for _years_, and there are equivalent systems out there like the Dutch Chipper system, and I can't remember the name of the french one. Just plug it into an ATM machine and load it up again.
Electronic purses are nothing new under the sun.
Right. They make some of the Geldkarte cards and if all you need is just any old electronic purse, they've got that functionality on many of their cards even on the GPK digital signature cards!
:-)
Looks like slashdot finally discovered electronic purse applications. What's next?
They are both based on the same principle. It's good to see some people are moving forward with cooperation and freaking out about privacy or theft.
the thing Octopus piss me off is that it charges HK$50 prepayment. There's no way we could get back that prepayment as long as you are using their service, and when you lost the card you've to pay that HK$50 again. That's why regardless of the fact that we have only 6mil-7mil residents, they've sold 8mils Octopus. Good deal(for them).
Octopus has become a society problems here. Kids are allowed to use the Octopus to pay goods and services in many areas like department store and internet Cafe, etc. People are concerned that while the payment is untrackable, their parents cannot tell where their kids spent their money.
Location-based tracking system is a rather profitable business here because GPS generally fails to work in a city with a lot of high-rising buildings due to blocking and reflection. People are now developing location-based tracking with GPS sims and it works great. I don't think Octopus is better than GSM sims in this case as in normal case a GSM sims is synchronized with 6 GSM location based stations(NNM system) and the result is close to 25M radius.
and it can be used to track you if they got your information linked to this unique ID. Just like the unique ID inside Pentium III.
:)
However, it's difficult to link one's personal information to this smart card because we are not required to submit our personal information when buying an Octopus card. Therefore I'll not trade my privacy to a lousy company like Cafe da Carol who sell lousy food just because I want eat some fast food real fast.
Well, what you're talking about is pretty much how it is done in many German cities. I live in Hannover, where the system is very straightforward. You buy a ticket which covers all transit types (street tram, subway, bus, regional train) and it simply has a time limit -- usually 90 minutes, but you can also get day passes, monthly passes and so on. The price is then based on the number of zones, but the "zones" are so huge that you can almost always get away with buying a simple one-zone ticket (the "zones" are concentric rings around downtown Hannover, and the central zone covers basically the entire city and inner suburbs). For one zone, you pay €1.70 (about US$1.60) and you can travel all you want for 90 minutes in the central zone -- no transfers needed.
(Hannover is of course the home of the CeBIT computer fair, if you're wondering. For CeBIT visitors it's even easier -- the fare is included in the price of the CeBIT ticket.)
The way the ticket itself works is simple, too. It just shows where you bought the ticket, in what zone, and when. When the ÜSTRA employees check your ticket, all they have to do is look at the zone and time, and they know if you've paid correctly.
You can also pay for your tickets with your GeldKarte (cashcard), which is a smart card used for paying small amounts -- you book money onto it at any cash machine, and it literally carries your money (up to €100, if I remember right) without having your bank account info stored on it. (The "cash" has a unique digital watermark with the data used to verify if the cash is real -- which of course opens up all kinds of possibilities for tracking its use...)
Not all German cities have this worked out, though. Hamburg, for example, also has a centralized system, but the "system" is total chaos because of their rather bizarre zones. Like in Hannover, you pay for a set amount of time and number of zones, but in Hamburg the zones are miniscule. When I lived there, if I took the public transport from my flat to work, there were three different ways of getting there, all involving one transfer and all travelling the same distance and taking about the same amount of time -- yet each cost a wildly different amount. Of course, once I got a monthly pass it wasn't so bad, but I was still restricted to one part of the city with that passcard.
One thing about Hamburg's system that is relevant to what you said is that Hamburg also has a number of private companies running its transit system (Deutsche Bahn runs the S-Bahn, Hamburger Hochbahn and several others do the U-Bahn and several companies run the bus system), but you still have one fare system and one ticketing system. Same goes for Berlin. (Hannover just has one state-sponsored company, the ÜSTRA, that does everything.)
Berlin's system is similar to Hamburg's as well. Again you pay for one ticket regardless of what transit type you use (and no trasnfers needed), but at the departure stop, you have to look at a *huge* table of destinations to find the fare you need to pay (if you're leaving from Kurfürstendamm and travelling to Alexanderplatz, it costs so-and-so much). But the system works and doesn't need any high-tech at all, which has its advantages as well.
Anyway, I'll stop rambling for now...
Cheers,
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
I mean, I know that (e.g.) VISA charge vendors a flat 35 cents plus ~2.5% of the transaction, which makes them all but useless for small payments. However, I was wondering how much of this actually goes to VISA and how much to the intermediate issuer.
I'm thinking of a travel credit card issued by a consortium of bus, train, subway, even air companies, that doesn't bill participating companies the handling charge when its used to pay for fares. That gives you a card that you can use for other purchases, and which gets you on a bus with one swipe. The level of fraud would be so small as to not make it worth while sweating about validating the transactions (although you could download lists of cancelled or bad cards to the readers) and any money you do lose through fraud, you get back through not handling cash.
Failing that, is there room for a new card on the market? Transport is a big industry with a lot of customers; they should be able to leverage that to get vendors to accept a new TravelCard.
There's plenty of incentive for both sides. For vendors, it's no worse than standard credit cards (and it could be sweetened). For the travel businesses, it does away with a lot of cash handling, plus it gives them extra income from those fat 2.5% + 35 cents fees (or whatever they'd charge) when you use it to make purchases.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Capitalism in action (a secondary market) :-). However the train companies obviously don't like this.
The cards themselves are machine (magnetic strip) and human readable and work seamlessly on trains, underground, trams, busses and apparently some boats (river busses).
Obviously the authorities in HK want to use a technological means to solve a social problem (dishonesty) (which is what all tickets are in the first place).
Same as Scotland.The banks there (Bank of Scotland, Clydesdale Bank and The Royal Bank) all issue their own notes - which are (supposedly) accepted in England also.
Digital television? :-)
The Bay Area has implemented the same smart card system, which will go into production fairly soon. You can see the readers and add value machines around already - for example at the SF Caltrain Station.
I've used it in Hong Kong, it's a wonderful system . It will be a great thing for the Bay Area. There is no personalization attached to it here that I know of..
I've met a guy who was ticketed in a state that had extensive toll roads in this very fashion. He paid the toll at gate X and again at gate Y. For some reason they kept track of the license plates and he got fined for speeding due to the difference in time between the two gates.
I've never driven a toll booth that logged anything about me, it's usually just chuck the change and go.
This same guy though also claimed to have been pulled over for speeding @ 2:30 AM in WI. The fine was $105 and had to paid on the spot in cash. He handed the cop two $100s and the cop claimed he had no change. The guy said fine, let's go to the station and get some. The cop said it was 75 miles in the wrong direction, the guy said well, what about my change? The cop scrapped the ticket and told the guy to quit driving so fast.
I've been using the Ictopus and watching it's development for a while now (well, whenever I'm in HK) and find it a great system. Being able to get on trains, busses, ferries etc without having to fiddle about with small change is great. You can even get watches with Octopus functionality built-in (handy for kids).
With 7-11's accepting them for small purchases, kids can again use their bus-fares for buying beer and fags!
Where do you get the notion that "Unless a holder chooses a personalized card, his or her identity is unknown" means a previously anonymized system is being converted to a personally trackable system? You are invoking a well known logical fallacy by assuming that because an unknown representative sample has chosen to allow tracking, that somehow the system as a whole has no anonymity? I didn't see you link to anything that gave me numbers which suggest that anonymity is being lost in great amounts. Therefore, I'd have to conclude that you are spreading FUD.
And I must say that the octopus card (while not new) is extremely useful. The most useful feature being you don't have to take it out to use it. you can swipe whatever is holding the card. It will go through a think wallet or purse.
When I got back to the states (Chicago, NYC) it shows you how far behind we are in items like these. The MTR in HK is 100 times cleaner and more sophisticated than the subways in these large cities. The HK mtr is much smaller, but just as old.
I wish the MTA in NYC would create something like the octopus card, but it is highly unlikely anytime soon.
I spent two weeks travelling around HK in easter and I've got to say that octopus is the best payment system I've ever used. No change to worry about and *very* quick and easy to use. People just whizz through the turnstiles at the stations as the vast majority of people use octopus and just wave their wallet/purse/bag/whatever over the reader and go on their way.
As for the concerns various people have had...
Privacy: Most people seemed to buy them pretty anonomously with cash, I didn't even know there was an option to 'personalise' them and it's certainly more anonomous than the bus card I use in the UK with my photo and a load of ID numbers on it.
Loosing them: Less likely than with cash, because you don't have to actually take the card out of your wallet, and like cash, you don't keep too much credit on your card in case you loose the whole lot.
Theft/cracking: Possible, but unlikely if the system is well set up. The technology of course could probably be relatively easy to crack, but that's not the same as cracking the whole sytem. Plus it would be quite a lot of work and high risk (would have to be done in busy public places) for relatively small change.
There were also plenty of other benefits like retailers not having to bother keeping loads of small change on them. I managed to use it to buy a newspaper from a newstand, a drink from a vending machine and probably plenty of other places I don't remember. I ended up being frustrated by anywhere that inisisted on accepting those old fashioned metal tokens that most of use are so accustomed to using.
Anyway, my point I suppose is that I never want to *have* to use cash again, for big transactions credit/debit cards are fine, for the smaller ones BRING ON THE OCTOPUS!!!
Can we say oppression? Oh, wait this is China, it's the national motto.
E-Z Pass is now accepted at my local McDonalds...I really don't have much problem with the system as it currently stands, because it's optional. The day we have mandatory E-Z Passes is a sad sad day.
Most banks in the US issue debit cards linked directly to a checking account and activated with a swipe and a signature. They aren't accepted as widely as credit cards, however, so most banks have started issuing cards that can also be used on a major credit card network--the merchant can process the transaction as with a traditional credit card, but the funds are deducted directly from the customer's checking account.
Your comments about fraud are puzzling, however. One might infer from your post that EFTPOS requires physically swiping the card--if so, this would seem to make telephone and to a lesser extent Internet transactions problematic, and the system would not be able to replace American credit cards; if not, you have not explained how the EFTPOS system is any more resistant to fraud.
I'm sure if the same system can work anywhere else in the world. People in Hong Kong tend to put efficiency over anything else. Even large transaction are often done with cash.
The Octopus card is a great little tool and very convenient for tourists. Except for taxi cabs, I was able to use my card on bus, trains, MTR(subway), boats, tram (upto the Victoria peak), minibus, etc... Being able to use it at 7-11 and fast-food joints is a bonus.
I actually thought it was pretty cool. I walked by a vending machine and did a Jedi butt wave (back pocket had my wallet where the card has contained) and got a Coke out of the machine.
It's one of those neat memory of my trip to Hong Kong... That and all the gadgets on Apliu Street, Shum Shui Po, and Mokng Kok.
I've been back from HK for about a month and a half, and I've still got my Octopus in my wallet, ready for next time. But I don't believe, even if 100% of the population are using Octopus, that HK will *ever* abandon cash. I can't see a triad boss being content to swipe his Octopus to pay for drinks, instead of pulling out a huge wad of cash. It just ain't the same...