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Oyster Card Hack To Be Released, In Good Time
DangerFace writes "A little while ago some Dutch researchers cracked the Oyster card, meaning they could get free public transport around London. The company that makes the cards, NXP, sought and got an injunction to stop the exploit being published, but that has now been overruled by a Dutch judge. The lovely Dutch blokes are holding off from releasing the hack for the time being, to give NXP time to secure their systems."
The People don't have a right to free public transportation in London? Somethin' oughtta be done!
Does anyone know if the accidental wiping of 1000's of Oyster Cards a couple of weeks ago was linked to this? Just curious...
I'm not surprised we Dutch are trying (and apparently succeeding) to hack public transportation systems facilities if you look at the current pricing of our own system.
I am assuming that you are implying that the Dutch transport system is expensive. Clearly you have never been to the UK. I live an hour away from London by train, if I were to shop around a little and pick the budget airline flights I could fly to Schipol from Gatwick/Heathrow, get the train to Amsterdam Central and a tram to my hotel for a cheaper price than my train journey from my house to the airport!! It really is *that* bad.
I have been to Amsterdam many times (not *just* for the usual tourist reasons, my grandmother was born there, so I visit family), and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that transport around Amsterdam is many time more efficient and cheaper than transport around London, and I would much rather deal with the bizarre conversations with strangers that have 'had a little schmoke' on late night Amsterdam trams than the strangers that are looking to mug me on the London underground.
Both of our countries are culturally rich, with a fascinating history, but yours seems far superior when it comes to the management of public services.
Not just that, very similar technology is used for the Dutch national public transport card that is under development (and currently piloted in Rotterdam). In a case of weird reciprocity, the Royal Holloway University of London wrote a report on the Dutch card system, initially recommending immediate replacement but later changing that to "recommend further investigation".
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I believe this would be the same university that previously forbade the researchers from talking to the press.
Anhyow, the lifting of this publication ban is an excellent thing. The Dutch government has spent a lot of money in this foolhardy public transport chip card system, and is not willing to admit that it's an expensive, deeply flawed trainwreck.
After the Nijmegen investigators came out with their findings, a contra-expertise report commissioned by the government and performed by Royal Holloway University in London, was selectively edited to remove its harsh conclusions before being sent to parliament. Then, the university cracked down on the freedom of the researchers to speak to the press.
I, as a Dutch citizen, am happy that this issue is getting some serious sunshine.
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/communications/0,39044192,62040565,00.htm
When they say 'none have been discovered' its not clear if that includes the Dutch hack. While Im sure there are probably ways around that too in the future and that saying this is partly to play down the impact of 'omg free travel!' I would imagine that an organisation like TFL with the resources they've got they probably can do such scans every evening or in transit. It's interesting regardless to see how this plays out...
jaymz
You don't have to do a database lookup every time they get on the bus. Just store in the bus that they got on, and then debit the amount from the account when the bus returns to the garage at the end of the day. You could even store the amount available on the card, but also have the numbers centrally, so you could run a job that checked for inconsistencies.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
That's how the Oyster system works!
Hold on now just a second. Are you saying the air down in the tube is better than the air above ground? I beg to differ!
I wouldn't like to compare them, but there was a study done which found that the claim that travelling on the London Underground was as bad as smoking a cigarette was false.
The mass of material inhaled on the underground was comparable to the mass inhaled by smoking a cigarette, but the dust on the tube was mostly iron/steel (from the rails and wheels) or grit (from the tunnels), and was in relatively big lumps that were mostly stopped by the hairs in the nose (as any Londoner knows). Compare that to the pollution above ground or from smoking: tiny particulates of toxic chemicals.
I'd rather sit in a park, but given the choice of sitting by a busy road or an underground railway, I'll take the railway.
(Anecdote: I lived in a flat between one of the main railway lines into London, and one fo the main roads. The windows on the railway side didn't need cleaning very often, even though some of the trains were diesel-powered. The dirt was gritty. On the road-side of the building the windows quickly became oily.)