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Hacked Oyster Card System Crashes Again
Barence sends along PcPro coverage of the second crash of London's Oyster card billing system in two weeks. Transport for London was forced to open the gates and allow free travel for all. "There is currently a technical problem with Oyster readers at London Underground stations which is affecting Oyster pay as you go cards only," explains the TfL website. This follows the first crash two weeks ago, which left 65,000 Oyster cards permanently corrupted. Speculation is increasing that the crashes may be related to the hacking of the Oyster card system by Dutch researchers from Radboud University, though TfL denies any link. Plans to publish details of the hack were briefly halted when the makers of the chip used in the system sued the group, although a judge ruled earlier this week that the researchers could go ahead. During the court action, details briefly leaked on website Wikileaks.
According to The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jul/25/london.transport) it's because Transys, who the Oyster system is contracted out to, are sending incorrect data.
I'll admit, when I got to the underground station this morning to hear about an "Oyster card problem" which meant that all the gates were open, my first thought was that someone had used the exploit to do unpleasant things to their network, but I think it's just wishful thinking.
If it carries on like this, I might stop paying for a travelcard, since it seems every couple of weeks everyone gets to travel for free anyway ;)
...I'm not sure I can trust the news being provided in this case, but one thing is certain -- something smells fishy about this.
Can't you see, man? The Underground *wants* to be free!
details briefly leaked on website Wikileaks
What? "briefly" leaked? Does this mean Wikileaks removed those details? I thought that was against Wikileaks policy.
Sadly I'm on a travelcard, so I still got to pay for the privilege, but at least I didn't have to queue up behind any tourists trying to work out how to get their suitcase through the barriers for once.
... bullshit.
This morning when I was exiting from the destination tube station (the system crashed while I was traveling) there was both one guy shouting and announcements through the information system telling us not to "touch out your card" (meaning, don't have it read by the reader).
If there is no risk of the cards being corrupted, why where they giving us those instructions?
Guide for IT Managers When Deciding Blame.
1. Hackers did it! If hackers couldn't have done it...
2. Disgruntled employees did it! If disgruntled employees couldn't have done it...
3. It's the vendor's fault! If the vendor couldn't have done it...
4. It's our fault.
Now... Reverse the list and that's what really happened.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7516869.stm
Says in the last line
The Dutch group is one of three known to have cracked the Mifare Classic technology.
I haven't heard any other reports of other groups having confirmed to have cracked this system, so does anyone else know what the BBC are on about? But if they are right, then its pretty safe to say that people have been running about with cloned oyster cards for a while.
Unfortunately there don't seem to be any real details of how the copying is done, but I do wonder if the copying process is as simple as that if you can read a card you can clone it? If thats the case, if you need a new card (you will every 24 hours from what I've seen if you're using cloned cards), you just bump into someone on the way into a station with a reader about you person and clone theirs!
With there being two major fuck ups of the oyster system in 2 weeks, I am thinking that someone is really trying to make changes to the oyster system that it can't cope with...... and they would only try and really push the system if copying the cards is actually really easy, or they already have a problem with cloned cards that they're not talking about.
Car analogies break down.
between your card and our security.
Maybe somebody can convince Emma Clarke to provide us a nice cheeky voice-over for these sort of situations?
I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Some set the reader from "Oyster" to "Clam." No word yet on whether or not other vendors will attempt to mussel into the market.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
If the system is a bit broken (i.e. some people's cards wouldn't work in the gates) they tend to open all the gates in all the stations to avoid congestion (most people, if their card/ticket doesn't work, try again, then again, then turn round to move away and are faced with 1000 people wanting to go the other way. It slows things down a lot.).
It crashed because some schmuck needed a free ride on the subway and instead of using his psychic paper to get past the check point the idiot used his sonic screwdriver to bypass the system and crashed the servers. Don't blame the hackers, blame the police call box traveling schmuck who needed to be on the other side of London so he could save the world, again.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
During the court action, details briefly leaked on website Wikileaks.
Details don't just "briefly leak" on the Internet.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.