Cracking Atlanta Subway's Poorly-Encrypted RFID Smart Cards Is a Breeze, Part II

McGruber (1417641) writes In December 2013, Slashdot reported the arrest of seven metro Atlanta residents for allegedly selling counterfeit MARTA Breeze cards, stored-value smart cards that passengers use as part of an automated fare collection system on Atlanta's subway. Now, six months later (June 2014), the seven suspects have finally been indicted. According to the indictment, the co-conspirators purchased legitimate Breeze cards for $1, then fraudulently placed unlimited or monthly rides on the cards. They then sold the fraudulent cards to MARTA riders for a discounted cash price. Distributors of the fraudulent cards were stationed at several subway stations. The indictment claims that the ring called their organization the "Underground Railroad."

Comments

Re:The REAL value of the transit system

[Karmashock]

Ad hominem is not a counter argument.

As to things benefiting direct users, who gets to decide any of that? Maybe you haven't considered how buying me a yacht would have positive impacts on the local economy?

For one thing it would employ yacht builders. For another it would look really nice and improve property values.

Your silly justifications ignore that its all supposition. You have no empirical basis for anything you're saying. And even if your position did have merit, you have no means of quantifying any of it. For example, that yacht you're buying me would improve the local economy. But would it improve the local economy more then it would hurt government funds or cause other problems? Obviously not.

Which is why not only do you have to show that it actually does provide a benefit but that its benefits outweigh its costs. You have no means of doing that which means you're just guessing.

And your guesses and the government's guesses aren't worth anything more then anyone else's guesses. They're not even educated guesses... they're wild assed assumptions.

Now since you started with an ad hominem I can only assume you're going to double down with more pathetic attempts to win an argument by totally ignoring the argument and simply attacking the person making it... well do your worst. Its utterly intellectually reprehensible and there is no way you could more undermine your own credibility then basing your whole argument on what was known to be a logical fallacy thousands of years ago.

And while you're at it... if you attempt ad verecundiam it won't be any better.