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

Not counterfeit

[Anonymous Coward]

The cards were original, not counterfeit.

Re:Not counterfeit

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who talks in leet speak (or doge) needs to be kicked in the nuts.

Re:Not counterfeit

[NemoinSpace]

AND read the article??? Telling someone to STFU is standard fare. Let's not heap unreasonable demands on top. It just adds injury to insult.
The noob remark is just poor form.

Real story

[linebackn]

I think the real story here is that someone in Atlanta figured out how to use a computer. :P

The REAL value of the transit system

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Atlanta should try to learn from this situation.

They found the REAL value of the transit system. The price people were willing to purchase the "counterfeit" cards is much closer to what the general public is willing to pay for "legitimate" cards and they will probably have more riders at that price and as a result, more revenue. Adjust your costs to fit this selling price instead of running things the other way around.

They can probably even learn a thing or two about the ring's distribution system.

Re:The REAL value of the transit system

[Karmashock]

mass transit is already hugely subsidized...

The "price" of a good in a market is not merely what people want to pay for it. For example, how many people would buy a yacht for 100 dollars? Probably a lot more then buy one now at its current price of about 10 million to 100 million dollars depending on how big it is... but can you charge 100 dollars to sell yachets? No... you won't even break even on the costs.

And that is a major issue in mass transit. Most mass transit systems do NOT break even after collecting all the tickets and passes. Nearly all of them must subsidize their costs with taxes. And some of them even take money from federal and state programs because the systems are not actually affordable even using city taxes without adding money from the federal and state governments.

As such, saying "hey they should just lower prices" is not really rational.

To actually establish your idea here you'd first have to float the whole system on nothing but those passes and ticket revenue. ZERO subsidization. Then you could charge a market price for those tickets.

And if the ticket revenue fell below what it cost to build and maintain the system then it would shut down for lack of funding the same way companies do that can't get enough sales to pay for operations.

Re:The REAL value of the transit system

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course that viewpoint is really nothing more than over-simplified libertarian fantasy. A reasonably implemented subway doesn't just benefit the direct users, it does things like reduce air pollution and increase the utility of the real estate around it. That means that people who don't even use the subway benefit from it and so it is a public good. That's not a dig against libertarians, the smart ones understand public goods. Its only the recent converts who are overzealous in their simplified view of the world who have a problem figuring it out.

Re:The REAL value of the transit system

[PopeRatzo]

mass transit is already hugely subsidized...

As is automobile travel and air travel and train travel.

I don't know how much a bicycle is subsidized, but it probably is to a certain extent.

I would be that a lot more money comes out of the public coffers to subsidized automobile travel than mass transit.

Re:The REAL value of the transit system

[Bitbeard]

Hear, hear on the subsidization. In my county, for every dollar spent by a rider, the taxpayer pays two dollars. And it would be worse if we had rail. That's an absurd ratio. If you want to get somewhere, shouldn't you have to pay for it? Sure, public transit is good for the environment, less wear and tear on infrastructure, relieves traffic, etc, but paying TWICE what the rider pays?? No.

You'd see more public support for mass transit if the subsidization rate was under 50%.

Re:The REAL value of the transit system

[radarskiy]

"shouldn't you have to pay for it?"

Should the mobility of labor be comparable to the mobility of capital for a rational market to form?

Re:The REAL value of the transit system

[BasilBrush]

We are always told how efficient cities are as compared to other forms of living but the cities are the only places that actually seem to need high levels of subsidization.

Typically the reverse is true. Rural areas need more subsidy per capita than cities.

Cut the subsidy money off and a lot of people that live in cities won't be able to live there anymore.
They'll have to move to cheaper areas.

Clearly you haven't considered all the poverty in cities in countries where there is little public subsidy of anything. You never heard of favelas and shanty towns? These are often people that had to move to the city because despite the poor conditions and poor pay there, in the countryside where they came from they would starve.

Re:The REAL value of the transit system

[Karmashock]

No it has nothing to do with that.

Phones make money by collecting a subscription fee that pays off the cost of the phone over the term of the contract.

Printers make money by charging extra for ink which pay off the cost of the printer of the life of the printer.

Buses collect no such other fees from customers. Rather, they collect the difference from the general tax funds or by in my opinion robbing national and state road funds.

The sorry state of many of our bridges is a direct result of cities draining road funds that are paid for by car drivers through gas taxes. Exactly why should my gas taxes go to pay for a bus? The city buses don't even pay the gas tax. They pay no taxes. They pay for nothing. Not their gas. Not their buses. Not the bus drivers. Its nearly all subsidies and that money often comes from over stressed general funds that are forced to underfund more critical services because of the misappropriation of funds. Or the money comes from specialized funds that only exist to fund things like roads and bridges... but now suddenly can't afford to do that because the f'ing buses took all the money. Which is why perpetually we are being told that we don't have enough money in the road fund. This is incorrect. We have plenty of money in the road fund... for roads... and bridges. What we don't have enough money for in the road fund is enough to pay for the newest mass transit project that some slimy politician got green lit ON TOP of the roads and bridges.

And what do they decide to underfund when that happens? The roads and bridges. Heaven forbid that the stupid buses actually have to pay for anything.

And don't get me wrong. If cities want to subsidize their mass transit, that is fine. Really. Do whatever you want. But fucking pay for it yourselves rather then stealing from national highway funds or state highway funds or county road funds.

If its so fucking efficient then why do they keep needing to take other people's money to make it practical? That's something of a logical inconsistency.

The car drivers are expected to foot the bill while the money they did spend doesn't even go to pay for their services. And when that happens, the same politicians lie to the car drivers and say "oh we just don't have enough money to pay for the roads... you should pay more."... really? Should we pay more? Because since you're already stealing a large portion of the fund for one thing that has nothing to do with driving a car... tell me what else we should be paying with our gas taxes. Possibly education? You think I'm kidding but they've already done that. In California where I live they take a portion of the gas tax and put it towards all sorts of feel good education projects. Which is great... I have nothing against after school programs etc. But don't take it from the fucking gas fund. Bill that to the general fund so the state senate can have a hope in hell of making a sensible budget.

And this is a problem we have with a lot of projects. The accounting is so confused, conflicted, and outright corrupt in many places that its not possible to make a sensible budget. Exactly what would you base it on? The numbers people are telling you about anything are not accurate. The revenue numbers are wrong. The cost numbers are wrong. All the projection costs are wrong.

Look... Doubtless I'm sounding like a raving maniac here... fair point. But ladies and gentleman, I'm not wrong... and this sort of thing if we don't get a handle on it will trend us right into being a Banana Republic... and the weather in most of the US is not pleasant enough to make the US competitive as a banana republic. If the US becomes a banana republic, I'm moving to some place where you can actually grow bananas. At least then I've got the bananas.

In all seriousness... its not sustainable. And things that can't go on forever... don't.

Re:The REAL value of the transit system

[Anonymous Coward]

Your silly justifications ignore that its all supposition. You have no empirical basis for anything you're saying.

As opposed to what you're doing? Reasoning that "You don't have any empirical basis for saying what you do therefore I'm right even though I didn't give empirical evidence either," doesn't even work if there wasn't empirical evidence, since at best both sides would just be talking out of their rear. But there are actually a lot of studies and effort to understand efficiency of such systems and how much government money gains or loses on different projects. Those actually interested in the issues can seek that out easy enough, while people who are just looking for stupid arguments will sit here complaining about the other side lacking empirical evidence while not offering any of their own, regardless of which side of the issue they are on.

Re:The REAL value of the transit system

[rtb61]

Keep this in mind before going off on a public transit rant and why should your taxes pay for it when you drive. The more people on that public transit then the less people on the road with you in private vehicles and the less crowded your drive. So your paying public transport taxes to have better access to your roads.

Re:The REAL value of the transit system

[zippthorne]

I don't think the parent is arguing that taxes shouldn't pay for buses, but rather that the taxes that pay for it shouldn't be the targeted taxes like the gas tax, instead the money to subsidize the buses should come from the general fund, and the subsidy level should be something that people get to have a say in through the election process.

That's something I can get behind, for the simple reason that using the gas tax to subsidize buses is unsustainable: if it's working correctly it encourages drivers to switch to buses, carpool, and use more efficient vehicles (which is, in fact, one of the desired goals - get cars off the streets to reduce traffic and smog), but that means that the burden is now spread over fewer car-miles, so the tax needs to increase, driving more drivers to buses, until everyone is on the buses and where does the money come from again?

Re:The REAL value of the transit system

[PopeRatzo]

why is it so evil to just use them as the primary mode of transportation?

"Evil"? You're arguing with a ghost now. There's nothing evil about roads or about cars or about mass transit. They are all modes of transport that are built or subsidized by the commons in order to serve people.

Any human institution can only be measured by how well it serves people. You seem angry at mass transit for some reason. Maybe because it doesn't serve you. But that's not the yardstick for decisions made by societies. Not how well it serves you but how well it serves us.

forced to use expensive, limiting, and impersonal transportation methods.

Mass transit, at least in my city, costs less (including "subsidies") per mile traveled than cars. And "impersonal"? Is that the problem here, that you can't hang your fuzzy dice and truck nuts on your friendly neighborhood transit car? Is this about you being behind the wheel of your own personal 3000 lb turbo-charged locomotive, the way God intended?

The good news is that nobody cares what you drive. But communities have to work. And more people in the US now live in cities than in rural areas. This is not because of the gummint, but because that's the way business likes it. Lots of consumers and lots of workers in one place.

But I'm still trying to wrap my head around "impersonal". I can't imagine anything more "impersonal" than the millions of Toyota Camry lookalikes and mommy SUV's clogging up the nation's roadways, each with one person behind the wheel. Each better than a ton of refined oil-burning, hydrocarbon-belching steel and plastic, just so that one person can get the average 6.2 miles that they queue up to crawl each day. I'll have to remember "impersonal". At least my bike has multicolored streamers coming out of the handlebars, and an officially licensed Chicago White Sox banner flying above so one of the Camry clones doesn't run me over because the driver is too busy texting to notice the fool passing them by on the recumbent bike.

Re:The REAL value of the transit system

[AK Marc]

Cars are not subsidized especially. I don't know what you're talking about.

I agree. You don't know anything about the subsidization of cars or mass transit. Though that didn't ever stop you from posting stupid stuff before, so I'm not sure why you are bringing it up now.

And regardless... I'd love to see you try and run anything without roads.

What, like the trails I've ridden bikes on? they seem to work fine. And I've driven on private roads as well. You still don't know what I'm talking about, do you?

As to liking farmers and being a conservative... I really find it amusing that people tip their hands so easily. Here you're basically admitting to being a thoughtless political hack that distills all discussions down to some preprocessed political talking point incapable of actually thinking for yourself or processing things individually.

I admitted that I recognize hypocricy in others. I note you didn't complain about the facts, just an ad hominem because you are, once again 100% wrong, without a clue as to the topic of conversation.

That's really too bad... I wish you were human

Liar. You don't want to "discuss", you just insult everyone else because whenver someone else speaks, it shows you to be stupid.

Cars are massively subsidized. From the fuel to the roads. Fuel taxes pay roughly 0% of interstate roads built cost.

Re:The REAL value of the transit system

[Karmashock]

Not an issue unless you live in an area with unreasonable congestion... and those areas only get that way because of subsidized housing, food, healthcare, transport, etc that make living in unsustainable places marginally affordable.

It would save a lot of money and be much more sustainable if people would just live in places that they could afford without subsidies. Does that mean the mega cities empty? Yep... they're dinosaurs. They're only viable with subsidies and will only survive so long as the money flows.

What happens historically when that money is cut off? The cities empty. Rome had wild goats roaming the streets after the fall of the empire because everyone left what was previously one of the densest population centers in the world. Why? The subsidies ran out. Rome used to have free food and subsidized housing during the Empire... but when that came crashing down the grain ships stopped... and people very quickly dispersed.

Don't get me wrong. There are pros to population density. However, most of them were rendered irrelevant after the invention of the airplane and the internet.

I can be anywhere in the world in a day. One day and I can be anywhere. And with the internet and a little 21st century savvy you can telepresence anywhere on earth in about 5 seconds.

That renders most of the practical benefits of packing that many people into such a small space utterly irrelevant.

That we continue to do this is largely due to logistical momentum. It made sense in the 1960s and so we just keep doing it.

How often when you hear about some public works program do you hear the politicians referencing the 1930s or something? Its retrograde. They're thinking politically... and politics is a poor guide of what is and is not reasonable.

Low-hanging fruit

[Sneftel]

The indictment claims that the ring called their organization the "Underground Railroad."

Srsly, guys, try harder.