Posted Thursday 28th August 2008 12:25 GMT
I love when my tickets come prehacked....
Straight from the NeoWave site, the card uses the MIFARE® Classic 1K/4K.
Isn't that the compromised one?
Posted Thursday 28th August 2008 12:31 GMT
Hasn't the 1mm think USB connector been developed already?
didn't someone do a micro usb Mem card that fitted insde a USB socket?
surely that is what they need here also... normal sized card where corner fits into usb socket...
Posted Thursday 28th August 2008 13:28 GMT
barcode tattoos are the way forward
wasn't there that track by the Orb that samples some northerner ranting on all these "facts" pointing towards the end of the world as predicted in the Book of Revelation. and he mentions the line about Wormwood covering the land and how apparently the Russian for wormwood is Chernobyl.
and there's a bit about how standard barcodes are broken down into 3 sections of 6 lines (or divided by 6 lines, or by a line that means 6 or something) and how the US military is tattoo'ing it's troops with barcodes on the right hand and there's the line about the number of the beast shall be marked upon the forehead or the right plam of all men.....
it's the end times, i tell you, the end times....
Posted Thursday 28th August 2008 13:28 GMT
Bet Japan Rail are really upset they got the FeliCa cards instead of MIFARE...
But then, that's the thing when you look to invest in your own nations projects instead of the cheapest tatt going.
Posted Thursday 28th August 2008 13:28 GMT
My MP3 player is thinner than that! Why not provide a micro-B USB lead like every other portable device out there? Or better still, give away a USB-7816 adaptor...
Est-ce un billet SNCF dans votre poche, ou êtes-vous simplement heureux de me voir?
Je vais prendre mon manteau.
Posted Thursday 28th August 2008 13:36 GMT
You what ... ???
Either its contactless, or its USB. It can't be both.
Posted Thursday 28th August 2008 13:36 GMT
Maybe I'm dumb, but surely a contactless ticket wouldn't have a connector on it?
And what happens when some miscreant sticks some chewing gum in the socket?
Posted Thursday 28th August 2008 13:36 GMT
I bought a SNCF ticket on t'internet, to be picked up at a French station.
Put my credit card into the automatc ticket machine for validation, it asked for my PIN, said it was OK, thought about it for a minute or two, then came up with an error, printed out a slip of paper that said go to a desk for help and reset itself.
At the desk they tried swiping my card and typing in the number. Each time it crashed their application. If a normal credit card for a paper ticket has these problems, what chance a 'smart object'?
OK, so maybe they hadn't tested for a Swiss credit card being used from England to book a combined SNCF/Eurostar ticket, but I can't be the only foreigner that likes to book in advance for a better deal.
Btw, TGV train tickets have to be date stamped in a machine just before entering the train - so they are made of thin card like an airline boarding pass. Preumably these USB tickets are just for local journeys, like the Oyster card?
Posted Thursday 28th August 2008 13:44 GMT
Ah but it can - payment systems are generally referred to as "contactless" when one means "wireless", so strictly speaking it should be "contactless-payment-system-supporting tickets with USB connections", but that's a bit of a mouthful so we abbreviate.
The Barclays OnePulse card has the same issue, though that has proper ISO7816 contacts on the front alongside it's contactless capabilities.
Posted Thursday 28th August 2008 13:44 GMT
Not dumb, just an unfamiliar abreviation.
"contactless" = Contactless-payment-system-supporting
So it has contact and contactless connection capabilities, used for different things.
Bill.
Posted Thursday 28th August 2008 14:50 GMT
Crickey, even First Great Western's 'bumper book of piss-poor excuses' wouldn't take up that much room!
Posted Thursday 28th August 2008 17:47 GMT
...call me a dim passenger, but what's the purpose of this? So you can buy a ticket online and "download" it to your USB-enabled smart object?
Wouldn't it just be easier to have the smart object/card sync with the reservations database by "touching in" once you got to the station or on the train?
Posted Thursday 28th August 2008 17:47 GMT
How long before the cards are hacked to death... made even easier by the USb connection!
Hurray for USB!
Posted Thursday 28th August 2008 17:47 GMT
To people asking why should a contact-less card need a USB connector.
The reason is simple: you use the contact-less side of it to go through the gates at the station, like the Oyster card and you plug the card into the USB port your own PC at home to recharge it!
This is quite a good idea as most PC's have USB ports these days but very few have smart card readers (and even less RF-ID readers).
Posted Thursday 28th August 2008 23:00 GMT
I can top up my oyster card online, without needing a USB connection. Or any other connection for that matter, other than the internet connection that's handling the top-up.
The only advantage I can see is by also duplicating the data on a physical device, it can potentially still let me in or out if the fares computer is down.
So the only possible message they're giving here is that they don't trust their own system reliability, and are therefore developing something clumsy and cumbersome to plug the gap -- something which will almost certainly cost far more than the occasional lost ticket income caused by the fares computer being down.
Posted Thursday 28th August 2008 23:00 GMT
Ever heard of USB over wifi????
You dumbwit!!
Posted Friday 29th August 2008 09:03 GMT
Oyster is a closed system, it can only be used on London Transport, hence you can use a central "fares computer". Contactless cards do not work well of there is more than one of them in the magnetic field.
This solution de-centralises the process, you can have any number of entities charge values onto the card and any number of entities security remove it. If you wanted to make one transport card for all public transport in the UK, such a system would be ideal.
Posted Friday 29th August 2008 13:01 GMT
The Orb song you're referring to is S.A.L.T, which can be found on their Orblivion CD. The ranting is sample from David Thewlis' Johhny in the film Naked.
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