Oyster card hack can be published - Part Two

Another follow up story as details of how to hack a smartcard used in Oyster cards have now been published online. Thanks to Pete from the Londoneer for reminding me about this. In July a Dutch court ruled that details of how to hack the card could be released in the interests of "freedom of expression laws."

Earlier in the year members of Professor Bart Jacobs' team came to London to test their findings, and travelled on the London Underground using a modified Oyster card.

Shashi Verma, director of fares and ticketing at Transport For London, told the BBC its system spotted the security breach.

"We knew about it before we were informed by the students," said Mr Verma

He stressed that the Mifare Classic chip in the Oyster card is only part of a larger system. "A number of forensic controls run within the back office systems which is something that customers and these students have no ability to touch."

"We will carry on making improvements to the security of the Oyster system."

Commenting on their research, Prof Jacobs told BBC Click the information being disclosed was: "not a guidebook for attacks". I also bet it's not as much fun as creating an Oyster Card watch or a magic wand for Tube barriers.


The BBC's full report on this will be broadcast on BBC Click on Saturday 11 October at 1130 BST on the BBC News Channel. You can also find it on BBC World - check here for the times it'll be going out.

Shepherd's Bush Station re-opens on Central Line

After the eight month closure & some speculation last week, as to when it would actually open, the brand spanking new Shepherd's Bush London Underground Station finally re-opened over the weekend on the 4th October.


Phill Price was there just before the re-opening and kindly sent the link to his Flickr stream of photos. He said "This is a one off burst of photos to show the exterior in all its glory in the wet evening of October 4th. It's warming on me already and I'm looking forward to using it again!"

It's all in readiness for the new Westfield Shopping Centre development which will open later this month.

All in all the Tube station's ticket hall has been remodelled with new escalators connecting to the refurbished platforms below. Sadly for some (including me) the distinctive dark green tiles have been replaced with more conventional white ones. Additional ticket gates were installed to handle the estimated 45,000 passengers a day, when the shopping centre opens. You can see from Phill's pictures, that above-ground the station is all modern & 21st century looking. It's right next to the new Shepherd's Bush Overground station, which opened last week.

Members of the London Assembly & local shopkeepers had questioned the need for a total closure of the station, as the escalators still had a number of years life in them. However, TfL felt that the temporary full shutdown meant the scheduled escalator work could be completed early with the rebuilding of the station. Ultimately, Transport for London argued this would mean less disruption rather than waiting for a few more years once the shopping centre was up & running & even more people would have been using the station.

Anyway, nice atmospheric photos from Phill and it will be great to hear what you think of the new station & whether it's growing on you too.

Bags, Bingo & Blogging - Social Media Camp London 08

Coming out of King's Cross Tube station on my way to Social Media Camp, I spotted some London Underground moquette (seat upholstery) out of the corner of my eye. You don't normally see moquette above your head like that and luckily I managed to get my camera out in time to take the picture below:


He was going in the same direction as me, so at crossing I took a clearer shot of the bag. Fortunately I wasn't quite stalky enough to find out where he was going afterwards, although he didn't head into St Pancras International station. I kind of hoped he was on some sort of trainspotting convention and that the moquette bag was filled with a flask of tea & sandwiches.

Spotting that guy & snapping the picture with a view to blogging, was power to the course for the rest of the day at the Social Media Camp. No blogger or "social media" person should be without their bag of tricks of a digital camera, mobile phone, notebook & an curious eye for the unusual amongst the mundane.

It was a great day where around 100 people interested in blogs & blogging, social networks, vlogs, podcasting, online communities, lifecasting, Web 2.0, avatars, ARG & other online buzzwords could hang out, share stories and present stuff.

I re-did my session from Bar Camp London last weekend and as promised here are the slides on Blogging Breakdown & How to Avoid it. It's basically some tips on how to try to keep people interested & engaged in blog (particularly if you've been writing one for years). Along with a number of slides from Technorati's recent & excellent "State of Blogosphere" report which show how blogs are bigger & just as powerful and possibly more influential than Facebook & other online social networks. Thanks to all who came along to see it.

If you look at Twitter & read similar blogs to me you'll see lots of reports & blog posts about all the sessions and the day itself. I really enjoyed the discussion about How not to get F**ked by Social Media led by the wonderful Girl with a One Track Mind. However, a highlight for me was right at the end. The animated faces below were also gripped.


It was all for a game of Bingo. But there weren't any bingo wings, dabbers and old ladies. This was Buzzword Bingo or Social Media Bingo, where we all filled out our cards with a number of Web 2.0 buzz words selected from the boards:


The words were then picked from a basket and we had to devise a "start-up" pitch or sentence including two of the words & people marked them off on their sheets.


As with normal bingo the first with a line got a prize and there were also prizes for a full house. Emma Persky & Utku Can did a fantastic job of organising this and I probably annoyed the hell out of my Twitter followers as I'd been asked to Tweet the "pitches" which you can just about see on the big screen in the photo above.


The lucky winners, some pictured above won some MOO Business Cards and a tour of Channel 4's office.

Thanks to Vero aka That Canadian Girl for organising a great day and to the sponsors for the brill food, drinks, schwag & venue at the Wallacespace. Also thanks to Zemanta for the blogging badges that I nabbed at the end of the day.


I've been very quietly using Zemanta on my blog since it launched in the spring of this year. It's got much, much better over the last few months. Essentially it's a plug-in which supports most blogging platforms and suggests appropriate links and creative commons photos, right as you type your blog post.

So now, in my blogger dashboard, I'm seeing photos about Twitter, wikipedia links to King's Cross and even links to old blog posts I've made myself about similar subjects. They automatically refresh the more you type and saves a whole lot of Googling or searching to find links for your posts.

A few more of my picture from the Social Media Camp London are on Flickr. Unsurprisingly, I won't actually wear the "Warning Fashion Blogger" badge in public as I'd never get away with another Tube Fashion Victim picture in my life!

Overcrowding Survey - Tell London Assembly what you think

Although the focus is on London overground trains, the London Assembly's Transport Committee are trying to find a solution to the "overcrowding that plagues many of the overground rail routes coming into the capital – especially during the morning and evening commuter rush." Interesting that chose the word "plagues" for this announcement.


Underground Gal hadn't seen anything about this survey until she noticed a small paragraph in Railway Magazine. She did a bit of Googling and found the above press release from the Greater London Authority.

"While the problems of overcrowding are well known, the Committee will set out to map an accurate picture of the 'pinch points' on commuter routes into London – for example the stations where people have to wait for several full trains to go by before they can board - so that targeted solutions can be identified.

As well as mapping and analysis of how effectively overcrowding is currently being tackled, the investigation will focus on the passenger experience. The Committee will talk to commuters about how overcrowding affects their journey, and members of the public are encouraged to send their experiences to overcrowding@london.gov.uk"

Maybe it's because I've been on holiday in New York recently, but I agree with her following comment

"I read a fair amount of newspapers and haven't seen any mention of this, and although it's focusing on overground routes, rather than the Underground, I think it's fair to say there's a decent amount of overlap between the two sorts of commuters!"

So if you travel on overground trains which come into London, please send your views & experiences to overcrowding@london.gov.uk. I often use an overground train at Richmond to get into Waterloo and getting off at Waterloo and trying to get down to to the Waterloo & City line when you're walking against a tide of people coming the other way, is a particular bug bear for me. I don't use it regularly or early enough to experience major overcrowding - but whenever the Sadistic Line isn't working, I use the overground & it's then a major league squeeze to get myself onto the train.

King's Cross Tube getting film ads

Looks like I'll soon be able to watch some trailers for films and endless ads for Orange phones while I'm waiting for my Northern Line train at King's Cross.


There's always a sure sign that London Underground cross platform advertising is coming to your station, when you notice there have been a number of weeks with really old ads, then that papier mache / collage / Tate Gallery exhibit style mess of old ads.


Then you usually get the grey panels seen in the first picture which I noticed at King's Cross yesterday, which herald the coming of the cross platform ads or Cross Track Projection or XTP as CBS Outdoor - the company responsible for the ads on the Tube - call it.

It's funny that it's actually taken us this long to get moving ads on the Tube. I always remember a great quote from a guy from the early 20th century, who had predictions for what the London Underground would be like in 1999.

Professor Archibald Montgomery Low (top name) wrote for the transport magazine Trains, Omnibuses and Trams in 1914 and was pretty good with some of his sooth-saying.

He predicted 100mph trains, mobile phones, solar energy, Eurostar and the Travelcard ... and an end to spitting on the Tube! But we're only just catching up with some of his stuff. He wrote:

"In 1999 every station will have comfortable waiting-rooms, with all the trains, the news of the moment - and perhaps the picture of the moment - thrown upon artistically illuminated screens".

Well that's our XTP - except we haven't got news or pictures of the moment but trailers for Pixar films & ads for mobile phone companies.

He also believed that Londoners in 1999 would be more polite. However a Tube worker replied to him in the magazine:

"Will the Underground passengers of 1999 try to enter the stations by the exits, ignore the notice to stand aside on escalators?"

Forget 1999, that's still happening now.