tl;dw please?
"Transcript" it's called :)
All my Deutschlandtickets gone: Fraud at an industrial scale [video]
21–30 of 86 posts
Re: All my Deutschlandtickets gone: Fraud at an industrial scale [video]
#22tl;dw please?
"Transcript" it's called :)
ChatGPT managed the following given the submitted source URL and the prompt "summarize the key technical facts into two sentences suitable for a hacker news comment".
Deutschlandticket fraud stemmed from decentralization and weak controls: tickets were issued instantly on unverified SEPA debits, and a leaked or mismanaged signing key let attackers mint valid tickets at scale. Poor revocation and fragmented verification meant many fraudulent tickets still scanned as valid, enabling mass resale and huge losses.
Re: All my Deutschlandtickets gone: Fraud at an industrial scale [video]
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Transcript" it's called :)
ChatGPT managed the following given the submitted source URL and the prompt "summarize the key technical facts into two sentences suitable for a hacker news comment". Deutschlandticket fraud stemmed from decentralization and weak controls: tickets were issued instantly on unverified SEPA debits, and a leaked or mismanaged signing key let attackers mint valid tickets at scale. Poor revocation and fragmented verificati…
This is a good concise summary, regardless of provenance.
Re: All my Deutschlandtickets gone: Fraud at an industrial scale [video]
#24Re: All my Deutschlandtickets gone: Fraud at an industrial scale [video]
#25Germany has missed the digitalisation train, but how long will it continue to miss it for? At least, transparent issues like this one can only help.
The problem is the lack of centralization - there should obviously only be one issuer of this ticket and thus just only one website / app to keep bug free.
Lack of centralization is one part of it (see also: communal digital services), yes, but the complete lack of standards and guidelines is also a massive issue. I tried buying a Deutschlandticket from the DB Navigator app a while back, and immediately ran into some issues:
- they only take credit card, probably because of the massive SEPA fraud they've had happen
- they require id verification with a third party(!), which then only supports the e-perso(!!) or video ident(!!!), which they could've just used the actual PostIdent service for, which would've provided an alternative for non-smartphone-havers / people who'd rather not have their ID and face recorded by some Eastern European company until the end of time
- their entire authentication system was down when it came to actually purchasing
buying from my local Verkehrsverbund was a single tap in their app instead, with no id verification whatsoever. If DB's offering were the only option it would be an absolute travesty.
Re: All my Deutschlandtickets gone: Fraud at an industrial scale [video]
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kind of proof that privatizing public infrastructure does not work without very tight regulations. The profits and benefits in infrastructure go towards a state and are long term. A private company cannot increase their stock price on a 100 year goal and a countries GDP growth.
Germany's public transport is really not privatized though. The Deutsche Bahn AG is structured as company, but is entirely owned by the federal government. There's very, very little public transportation (e.g. private buses between major cities) that is not owned and operated by the government. What privatization are you talking about?
DB is only in its current state (company organization, leadership failures, organizational failures, underfunding for decades, etc) because of previous governments' failed attempts at privatization decades ago. Full actual privatization would not likely have yielded any better results - especially regarding the actual infrastructure itself. (There's enough examples worldwide)
It's also been used for cushy post-politics jobs and lots of other incompetent meddling - such as requiring and extracting profits, etc.
You're right that it's not privatized, but the root causes of current misery still are the privatization attempts and a significant neoliberal/conservative political force that caused decay and blocked progress/improvements.
Re: All my Deutschlandtickets gone: Fraud at an industrial scale [video]
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Transcript" it's called :)
ChatGPT managed the following given the submitted source URL and the prompt "summarize the key technical facts into two sentences suitable for a hacker news comment". Deutschlandticket fraud stemmed from decentralization and weak controls: tickets were issued instantly on unverified SEPA debits, and a leaked or mismanaged signing key let attackers mint valid tickets at scale. Poor revocation and fragmented verificati…
[deleted]
Re: All my Deutschlandtickets gone: Fraud at an industrial scale [video]
#28Uh, I received a call from my credit card company saying that train tickets were bought using my card in Germany. I told them I haven't been in Germany for the last decade, and was issued a new card.
Re: All my Deutschlandtickets gone: Fraud at an industrial scale [video]
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is the lack of centralization - there should obviously only be one issuer of this ticket and thus just only one website / app to keep bug free.
Lack of centralization is one part of it (see also: communal digital services), yes, but the complete lack of standards and guidelines is also a massive issue. I tried buying a Deutschlandticket from the DB Navigator app a while back, and immediately ran into some issues: - they only take credit card, probably because of the massive SEPA fraud they've had happen - they require id verification with a third party(!), w…
Hetzner does this invasive ID flow for credit cards now. Fortunately they don't bother with PayPal.
Re: All my Deutschlandtickets gone: Fraud at an industrial scale [video]
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Transcript" it's called :)
ChatGPT managed the following given the submitted source URL and the prompt "summarize the key technical facts into two sentences suitable for a hacker news comment". Deutschlandticket fraud stemmed from decentralization and weak controls: tickets were issued instantly on unverified SEPA debits, and a leaked or mismanaged signing key let attackers mint valid tickets at scale. Poor revocation and fragmented verificati…
Instead of making a fuss, have you considered taking another look at the video page? It includes a summary that helps show why those technical facts are actually relevant in the context of German society, and hints at how those things came to happen. I would normally not bother with a comment, but this time I'm genuinely curious as to how someone might have missed scrolling down to see the summary.
(edit: the fussy bit, where the poster complains about downvotes, has been edited out. I'm leaving my comment the way it is.)