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Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

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Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#111

Post by rangestransform »

MisterTea wrote: post #68

Coming from NYC and being used to swiping once to pay a flat fair, my first Suica lesson was they vary the fair by the distance traveled. This means you have to tap in AND out of buses and subways. It was a bit embarrassing and frustrating when I almost could not board a bus in Sapporo with my friends after they all tapped in and my card was rejected. WTF? Thankfully the bus driver showed me a sign in English telling…

We should have tap in/out in NYC too, it gives another opportunity to catch a fare evader

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#112

Post by dawnerd »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #45
cptcobalt wrote: post #20

If you haven’t experienced suica, it’s like magically fast. Faster than NFC, faster than Apple Pay, faster than tap to pay, faster than Disney magic bands, faster than your work badge. It absolutely floored me every time I used it in Japan and it’s a full payment transaction.

But you should probably just get a suica in your apple or google wallet, you don’t actually need an IC card. I’m not sure if using a phone makes it less fast though, I couldn’t tell (we had to get a card for my kid since he doesn’t have a phone). Definitely better than the QR codes used by China.

It’s sooooo convenient to buy Shinkansen tickets digitally too with it all linked.

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#113

Post by dawnerd »

polishdude20 wrote: post #39
cptcobalt wrote: post #20

If you haven’t experienced suica, it’s like magically fast. Faster than NFC, faster than Apple Pay, faster than tap to pay, faster than Disney magic bands, faster than your work badge. It absolutely floored me every time I used it in Japan and it’s a full payment transaction.

The card might be fast but getting one as a tourist is kind of a hassle

On iPhone it’s insanely easy to you just request right from the wallet app and you can even reload it there.

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#114

Post by [deleted] »

mathrawka wrote: post #106
xingped wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pixel phones bought outside Japan supposedly can if you do a little adb hacking to enable it, but I don't have a Pixel to try it myself.

Pixel phones outside of Japan are missing the Felica chip. Apple pays the fee for all phones in the world to have the chip. Google only pays for Japan devices.

[deleted]

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#115

Post by jacobgkau »

numpad0 wrote: post #59
jacobgkau wrote: post #16

> When you tap your card on a terminal, it reads and rewrites the card locally in an instant, with the entire transaction processed in under 200 milliseconds. For each tap, the card and terminal mutually authenticate each other and generate a fresh encryption key to prevent spoofing. This is the part that I'd be interested in reading more about. I'd known there must be some data on the card itself (since I can still…

It's largely the same as credit cards - the card have multiple data partitions and secure read/write are encrypted. Balances are logged on both the card and the station-level servers and correctable errors and/or mid-ride updates, if any, are propagated while the user is in motion, so that they can be written upon exit. ^ that was the official explanation for a long time, but they've reportedly transitioned to more c…

> Plus, the prepaid limit of 20k yen(local equivalent of $200) limits abuse potential of the system; it's not worth trying to commit blatant frauds on the train-and-sandwiches card.

I don't think a limit on the value stored on the card limits the potential of fraud. I'm not imagining someone would load tens of thousands of yen onto their card. I'm more imagining someone setting the card to have enough money to get through the gate, every time they want to use the train. I'd agree fare is cheap enough that it's probably not worth someone's time to figure that out, but it would add up over time if someone did it (and especially if the method for doing so got passed around).

I also understand that there's two-way communication with one-time/expiring keys that would prevent a simple replay attack from working. Really just interested in understanding the entire mechanism in more detail! It gets handwaved as just "encryption" in a lot of discussions, probably due to a combination of intentional obscurity (like you mentioned) and it just not being super interesting or relevant to most contexts.

(Also, good point that the servers would still allow significant deviations to be caught and the card rejected/flagged in the system-- I've also seen that concept mentioned elsewhere after trying to research it a bit more.)

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#116

Post by [deleted] »

mathrawka wrote: post #106
xingped wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pixel phones bought outside Japan supposedly can if you do a little adb hacking to enable it, but I don't have a Pixel to try it myself.

Pixel phones outside of Japan are missing the Felica chip. Apple pays the fee for all phones in the world to have the chip. Google only pays for Japan devices.

[deleted]

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#117

Post by juliansimioni »

I am literally on a flight to Japan right now, and one of my main goals is to add a Suica card to my collection of transit cards from around the world (currently 31 cards large).

Sadly physical cards may only have a few years left, for the most part using tap-to-ride is superior. So I really have to get out there and grab them while I can.

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#118

Post by mikestew »

numpad0 wrote: post #107
dluan wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I much prefer convenient over fast, being able to just tap my phone's uploaded IC card/alipay without having to open it up or switch cards is maybe 200ms slower, but I don't have to think or change what I'm doing. Plus with alipay it will just autodeduct so I don't ever have to think about that as well, though Apple wallet Suica makes it easy to reload too.

JRE required Suica to be instantly accessible so there's a setting in Apple Wallet to set a card to a default quick transit use card(forgot the exact name). If configured as such, just poking the gate antenna with earpiece end of an iPhone instantly completes the transaction just as fast as a real card does. (yes, the antenna is in the top FaceID/Dynamic Island area, Osaifu Keitai spec requires a □つ icon wherever ant…

a setting in Apple Wallet to set a card to a default quick transit use card

Because it's not the easiest setting to find: Settings/Wallet & Apple Pay/Express Transit Card

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#119

Post by alerighi »

filoleg wrote: post #82
polishdude20 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The card might be fast but getting one as a tourist is kind of a hassle

I heard from friends that physical Suica cards tend to be difficult to obtain these days at times, but digital one isn't at all. Took me roughly a minute to create one within Apple Wallet ahead of my trip, and that was it. Didn't need to install any apps or register on any websites, because creating a Suica card is natively supported in the wallet app. Idk how the situation is like with Suica card on Android though,…

Well you can get it only in some kind of machines, and you need to pay it cash. Also you need to use cash to charge it, and you can charge it minimum by 1000 or 500 yen at a time depending on the station, not less.

The digital version only works on iPhones, since Android phones sold outside Japan doesn't have the Felica chip, or if they have it (e.g. Google Pixel) is disabled in EU/US firmware because the manufacturer doesn't want to pay a fee for every phone to Sony for something 99.999% of people that will never travel to Japan would use.

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