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Indian developer jailed for making unauthorized train ticket booking app

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Re: Indian developer jailed for making unauthorized train ticket booking app

#21

Post by sokoloff »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #20

so let me get this correct for non indians here. a stupid ass government website for booking railway tickets which is the opposite of intuitive, crashes daily, has pathetic captcha and has all sorts of glitches. if facebook can handle a billion users on a daily basis, why cant the irctc website. in 2020 this unacceptable. coming on to the guy here, >Developing an unauthorised software bypassing e-ticketing system is…

> so why not have this functionality in the first party website in the first place?

This functionality being to work-around the intended first-come, first-serve allocation of these last minute tickets?

It sounds like the overall system isn’t in a healthy, modern state, but I don’t think the essential feature this guy’s tool provided is desired by the original website.

Re: Indian developer jailed for making unauthorized train ticket booking app

#22

Post by dsq »

Karupan wrote: post #4

People outside India may not realize the importance of train tickets and how difficult they can be to book. Trains are still the primary mode of transport for long distance travel and some routes get booked out in minutes after reservations open. There have been ticket mafias who mass book tickets and resell them in the black market for a huge profit. I do appreciate that the developer was solving a genuine need, so…

If indeed there is a mafia-controlled black market in ticket sales, perhaps the mafia got a corrupt bureaucrat to use state force to shut down competition.

Re: Indian developer jailed for making unauthorized train ticket booking app

#23

Post by dathinab »

yitchelle wrote: post #10
moh_maya wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. He circumvented rate-limiters that ensured that you couldn't game the booking system. The regulations very clearly prohibit this to ensure fair access. Now, one can absolutely argue about whether this form of rate limiting is the right approach, but to circumvent something that is clearly prohibited & charge money to do that is illegal. This does not mean that I think the current system is perfect OR that there…

You see similar software used in Auction sites such as eBay and the likes. Are this type of software also banned in India?

In many country's such software is illegal and you can be held accountable, especially if you provide it in a way which makes you earn money.

If you make sure your software is just more economical/accessible without giving a unfair advantage is often less illegal or at least tolerated in many counties.

And many counties include EU countries like Germany.

Re: Indian developer jailed for making unauthorized train ticket booking app

#24

Post by ch_123 »

jaikant77 wrote: post #19
moh_maya wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, for railways ticket bookings, yes; not banned but illegal. However, it's common knowledge that they exist and are used.

India has a strong legal framework and unfortunately very poor implementation (the arrest is an example of poor implementation/bullying by the state). When you say illegal, you should be able to specify the law under which it is illegal. Broadly classifying anything not convenient to the state as illegal does not stand ground, AFAIK there is no law which prohibits automation of forms on any website?

You're attacking a strawman here. The issue was that he was making a profit by reselling tickets, not by automating filling forms in a website. The mechanism is not particularly relevant.

By analogy, it is legal to park my car in my own garden, but not legal to park it in my neighbour's garden. If I were to do that, I might expect to be punished for "parking my car".

Re: Indian developer jailed for making unauthorized train ticket booking app

#25

Post by vmception »

moh_maya wrote: post #13
avh02 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when i visited india, i found the "next generation" booking system to be a bit of a joke, so i don't blame this guy for trying to make it better (whether or not he was profiting). My favourite part was the "maintenance" window the website would go through every night. Which was never really indicated on the website other than vague messages/errors - but everybody knew that's what it was.

I think This is a very naïve, unfair take on one of the world's most sophisticated, complex, real-time booking systems that is unparalleled in what it enables. [1,2] The front end definitely can be much much better; but the issue is very simply there are not enough tickets to match the demand. "From 29 tickets booked in a day in 2002, it has reached to 13 Lakh tickets a day as of now. It is reported that the IRCTC sy…

but when your frontend also looks and acts like its from 2002, how parallelized your backend is doesn't matter

its like when you see a php extension on a website, there isn't an inherent limitation with php and it is made to be quite performant, you just know the people involved have a high correlation of making UI/UX an afterthought and stuck in a different decade and this is highly correlated with other afterthoughts on performance

Re: Indian developer jailed for making unauthorized train ticket booking app

#26

Post by pzh »

moh_maya wrote: post #13
avh02 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when i visited india, i found the "next generation" booking system to be a bit of a joke, so i don't blame this guy for trying to make it better (whether or not he was profiting). My favourite part was the "maintenance" window the website would go through every night. Which was never really indicated on the website other than vague messages/errors - but everybody knew that's what it was.

I think This is a very naïve, unfair take on one of the world's most sophisticated, complex, real-time booking systems that is unparalleled in what it enables. [1,2] The front end definitely can be much much better; but the issue is very simply there are not enough tickets to match the demand. "From 29 tickets booked in a day in 2002, it has reached to 13 Lakh tickets a day as of now. It is reported that the IRCTC sy…

15k reservations per min is 250 tps. If that’s the maximum it can handle, I wouldn’t call it very scalable.

Re: Indian developer jailed for making unauthorized train ticket booking app

#27

Post by jaikant77 »

jaikant77 wrote: post #19
moh_maya wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, for railways ticket bookings, yes; not banned but illegal. However, it's common knowledge that they exist and are used.

India has a strong legal framework and unfortunately very poor implementation (the arrest is an example of poor implementation/bullying by the state). When you say illegal, you should be able to specify the law under which it is illegal. Broadly classifying anything not convenient to the state as illegal does not stand ground, AFAIK there is no law which prohibits automation of forms on any website?

The car parking analogy does not fit. But if you want to use a similar analogy. Assume there is toll road which allows the first 100 cars. This guy uses his superior tech skills, to get his clients (cars) in the first 100. He charges them a premium.

Now the toll road keepers, arrest him for helping his clients? That I think is wrong. If his clients had complained that he didn't deliver on his promise but charged money, then that could amount to cheating. He didn't do that. He used code he wrote to provide a service to his clients.

Yes I agree, it could be hacky code, and it worked because the website was itself sub optimal. But putting him into prison because the website couldn't be made better (prevent his hack) amounts to bullying to hide the technical incompetence.

Re: Indian developer jailed for making unauthorized train ticket booking app

#29

Post by free »

vertis wrote: post #28

IMO Give this developer a ticket to the next ycombinator batch. Don't know how likely that is given the current US stance on immigration, but he clearly has the initiative, even if his app is not welcome.

Am not so sure he will fare well in US. I recall Aaron Swartz faced a similar charge leading to his tragic demise.

Re: Indian developer jailed for making unauthorized train ticket booking app

#30

Post by vertis »

free wrote: post #29
vertis wrote: post #28

IMO Give this developer a ticket to the next ycombinator batch. Don't know how likely that is given the current US stance on immigration, but he clearly has the initiative, even if his app is not welcome.

Am not so sure he will fare well in US. I recall Aaron Swartz faced a similar charge leading to his tragic demise.

I suspect the developer learned from the experience, and would likely not repeat the same mistake.
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