Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

All my Deutschlandtickets gone: Fraud at an industrial scale [video]

media.ccc.de

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 86 posts

Re: All my Deutschlandtickets gone: Fraud at an industrial scale [video]

#31

Post by lxgr »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #29
lachiflippi wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Airbnb wanted access to my bank account transaction details (via Plaid) a while ago, "to verify my credit card". Hotels have never looked so appealing.

Re: All my Deutschlandtickets gone: Fraud at an industrial scale [video]

#33

Post by luckylion »

k_g_b_ wrote: post #26
luckylion wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-politi…

For all its existence it has been 100% state-owned and state-controlled, yet because it's a failure, it's still somehow "not state, but actually privatized", even though not "full actual privatization" (but only imagined privatization).

I understand the desire to have a scapegoat for failure, and to externalize it in some abstract capitalists/neoliberals/conservatives, but abandoning reality to create your own world has no predictive power and is not a long-term strategy.

Re: All my Deutschlandtickets gone: Fraud at an industrial scale [video]

#34

Post by dang »

vasco wrote: post #32
dang wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Funnily enough it generated the most interesting subthread of this submission.

Even if that's true - let's assume that it is - moderation has to go by the expected outcome. In this case the expected outcome is certainly a flamewar.

A bad hand does still win the pot sometimes, but that doesn't make it the right play!

Re: All my Deutschlandtickets gone: Fraud at an industrial scale [video]

#35

Post by immibis »

lxgr wrote: post #31
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hetzner does this invasive ID flow for credit cards now. Fortunately they don't bother with PayPal.

Airbnb wanted access to my bank account transaction details (via Plaid) a while ago, "to verify my credit card". Hotels have never looked so appealing.

At some point booking.com decided it doesn't want to accept my money because I'm a fraud, apparently, so I use it to search and then book directly at the hotel, and booking.com doesn't get their commission.

Re: All my Deutschlandtickets gone: Fraud at an industrial scale [video]

#36

Post by [deleted] »

striking wrote: post #30
lysace wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

[deleted]

Re: All my Deutschlandtickets gone: Fraud at an industrial scale [video]

#37

Post by immibis »

luckylion wrote: post #33
k_g_b_ wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-politi…

For all its existence it has been 100% state-owned and state-controlled, yet because it's a failure, it's still somehow "not state, but actually privatized", even though not "full actual privatization" (but only imagined privatization). I understand the desire to have a scapegoat for failure, and to externalize it in some abstract capitalists/neoliberals/conservatives, but abandoning reality to create your own world…

We don't usually think of the board of directors as controlling a company, nor the shareholders. They appoint a CEO, and then are hands-off unless the CEO really fucks up. This principle still remains true when the shareholders are a state.

Re: All my Deutschlandtickets gone: Fraud at an industrial scale [video]

#38

Post by okr »

Is there a similar ticket, flat for 50 Dollar per month, that takes you through the US? I wonder who pays for the real cost of the ticket, who cleans and repairs the trains, who invests in infrastructure and all that. I always wonder how the germans can pull this off for 50 Euro. Magic.

Re: All my Deutschlandtickets gone: Fraud at an industrial scale [video]

#39

Post by cbmuser »

k_g_b_ wrote: post #26
luckylion wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-politi…

You are contradicting yourself.

On the on hand you claim that a government-run railway company is better off than a privately run (Japan tends to disagree here).

On the other hand you admit that the problems of Deutsche Bahn stem from the fact that politicians have had too much influence on it.

Guess how you can keep politicians out of companies? By keeping them private.

I will never understand why so many people think that companies are magically doing better because the government is running them. That’s just a myth.

Both the government and private entities can be good or bad at running companies. However, the huge advantage with private companies is that customers have options thanks to competition.

Anyone who still has memories of telephone companies run by the government knows what I’m talking about.

As for Deutsche Bahn, the government has full control over it meaning the company is run by the government. Whether it’s officially a German Aktiengesellschaft or not, doesn’t matter at all.

Your argument is often brought up by proponents of a government-run railway so that they don’t have to admit that Deutsche Bahn isn’t doing well despite being run by the government.

Re: All my Deutschlandtickets gone: Fraud at an industrial scale [video]

#40

Post by cbmuser »

immibis wrote: post #37
luckylion wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For all its existence it has been 100% state-owned and state-controlled, yet because it's a failure, it's still somehow "not state, but actually privatized", even though not "full actual privatization" (but only imagined privatization). I understand the desire to have a scapegoat for failure, and to externalize it in some abstract capitalists/neoliberals/conservatives, but abandoning reality to create your own world…

We don't usually think of the board of directors as controlling a company, nor the shareholders. They appoint a CEO, and then are hands-off unless the CEO really fucks up. This principle still remains true when the shareholders are a state.

I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make, but the fact remains that the German government has full control over Deutsche Bahn and any mismanagement can be blamed 100% on the German government.
Post reply on HN