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

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

#41

Post by cbmuser »

ryandrake wrote: post #15
vintagedave wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what socialism has to do with getting multiple ticket systems to speak to each other. I sometimes worry HN is astroturfed but I tend to read comments like this more simply as trolling.

> Not sure what socialism has to do with Nothing. Some people just wake up in the morning and have to interject their "socialism = bad" religion into at least one thread in order to feel they've done their evangelism for the day.

I grew up in a socialist country and anyone equates socialism with failure is 100% spot on.

People who think that living in socialism is in any way desirable simply don’t understand what socialism actually means.

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

#42

Post by netsharc »

okr wrote: post #38

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.

Continental USA: 8 million square kilometer.

Germany: 0.35 million square kilometer.

On the point of the upkeep, locals know German trains are now legendary for unpunctuality and cancellations, so maybe it's not working. But the answer is obviously (trigger warning for the libertarians...) taxes.

The ticket came about because energy prices went crazy after their energy dealer Putin went crazy and warry, I think it was an attempt to motivate people to take public transport rather than have them moan about fuel prices going way way up...

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

#43

Post by fxwin »

netsharc wrote: post #42
okr wrote: post #38

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.

Continental USA: 8 million square kilometer. Germany: 0.35 million square kilometer. On the point of the upkeep, locals know German trains are now legendary for unpunctuality and cancellations, so maybe it's not working. But the answer is obviously (trigger warning for the libertarians...) taxes. The ticket came about because energy prices went crazy after their energy dealer Putin went crazy and warry, I think it wa…

fyi regional trains (which the deutschlandticket is valid for) are very punctual, it is the long distance/ICE trains that are always late/broken, and you cannot ride those with thw deutschlandticket anyways.

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

#44

Post by bajinga »

fxwin wrote: post #43
netsharc wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Continental USA: 8 million square kilometer. Germany: 0.35 million square kilometer. On the point of the upkeep, locals know German trains are now legendary for unpunctuality and cancellations, so maybe it's not working. But the answer is obviously (trigger warning for the libertarians...) taxes. The ticket came about because energy prices went crazy after their energy dealer Putin went crazy and warry, I think it wa…

fyi regional trains (which the deutschlandticket is valid for) are very punctual, it is the long distance/ICE trains that are always late/broken, and you cannot ride those with thw deutschlandticket anyways.

no they are not. source: i am german and i use regional trains occasionally

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

#45

Post by lysace »

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…

[flagged]

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

#46

Post by tialaramex »

WalterBright wrote: post #28

Uh, 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.

So at least your credit card issuer (presumably) actually has a working fraud department.

In the private sector, fraud detection is often heuristic based. So this was probably flagged because you didn't buy German railway tickets in the recent past and maybe even you didn't buy anything else in or near Germany.

I remember years ago getting a decline on a credit card transaction to pay for one of my ISPs, and then hours later a phone call. My bank apparently didn't understand (yet, this is years ago) that ISPs are like, not necessarily physically nearby and so since the ISP is on another continent and I had no other nearby transactions it was flagged as likely fraud.

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

#47

Post by striking »

lysace wrote: post #45
striking wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[flagged]

But it's not nice (socially normal?) to post "tl;dw" either.

It's okay, we disagreed on something. I'll agree to learn something from it if you do. Happy new year.

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

#48

Post by lysace »

striking wrote: post #47
lysace wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

But it's not nice (socially normal?) to post "tl;dw" either. It's okay, we disagreed on something. I'll agree to learn something from it if you do. Happy new year.

[flagged]
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