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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

#51

Post by idiot900 »

sokoloff wrote: post #43
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why do you have a lottery system? can you buy an airline ticket at the airport 2 minutes before boarding? yes. does the system accurately track unbooked seats with 100% accuracy? yes. can you "automate" airline ticket booking with an almost 1 click operation? yes. can the millions of airline websites and agents manage simultaneous ticket booking of a single seat so that at no time are two people charged for the same…

I suspect if you let these tickets become market-priced like airline seats, you wouldn’t have these problems either. I think the core issue is that the rail operator (gov) for whatever reason wants these last-minute tickets to be available at an artificially low ticket price. That’s not what airlines are trying to do. Trying to build a system that works with the natural effects of markets is much easier than creating…

The artificially low ticket prices are a way to allow India’s poor to travel. Market pricing is more efficient but it does not accommodate their social goals here.

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

#52

Post by inapis »

C1sc0cat wrote: post #48
inapis wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fair access is not provided by the official website. When one clicks "Book" and then suddenly get an Internal Server Error in network logs (while UI shows in-progress icon) or gets logged out - where is Fair Access? If Railways gave 10 Rs for each such failure, they will go bankrupt within 2 hours. First-come-first-serve does not mean fair access when they can't fix their technical problems. I am not sure if you kn…

How do you mean "hog" all the tickets just make them non transferable if they are already not.

Tickets are non-transferable but bribery is still a thing, especially where demand far outstrips the supply.

Second, fake IDs are easy to make.

Third, it's impractical to enforce on the ground. Indian Railways is relatively open access compared to airlines. On average, trains begin boarding 15-30 mins prior to departure and have a very high number of passengers. With an avg of 16 coaches per rake, with each coach having 60-100 passengers, each train is carrying 960-1600 passengers. Some trains are even longer and most trains are over capacity because 2nd sitting has no reservation and people just pile on as far as there is room in the coach. It's pretty impractical to verify tickets of 1000+ people along with their ids. If you are departing out of a major city, its usual for TTEs to verify tickets after 2-3 hours (and after smaller stations have been crossed.)

Tickets have been hogged and scalped for a long time in India. I'm the first in my family who has no concept of bribing or buying scalped tickets or engaging an "agent." Everyone of the previous generation has plenty of stories about their experiences before. There is still a long way to go to improve access but I will also not deny that there has been a significant improvement compared to my parents experience.

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

#55

Post by avh02 »

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…

I dunno, given a server upgrade (of itanium servers, in 2018!) shaved 15 minutes off the maintenance window [1]

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the whole railway system is a small feat - i wouldn't want to be working on that project, but it's definitely not to "next generation" standards in 2014 (and definitely wasn't when i visited in 2018)

[1] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/transportation...

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

#56

Post by smdz »

kranner wrote: post #44
smdz wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a case of 'BUREAUCRATS STIFLING INNOVATION' and this is how it often looks like. He could have gone through legal channels to approve his app and would not be able to find approvals even after being able to afford those financially. Fair access is not provided by the official website. When one clicks "Book" and then suddenly get an Internal Server Error in network logs (while UI shows in-progress icon) or get…

> Fair access is not provided by the official website. When one clicks "Book" and then suddenly get an Internal Server Error in network logs (while UI shows in-progress icon) or gets logged out - where is Fair Access? Inept as it is, the official website still intends to provides fair access. Just because it is buggy does not make it OK to circumvent it, especially when such circumvention only reduces access for user…

I am not saying it is OK to circumvent rules. BTW my access was revoked because they assumed I was using some automation - when I know I was not using any such thing. I am just good at computers and not even a fast typist. No response to my appeal - stopped using tatkal since then and fortunately never needed it after that.

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

#57

Post by vijaybritto »

smdz wrote: post #31
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…

This is a case of 'BUREAUCRATS STIFLING INNOVATION' and this is how it often looks like. He could have gone through legal channels to approve his app and would not be able to find approvals even after being able to afford those financially. Fair access is not provided by the official website. When one clicks "Book" and then suddenly get an Internal Server Error in network logs (while UI shows in-progress icon) or get…

> hard to say that since he is an IITian

Sorry that's not a measurement of any quality.

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

#58

Post by Beggers1960 »

ch_123 wrote: post #3

The headline has been editorialized. While I don't agree with what the authorities did here, and believe the developer was acting in good faith, the developer created an app for buying railway tickets which charged a small fee for the tickets - the issue was that he was arrested for making money off ticket sales, as opposed to "automating forms on a website"

One the rare situations where this type of issue should be - in part - rewarded to some degree.

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

#59

Post by afiori »

Karishma1234 wrote: post #15
ch_123 wrote: post #3

The headline has been editorialized. While I don't agree with what the authorities did here, and believe the developer was acting in good faith, the developer created an app for buying railway tickets which charged a small fee for the tickets - the issue was that he was arrested for making money off ticket sales, as opposed to "automating forms on a website"

Some context here: Indian railways website is very slow and pathetic (so bad that there are lengthy discussion on HN about it. search for IRCTC). Given the shortage of tickets thousands of people try to book tickets at 7am when the window to book a certain class of tickets call `Tatkal` opens. Thousands of people are trying to book the exact same tickets from say 7am and by 7:10 am all tickets get sold out. Now, if y…

If the timeframe is so tight it would be way more stable to just register all booking attempts (let's say up to 7:15) and then distribute the ticket randomly between unique users for some definition of uniwue user

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

#60

Post by sokoloff »

idiot900 wrote: post #51
sokoloff wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect if you let these tickets become market-priced like airline seats, you wouldn’t have these problems either. I think the core issue is that the rail operator (gov) for whatever reason wants these last-minute tickets to be available at an artificially low ticket price. That’s not what airlines are trying to do. Trying to build a system that works with the natural effects of markets is much easier than creating…

The artificially low ticket prices are a way to allow India’s poor to travel. Market pricing is more efficient but it does not accommodate their social goals here.

Yes, I get that. The reason I brought that up is to point out that the comparison to market-based systems working better is not a valid comparison. And a system that allows people to pay more to "jump the line" is wholly against the social aims of this pricing mechanism.

If you raffle off these tickets to the luckiest fraction of people who want them, many prospective purchasers will end up disappointed. You can shift the mix of how many of them are disappointed by technical glitches versus how many are disappointed by the tickets going to other people, but you're still going to disappoint most of the people who want them.

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