Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

Both, although it’s a little more nuanced than that. The original oyster system was bought in from a company called Cubic, and Cubic still provide all the physical gates and readers on the TfL system. But the newer contactless/Tap-to-Pay system was developed in-house by TfL, and the old oyster system has been mostly migrated onto the ticketing system.

However TfL license the new system to Cubic, who then resell it to other Transit systems around the world.

But for London, both the development and operations of the ticketing system is managed in-house (they obviously contract out parts of that work, as TfL probably shouldn’t be in the business of designing, manufacturing and performing major refits of their physical barriers themselves etc)

> Is that also the case in the UK? Is there no similar system or demand for ID? Would those using it in this free application be less likely to have one?

No it’s not the case in the UK. There is no national/state ID, beyond a passport (which you only need if you intend to leave the UK). With regards to photo ID for proof of age, it’s a little complicated. People use a mix of expired passports if they have one, there are some recognised “age ID” cards that you can purchase, in London, a TfL issued photo Zip Card (the free travel Oyster card for those under 16, or under 20 in full time education) is often used as a form of Photo ID.

You don’t present photo ID here for job applications, or opening banking accounts, and most people never need to “cash” a cheque (I’ve personally never cashed a cheque), because bank transfers are fast (i.e. sub 1 second), free and secure. If you need to prove your identity for a bank or job application, it’s done via a slightly arcane mix of providing a proof of address (bank statement, utility bill etc), and some kind of vaguely official photo ID with your name.

Proving your identity in the UK is a slightly circular problem, as you often need to have some kind of proof of ID, to get a document that you can use to prove your identity, which often causes headaches for people who’ve recently immigrated here (natives will have something like a child bank account opened by their parents to provide that initial proof). But there are various escape hatches that break the circular dependency, although they’re not obvious.

Slightly increase the price/tax for that for single-family homes.

> Street sweeping?

Yes, at a limit, I'd choose not having clean streets over people not being able to afford using them, even by riding a bus.

> General road, pavement and cycle infrastructure maintenance?

I'd get rid of cycle infrastructure if it's more than a token percentage of said road-focused expenditures, because it's mostly the middle class that is using bicycles and, as such, money spent that way goes directly for the only benefit of said middle-classes. But, yes, I'd personally settle for roads with more holes if that means public transportation that doesn't cost 2000+ pounds per year, you can bet on that.

> Sports centres, libraries, schools?

Yes, I'd get rid of sports centers, libraries are, I guess, just a token expenditure.

> Social care for the young and elderly?

I guess this is where, in fact, most of the money goes, and this is where Britain is, to put it mildly, fucked up, because (going by your word) that expenditure mostly falls on the local administration. It shouldn't be that way, it should fall on the central government, but I guess that's a bigger political subject to tackle.

As a point of reference, I grew up in Eastern-Europe back in the '90s back when our roads were full of holes and social care had started to accumulate holes bigger than the Bermuda Triangle, but, amidst that destituteness, public transport (both inside the cities and connecting them) was still very affordable. In fact, if it hadn't been for that I wouldn't be writing this comment right here, it is because of those small prices that I could still afford to go to uni (yes, you could tell me that "we have procedures in places for just those cases!", but that's just layers of bureaucracy over layers of bureaucracy that just don't work when you need them the most, it's way easier to not need that bureaucracy in the first place).

Demanding that older people "downsize" is a policy, and not one that's very savoury.