[Gllug] Oyster cards vulnerable?

[Nix]

On 26 Jan 2008, Tethys told this:

> --------
>
> Bruce Richardson writes:
>
>>Is your regular station just full of the brain-damaged?  I just don't
>>see this happening.
>
> Perhaps. But then you'd have to include me in that category. Which may
> be true, of course, but that's another discussion entirely :-)

The way to fix *that* is not to wave the card *over* the reader. Slap it
face-down on the reader and it triggers instantly. (I keep mine in the
plastic sleeve that came with my WAGN-as-was season ticket.)

> Nope. I actually have few objections to them on technical grounds, so
> it would be hard to project those onto anything. I'm merely saying that
> my personal experience, and by direct observation, that of many others
> as well, is that there's a noticable delay between slapping the card
> on the reader and having it validate. There used to be no perceivable
> delay with paper tickets.

What? The thing has to suck the ticket in and spit it out. That takes a
couple of seconds *minimum*, and that's if it doesn't get put in upside
down or randomly fail three times in a row or swallow the ticket or
jam. (Mind you, jam-and-shred is a much rarer failure mode than it used
to be: these days it's pass-through-and-shred instead.)

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