Someone took the Myki a while ago!

David Heath
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 18:44

Your IT - Home IT

Myki is a carcass.  All we’re waiting for is the medical examiner to ‘pronounce,’ and the undertaker to drag it away.

Starting from the top, the rodents are carefully disembarking the sinking bus / train / tram.  The head of TTA (Vivian Miners) has gone; Christopher Niall, who was managing the delivery phase of the project has gone; Solution Architect Duncan Bryce, in the “transition phase” of his employment, is also about to leave.

Probably very smart people!  Both in their positions and in their timing.

The Geelong trial late last year was pretty-much a disaster, according to press reports.  The cards worked but the back-end couldn’t cope with an implementation on a single bus.  I hear there will be a second trial later this year.  Not bad for a project that was supposed to be fully implemented by the middle of last year!

As part of the roll-out, public transport patrons are expected to use both the old (Metcard) and the new (Myki) systems in parallel – how on earth will that work?  Will travellers be forced to pay double?  Will one of the systems (probably Metcard) suddenly be free?  Who knows.

But, lets get to the real problem – the cards themselves.

In my previous piece I outlined some of the possible usage problems with Myki and in an addendum noted that the security of the card (Mifare Classic) had been broken.  Well, now it’s not just theoretically broken, there is confirmation that the encryption of the card can be cracked in just 12 seconds.  This means that duplicate cards are trivial to construct.  And impossible to detect, despite what the London Oystercard authorities claim (in the link).

NXP Semiconductors, a subsidiary of Phillips and developers of the Mifare Classic have announced an AES-encrypted version called Mifare Plus – available in sufficient quantities for pilot projects late this year, with a supposedly easy upgrade path from the existing Mifare Classic.  Right… just upgrade all the reader hardware… and charge customers a LOT more to purchase the blank card.  That will work!

Dear Mr. Brumby (Premier of Victoria), if Myki was a horse, if would have both hind legs broken and a run-away jockey; its time to put a bullet through its head.  Either that or keep flogging a dying one.  You choose.