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Dissolving your Oyster Card Fun Time.
Lave II
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
If you are a Londoner, then you'll know the oyster cards. If not, well it's a card used to magically wave yourself into, and out of the tube.
And I've dissolved my oyster card!
A guy called Chris Woebken came up with the idea. And it's awesome.
If you want to play along this is your shopping list:
1) ~ 400ml of Nail Varnish Remover - I bought 2 bottles of Boots own brand at 99p each. I could probably have got by with one.
2) An oyster card - I bought a prepay one for £3, though I got a funny look when I didn't want to top it up there and then.
3) A jar big enough to contain the oyster card</span> - I bought a jar of beetroot (urgh) for 72p.
Total Cost: £5.70
I've never used a webcam/youtube/imovie before so sorry for the quality. The smudge on the card that appears about half way in is from when I poked it with a pencil, and the paint on the pencil stripped off. It's best to keep checking the card, first it will get soft, then after about 90 mins it folded over and I was able to peel off the first layer of the card, exposing one side of the chip. Then I cut the centre of the card out with scissors (so there was less plastic for the acetone to work on). I put these pieces next to the jar, and I was quite suprisied when the time-lapse showed them wobbling about. Then after another half hour or so, the other side of the plastic loosened enough to peel that away exposing the intact chip and antenna.
Leaving me with this:
So tomorrow morning I'll attempt to use this naked oyster card to journey to work. If I'm successful I'll have to decide what my new oyster card will be. So far I'm thinking either stitching it into my watch, or wrapping it around a magic wand (though that might kill the signal). I'll look so swish making the doors open with my magic wand. Until they shoot me for acting like a terrorist.
And I've dissolved my oyster card!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2wojKc1F4YA guy called Chris Woebken came up with the idea. And it's awesome.
If you want to play along this is your shopping list:
1) ~ 400ml of Nail Varnish Remover - I bought 2 bottles of Boots own brand at 99p each. I could probably have got by with one.
2) An oyster card - I bought a prepay one for £3, though I got a funny look when I didn't want to top it up there and then.
3) A jar big enough to contain the oyster card</span> - I bought a jar of beetroot (urgh) for 72p.
Total Cost: £5.70
I've never used a webcam/youtube/imovie before so sorry for the quality. The smudge on the card that appears about half way in is from when I poked it with a pencil, and the paint on the pencil stripped off. It's best to keep checking the card, first it will get soft, then after about 90 mins it folded over and I was able to peel off the first layer of the card, exposing one side of the chip. Then I cut the centre of the card out with scissors (so there was less plastic for the acetone to work on). I put these pieces next to the jar, and I was quite suprisied when the time-lapse showed them wobbling about. Then after another half hour or so, the other side of the plastic loosened enough to peel that away exposing the intact chip and antenna.
Leaving me with this:
So tomorrow morning I'll attempt to use this naked oyster card to journey to work. If I'm successful I'll have to decide what my new oyster card will be. So far I'm thinking either stitching it into my watch, or wrapping it around a magic wand (though that might kill the signal). I'll look so swish making the doors open with my magic wand. Until they shoot me for acting like a terrorist.
Lave II on
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Of course, this isn't a good idea if you're being chased by SO19, but thems the breaks kid. Bullets also.
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
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Or gums, so to beep in I have to kiss the reader.
Also, you need to be thinking about how you're going to convince the guy at the ticket shop that your Iron Man do..er, Action Figure, is an Oyster Card. I've known them to get confused by simply sticking a one-day travelcard over the top in my card-holder and forgetting to remove it.
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
The Oyster Card is extremely easy to hack, and you don't need to disolve anything to get it to work. See here. So anyone who did want to do anything bad with an oyster card wouldn't do what I'm doing. They would leave their oyster card untampered.
Yeah they could pull me over and fine me for not having a 'valid' oyster card in their eyes but thats it. Anything else that happened would be a massive overreaction and then it's best it did happen so that hopefully the uk didn't spiral out into idiocy.
But I did make sure I documented everything I did on the web first so that I had evidence...
2009 is a year of Updates - one every Monday. Hopefully. xx
I'd throw the book at someone doing this, to teach everyone else a lesson. And whilst it's been a while since I've lived in london, I had to hand over my oyster card a few times during ticket inspections and when it failed to register an entrance/exit.
Hmm, I tihnk you should be okay. Just blag them that you've sewn it into your wallet but their scanner will work fine. And it will show up as a valid journey, so that's not an issue.
Throwing the book at someone for adapting his oyster card to make it more fun, and to learn about technology would seem a ridiculous waste of resources and time, and damaging to society.
If I fit my oyster card to my watch, so that I never forget it (as I often do, making me have to pay ridiculous paper ticket costs) I've done nothing wrong. And teaching me a lesson for it, quite frankly makes it a crime to be interested in things.
2009 is a year of Updates - one every Monday. Hopefully. xx
And I think tampering with the card is against it, and would probably result in it no longer being a valid card.
I hate "if you don't like the t&c just don't use it" arguments. They are ridiculous. It's a extreme and much more black and white (pun intended) comparison, but this woman shouldn't have used the bus if she wasn't happy with the t&c's.
I'm not doing anything morally wrong, though I'm well aware of how this can't be my proper oyster card. But I think this is both educational and worthy. And a brilliant way to get people interested in how the technology they use works.
2009 is a year of Updates - one every Monday. Hopefully. xx
Am I missing something? Why are you so anti-this, Rook?
There's actually nothing in the T&C's that says I can't do this, or that damaging your card invalidates it.
In could be argued that I'm just an extreme case of my friend who accidentally melted his. But kept on using it.
It's just a fun look at how technology works, I worry at how much our nation over reacts at stuff nowdays.
2009 is a year of Updates - one every Monday. Hopefully. xx
I should have probably pre-faced my thing with "If I was working for TfL, I'd throw the book at someone doing this, to teach everyone else a lesson" I was going to, but just forgot.
Personally, I just think the risk vs reward is a bit outta whack, and it's as simple as that.
Well, not really. I'm not up on my American history, but I assume the law was found to be unconstitutional which is how it got overturned. I'd be surprised if the Oyster T&Cs were in fact in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights and I think trying to make that comparison is a bit of an insult.
I'm pretty sure those aren't the full Oyster card terms and conditions, but even then
If we believe that your ticket or Oyster card (or your photocard) has been tampered with
we may withdraw it. If this happens, we will not replace it or give you a refund of the
remaining value.
I think at that point you're kinda travelling without a ticket. I mean either way, had you started this off with "I'm a devout muslim and I'm going to do this" I'm pretty sure several people would have cautioned against it, so I don't see why I should treat anyone else any differently.
Well, maybe. But I think of the things you should push back on, this probably isn't one of them.
Harmless fun must be punished?
But stuff doesn't get changed by a law man looking at a book and deciding the laws are unconstitutional, it gets changed by civil disobedience. Not that anything that I am doing is civil diobedience.
If they think it's been tampered with and take it off me, fair enough really.
I just think with all this talk of terrorism and fear that the appropriate reaction isn't to stop doing things incase they are interpreted badly, it's to keep doing them to show you are not scared. Before 7/7 no one would have particularly cared, so they shouldn't care now. The fact that I would be treated differently because I'm not a muslim is whats wrong not what I am doing. I shouldn't back off just because they would treat some one else differently.
I think RFID chips and the oyster network is a big privacy concern and needs to be considered carefully. As such raising awareness on what and how it works is only a good thing.
And besides IMO all it comes down to is that if I use it (and it's more of a novelty/backup than my main ticket) I'm paying with a damaged oyster card.
2009 is a year of Updates - one every Monday. Hopefully. xx
Or actually use glass, but that would be silly.
@Rook, yes, blahblah T&C, fines, jail sentences etc., who cares. Unlike certain other nations, the judges in this country aren't bred specifically to be Xtra-retarded and will usually give you the benefit of the doubt s
as long as you don't roll up to the court looking like a career lout/fare-dodger. Even if they do rule against you, for a first offence, you are more likely to be bound over (possibly for life tho.) than told to pay the £1000.
Also, when a ticket's validity is determined by the location of a number in a database, the shape of the ticket is irrelevant. I mean, I've seen numerous e-ticketing systems that rely on printed barcodes (see Royal Mail's new e-stamps) and almost all of them have the number printed next to the code in a human-readable format in case of damage so that manual entry can be used as a fall-back. Also the ones that use SMS to send the number to your mobile...as long as the number can be reliably retrieved, the "ticket" is still good.
Actually, that's it - stick the remnants inside the battery cover of your phone; it's rigid enough to prevent accidental destruction of some very fine wires and ubiquitous enough that no-one will look at you funny for having it.
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
If I was in charge of an organisation responsible for getting several million people through their commute daily and new how many delays were cause by the most inane and trivial things? Mostly, that your own personal amusement that day probably isn't more important than everyone else.
Yes, I'm sure holding up a magic wand to an oyster reader isn't about to do that, but travelling around with a microchip and a length of antenna on a system that has been regularly targetted by various people probably isn't the smartest idea anyone has ever come up with.
And if you've seen how much shit happens to a station and all the crap people go through when somebody accidentally drops some icing sugar (and I'm not kidding) then you'll begin to appreciate that small things can have big consequences.
I'm sure this will go fine and everyone will be happy. I also think there's a very miniscule chance it might not. And I don't think that chance, however small it might be, is worth it on this occasion given the reward of having a magic wand to wave at a barrier.
edit:
And I should add that terrorism etc isn't something that started on the 7/7th. London's been bombed by the IRA more than a fair few times.
Largely it started with 9/11, but that mostly didn't touch England, so our rights didn't start to be really abridged until after then.
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
If I lived in London I would do this.
The worst that I can see happening is one member of staff in a bad mood refusing to let you on the bus/tube, but even then, they would probably just try to confiscate it, and you would just have to buy a ticket there and then.
I see your point of view but I say that 'not being terrified that everything you are doing is going to be misconstrued as terrorism' is the only proper response to terrorism.
I'm also well aware that terrorism has been going on a lot longer than 7/7 but it seems that 9/11 and 7/7 seems to be the moment when we chucked our common sense out of the window when dealing with it.
I've not got these opinions lightly, I was here in London on 7/7 and I spent the day looking after my friend who was by the bus as it blew up. I saw the horror in his eyes. I understand the seriousness of it all. I've also had to deal with a man attacking a woman on tube (thankfully a much bigger man than me stopped him, whilst I ran and got a guard).
I understand the seriousness of the tube.
But I've also been on the tube during guy falkes night and seen countless people wandering around with enough fireworks to kill eveyone on there. No one cared. Relatedly I've also seen a hundred odd geeks hidden behind guy falkes masks use the tube together when protesting Scientology. No one cared.
So overall I do believe that putting an oyster card in a wand and going 'abracadabra' is more important than living in fear.
Yes I do.
2009 is a year of Updates - one every Monday. Hopefully. xx
I'm pretty sure london underground in particular has always been a bit hardcore on it's terrorism watch since long before then.
Yeah, I think all this grandstanding is as bad as the terrorism doom watch.
If Lave were so scared by terrorism that he would be convinced to not do this perfectly legal hack then the terrorism would have succeeded.
Not to the extent of putting armed officers with loaded MP5s into tube stations. And especially not to the extent of letting said officers wander around with the safeties off. Yes, I checked. That was unprecedented and frankly, totally uncalled-for.
And also, terrorism watching does not mean looking for slightly abnormal tickets. If anything, terrorists consistently use genuine, unmodified tickets as much as possible, in order to reduce the attention paid to them before the "main event."
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
So next time I see a suspicious package I should ignore it, knowing that reporting it would just be helping the terrorist cause? And I'm fairly sure that the arguement that doing A regardless of the consequences as it's more important than living in state B is roughly the same logic people use when A involves exploding things and B involves a godless society.
But morals aside, I was asked to justify why I think someone working for TfL might look harshly on this. I mean Lave's probably right that they are too busy worrying about the usual assortment of freaks to worry about anything else.
Secondly, we can send bat off an e-mail to TfL and ask them whether melting down your Oyster card to expose the bare inards is OK, but I think we both know what the answer to that is going to be. And Lave/Ben/You are probably right, that the worst that's going to happen is a slap on the wrist. 99.99% sure.
Do you seriously think there hasn't been armed officers on the tube before?
I'm genuinely shocked that this is your reply to the above. Wow.
This is about what actually looks like a threat. A backpack left alone could be. So they are right to warn you to do that. Very few people would disagree. The war on photographers however would be a thing that most people would agree is ridiculous. it's only inches away from "Muslims taking photos!? Call the Cops!"
And both situations are a million miles from geek uses magicians wand to open barrier.
And your final example, with all due respect is the most idiotic and ill thought out thing I have ever heard you say. I'm agast. I'm don't mean to insult you because you are one of my favourite posters. But come on.
They shot a man in the head 7 times for picking up a metro and walking on the tube. The correct response to that isn't to be as normal as possible to hope they don't get you next. It's not to live in fear either. Yes taking a wand on a tube might not be the most sensible thing ever from a pragmatic point of view, but it has nothing to do with terrorism.
I get this though.
EDIT: And once I've finished the project I'm planning on asking TFL to comment on it. Let them say what they think.
2009 is a year of Updates - one every Monday. Hopefully. xx
Lave II, in the midst of all the "DON'T DO THIS, YOU'LL GO TO JAIL" I may have missed the part where you reported back with your results.
Have you had chance to try it yet?
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
It works! Though I've yet to find a magic wand (or even a top hat/cape) for the final act.
This page on my blog collects everything together - with timelapse video and proof and everything.
2009 is a year of Updates - one every Monday. Hopefully. xx
Glove. Then you scream "FALCON...PUUUUNCH!" and punch where the magic doohickey is supposed to be waved.
Bonus points if you set your hand on fire first.
-Thread Tangent-
I'll think you find the logic is quite sound on that. I mean these people don't do this stuff because they're evil, they do it because they really believe it's that important and they believe what they're doing is right and that's how they justify it.
-/Thread Tangent-
I'm pretty sure since you're concealling what you did in an oyster wallet you know that what you did might look suspicious to people. I'm pretty sure doing things that people might find suspicious can sometimes have really bad consequences. Look at Lite Brite.
I'm pretty sure the quote actually reads
And people who miss out the essential Liberty in an attempt to justify their reasoning should really think about it a bit harder.
If you have the balls to magic wand a bus driver all dressed up, doubly so!
your line of thought goes with the mentality that "as long as you're doing nothing wrong, you don't have to worry". that's a horrid way of living, but more to the point, it's a horrific concession of a person's basic freedoms. yes, even something as minor as a simple card hack.
he's legally paying for his trips otherwise. if the LU admin has a problem with it, their regulations should be concise and to the point: no modification of the cards. but he shouldn't be afraid to do this out of fear of being harassed by the police.
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Indeed I agree with what I've bolded. But it has no releation to the fact that I might cause a minor cuffle on the tube.
A no point have I said that I'm going out of my way to cause a scene. I kept it in the wallet to keep it safe, but of corse I also did it to make it look less weird. I'm not trying to cause a ruckus. Obviously. Terrorism or not. Most of it came from the fact that I felt like a pillock filming myself using the tube.
[/quote]
Indeed it is but, like einstein quotes on God, thats misinterpreting his intention. He's referring to liberty as being essential. Not the subset of liberty which is essential. I missed the essential as I was reciting it from memory.
It's clear we have different opinions on this, and it would make for a good thread, but nevertheless, we are talking about slightly changing an oyster card. Even if Ben F agreed with you, which to my reading he does not, It's obvious that he would have thought this minor issue is not one of concern to liberty.
2009 is a year of Updates - one every Monday. Hopefully. xx
2009 is a year of Updates - one every Monday. Hopefully. xx