On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:47:53 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote:


On 16 Sep, 21:25, MIG wrote:

On Sep 16, 8:05*pm, Mizter T wrote:

On 16 Sep, 18:13, MIG wrote:

(snip)

But can you still get travelcards from shops that aren't dated till
they've been through a barrier? *Presumably one could buy them any
time, but you'd need to come to an understanding about the date
stamped on it.

The point you're making isn't exactly clear to me.

Well, if you wanted a travelcard to use the next day, it might work
barriers from when you first used it tomorrow (if that is how they
work) but if the shopkeeper stamped today's date on it, it wouldn't
pass a visual inspection on a bus tomorrow.


I thought that was the point you were making, but I wasn't entirely
clear of that.


To ask for it to be stamped with tomorrow's date would provide no
additional cheaty opportunities to what's always possible.

You could use it on the Underground and on buses today in the hope
no-one looks at the date and then use it tomorrow only on buses (where
the magnetic stripe isn't going to be read?).


Absolutely. I don't know what the rules are for TfL "Ticket Stops" -
i.e. how many days in advance they're allowed to sell the ticket - but
my guess is that it is the same as the National Rail rules, i.e. 7
days in advance. I've only ever bought one for 'tomorrow', beyond that
I wouldn't bother in case plans change - but for a whole host of
scenarios I can certainly see why buying several days in advance might
come in handy.

On 17 Sep, 04:05, Charles Ellson wrote:

On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:47:53 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T

wrote:

On 16 Sep, 21:25, MIG wrote:

On Sep 16, 8:05*pm, Mizter T wrote:

On 16 Sep, 18:13, MIG wrote:

(snip)

But can you still get travelcards from shops that aren't dated till
they've been through a barrier? *Presumably one could buy them any
time, but you'd need to come to an understanding about the date
stamped on it.

The point you're making isn't exactly clear to me.

Well, if you wanted a travelcard to use the next day, it might work
barriers from when you first used it tomorrow (if that is how they
work) but if the shopkeeper stamped today's date on it, it wouldn't
pass a visual inspection on a bus tomorrow.

I thought that was the point you were making, but I wasn't entirely
clear of that.

To ask for it to be stamped with tomorrow's date would provide no
additional cheaty opportunities to what's always possible.

You could use it on the Underground and on buses today in the hope
no-one looks at the date and then use it tomorrow only on buses (where
the magnetic stripe isn't going to be read?).


Or variations thereof. Yes, I have thought this through and reached
similar conclusions - see my post upthread, though it may not be
immediately obvious as I was purposefully using somewhat opaque
language (though reading between the lines it quickly becomes
transparent).

As ever it's difficult to discuss the potential holes in ticketing
without also flagging them up to those who might wish to take
advantage.

On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:47:26 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote:


On 17 Sep, 04:05, Charles Ellson wrote:

On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:47:53 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T

wrote:

On 16 Sep, 21:25, MIG wrote:

On Sep 16, 8:05*pm, Mizter T wrote:

On 16 Sep, 18:13, MIG wrote:

(snip)

But can you still get travelcards from shops that aren't dated till
they've been through a barrier? *Presumably one could buy them any
time, but you'd need to come to an understanding about the date
stamped on it.

The point you're making isn't exactly clear to me.

Well, if you wanted a travelcard to use the next day, it might work
barriers from when you first used it tomorrow (if that is how they
work) but if the shopkeeper stamped today's date on it, it wouldn't
pass a visual inspection on a bus tomorrow.

I thought that was the point you were making, but I wasn't entirely
clear of that.

To ask for it to be stamped with tomorrow's date would provide no
additional cheaty opportunities to what's always possible.

You could use it on the Underground and on buses today in the hope
no-one looks at the date and then use it tomorrow only on buses (where
the magnetic stripe isn't going to be read?).


Or variations thereof. Yes, I have thought this through and reached
similar conclusions - see my post upthread, though it may not be
immediately obvious as I was purposefully using somewhat opaque
language (though reading between the lines it quickly becomes
transparent).

As ever it's difficult to discuss the potential holes in ticketing
without also flagging them up to those who might wish to take
advantage.

I doubt if that particular fiddle is any secret.

On 17 Sep, 16:08, Charles Ellson wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:47:26 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T

(snip)

As ever it's difficult to discuss the potential holes in ticketing
without also flagging them up to those who might wish to take
advantage.

I doubt if that particular fiddle is any secret.


By its very nature it can't be a secret - as I said in a post
upthread, working this through is "hardly beyond the realm of most
peoples capacity for logical thought" - however I've never seen or
heard or read about it anywhere, and despite my earlier comment most
people don't spend a lot of time thinking about such things.

That said, any fiddle that relies upon this is fairly limited in its
scope, and what's more it is unknown whether there are any
countermeasures and if so what they are, e.g. if a ticket is pre-
encoded for use on a particular day of the week, or on an odd or an
even date etc etc.

On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 09:09:28 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote:


On 17 Sep, 16:08, Charles Ellson wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:47:26 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T

(snip)

As ever it's difficult to discuss the potential holes in ticketing
without also flagging them up to those who might wish to take
advantage.

I doubt if that particular fiddle is any secret.


By its very nature it can't be a secret - as I said in a post
upthread, working this through is "hardly beyond the realm of most
peoples capacity for logical thought" - however I've never seen or
heard or read about it anywhere, and despite my earlier comment most
people don't spend a lot of time thinking about such things.

That said, any fiddle that relies upon this is fairly limited in its
scope, and what's more it is unknown whether there are any
countermeasures and if so what they are, e.g. if a ticket is pre-
encoded for use on a particular day of the week, or on an odd or an
even date etc etc.

IMU it would have become encoded (in terms of applying a date) the
first time it passed through a ticket barrier at an Underground
station. AFAIAA bus inspectors only have Oyster card readers and Mk1
eyeballs so presumably a 1-day Travelcard would have to be taken to a
station unless someone has been specially armed with a magnetic card
reader.

On 17 Sep, 23:31, Charles Ellson wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 09:09:28 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T

wrote:

On 17 Sep, 16:08, Charles Ellson wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:47:26 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T

(snip)

As ever it's difficult to discuss the potential holes in ticketing
without also flagging them up to those who might wish to take
advantage.

I doubt if that particular fiddle is any secret.

By its very nature it can't be a secret - as I said in a post
upthread, working this through is "hardly beyond the realm of most
peoples capacity for logical thought" - however I've never seen or
heard or read about it anywhere, and despite my earlier comment most
people don't spend a lot of time thinking about such things.

That said, any fiddle that relies upon this is fairly limited in its
scope, and what's more it is unknown whether there are any
countermeasures and if so what they are, e.g. if a ticket is pre-
encoded for use on a particular day of the week, or on an odd or an
even date etc etc.

IMU it would have become encoded (in terms of applying a date) the
first time it passed through a ticket barrier at an Underground
station. AFAIAA bus inspectors only have Oyster card readers and Mk1
eyeballs so presumably a 1-day Travelcard would have to be taken to a
station unless someone has been specially armed with a magnetic card
reader.


Yes, I understand all that - I was pondering the notion that whilst
these tickets will not be encoded with a specific date, shopkeepers
might be issued with several batches of tickets - each batch being pre-
encoded so as only to be valid according to some criteria, for example
only on Mondays or only on even or odd dates - therefore the
shopkeeper would have to ensure that whatever ticket they sold to the
customer came from the appropriate batch.

Such a 'countermeasure' would mean that there would at least be an
element of uncertainty introduced over whether a ticket gate would
accept a particular ticket (unless of course the fiddler had worked
out how this scheme worked). Of course the advantages of any such
scheme must be offset against the (hardly unlikely) possibility that a
shopkeeper might get muddled up and issue the wrong ticket stock for a
particular day to a customer, which would mean that quite legitimate
passengers could get caught up in the web of suspicion.