Dutch boffins work on open sauce smart card
DUTCH BOFFINS at Radboud University in Nijmegen are
developing new privacy-protecting smart cards for public transport, using good
old open sauce.
Researchers of Radboud University in Nijmegen in the Netherlands managed to crack and clone London's Oyster travel card. They were able to take free rides on the Underground and even perpetrated a DDoS attack on a Tube gate.
Oyster card cloned
Dutch public transport cards (the 'ov chip card')
Dutch charity NLnet Foundation this week annouced it will give €150,000 to Radboud University to launch a open-source smart card software project which will run through 2010. The initiative is funded by private charity money to ensure that “there are technical guarantees for maintaining the privacy of passengers”. ®