SUBWAY - Random Thoughts Topic

[Bay Ridge Express]

42 minutes ago, Enjineer said:

Well, that method of payment is starting along the 4/5 in a few months...so...now, I guess? 

I also just realized that means we're no longer going to have funny videos of politicians trying to use a Metrocard that they've never even used in their life to look good. Goodbye Hillary... 😥

[Maxwell179]

I always wondered , would mta ever consider switching the  &  in Brooklyn ; like make the Q express and the B local

[Q23 via 108]

14 hours ago, Maxwell179 said:

I always wondered , would mta ever consider switching the  &  in Brooklyn ; like make the Q express and the B local

There's no need for that but if they were to do something like that, I'd rather have the  run up Brighton and the  up west end. But  won't do that. They would have to change the signs at all stations. And it's not like the equipment is going to change, so it really doesn't need to happen.

[Lawrence St]

How come the crosstown town was never abanonded since it was never used when Manhattan was the destination hub?

[N6 Limited]

If the was extended from South Ferry (or Rector St to dip down low enough to go under the river) to St George, how long would that ride be?  

[OIG119]

31 minutes ago, N6 Limited said:

If the was extended from South Ferry (or Rector St to dip down low enough to go under the river) to St George, how long would that ride be?  

Probably 20 minutes at most.

[Union Tpke]

Just now, OIG119 said:

Probably 20 minutes at most.

I would guess 10 minutes.

[Lawrence St]

47 minutes ago, OIG119 said:

Probably 20 minutes at most.

What they would do is have the branch off from the at Rector St, and then go to St. George.

[B35 via Church]

20 hours ago, Maxwell179 said:

I always wondered , would mta ever consider switching the  &  in Brooklyn ; like make the Q express and the B local

To what benefit?

1 hour ago, N6 Limited said:

If the was extended from South Ferry (or Rector St to dip down low enough to go under the river) to St George, how long would that ride be?  

Hmm... Well, a straight line track layout would have it crossing state lines the closer you get to SI...

IDK, to avoid having hypothetical 1 trains running to SI doing that, I believe a ride off sorts b/w St. George & Rector would take closer to 20 mins...

[Maxwell179]

8 hours ago, B35 via Church said:

To what benefit?

Hmm... Well, a straight line track layout would have it crossing state lines the closer you get to SI...

IDK, to avoid having hypothetical 1 trains running to SI doing that, I believe a ride off sorts b/w St. George & Rector would take closer to 20 mins...

no real benefit, I always just wondered like why not make the  a full express and make the  a full local since it goes local everywhere else but 6 Av

[MysteriousBtrain]

1 hour ago, Maxwell179 said:

no real benefit, I always just wondered like why not make the  a full express and make the  a full local since it goes local everywhere else but 6 Av

Because A. ridership does not warrant this service pattern and B. You cannot have the operate a "full route" while in this pattern because of constant G.O.s that forces lines to share tracks and cut headways, specifically on CPW. 

Edited February 18, 2019 by MysteriousBtrain

[Q Broadway Express]

1 hour ago, Maxwell179 said:

no real benefit, I always just wondered like why not make the  a full express and make the  a full local since it goes local everywhere else but 6 Av

Won't happen because the is a twenty-four hours train. Unless you have the run local at night.

[Maxwell179]

7 hours ago, MysteriousBtrain said:

Because A. ridership does not warrant this service pattern and B. You cannot have the operate a "full route" while in this pattern because of constant G.O.s that forces lines to share tracks and cut headways, specifically on CPW. 

 

You right

[RailRunRob]

21 hours ago, Union Tpke said:

I would guess 10 minutes.

Yep 7 to 10 minutes. 5.3 miles 

Edited February 18, 2019 by RailRunRob

[EphraimB]

On 2/16/2019 at 7:24 PM, Maxwell179 said:

I always wondered , would mta ever consider switching the  &  in Brooklyn ; like make the Q express and the B local

It would be a faster ride to Coney Island.

[RailRunRob]

10 hours ago, Q Broadway Express said:

Won't happen because the is a twenty-four hours train. Unless you have the run local at night.

That and how would that work with the terminal setup? The  Terminates at Brighton on the Local tracks? That's a lot of work to reverse. Your only saving 6-7 mins between local and express service from Prospect and BB.  It would take longer to reverse the train plus the possible disruptions to the  with switch operations.

[itmaybeokay]

On 2/15/2019 at 8:30 PM, AlgorithmOfTruth said:

many people with such a high level of education and skill aren't overly reliant on public transportation.

🤓 Stunning, then, the number of CS and EE faculty here on the train in the AM

On 2/15/2019 at 8:30 PM, AlgorithmOfTruth said:

Society is more technologically sophisticated than in it was in the past. Someone with a solid understanding of code and encryption could theoretically cheat the MTA out of fares. Multiply such an individual by thousands and now you have another form of fare evasion.

As someone with a reasonable understanding of code and encryption, also network topology and basic electrical engineering:
It's way harder than you think. Nearly impossible. The system is actually quite complex. 

The whole archetecture can be gleaned from this publically available Cubic co patent: 

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6595416.pdf

Both the turnstiles and the MVM are networked - but not in the way that we think about it today. 

Quote

Transit system turnstiles 240, fare card readers 242, and automatic vending machines 244 are also connected to the available serial ports of the communication expansion panel 236. 

Serial connections. Strictly point-to-point. All security is on the physical layer. No penetration without physical access. Not happening. You can't breach an MVM without opening the box, end of story. 

The metrocard itself? I won't link it but the format has been pretty thoroughly explored. It's not a standard magnetic stripe format, so you need to build hardware to read it. Basically, credit cards, and pretty much all other magnetic cards have "timing bits" encoded which are comparable to sprockets in film. The metrocard data is magnetically encoded onto three linear tracks which are read as they pass over a static head in the turnstyle, and as such, the time domain is a key parameter for decoding. Lacking the timing bits, the turnstyle actually has a rotary encoder opposite the head which reports the rate-of-swipe to the magnetic decoding system. 

Bear in mind, in the same swipe its being read, it's also being written. There are some check bits for which I am not sure if the algorithms of encoding have been derived - I'm not interested in looking either - but lets say hypothetically you could write the correct check bits and add money to a metrocard. You wouldn't get far - stunningly, they've thought of that. The area controllers talk to a central database periodically communicating card serial number, swipe index, and value remaining. That data is also written to the card. 

So yeah, theoretically: Lets say I have a card, swipe at a turnstile, and have $5 left on the card. I had copied the magnetic data off the card before swiping and now re-encode the card to it's pre-swipe state. I swipe it again, it says $5 left on the card still, whoo hoo! Except: Now it's been transmitted to the database that the card serial number has had the same swipe index transmitted twice, at two different times at two different locations. One of two things happens: 1) the next time you swipe the card, it encodes the balance the database expects 2) the card is simply blacklisted. Also if you're caught you'll be arrested. 

I guess you could try hacking the central database, but now we're talking felony computer crime for free fares - and nobody outside the agency even knows if that database is connected to the internet. 

Considering the fact that there's no way to add value to a metrocard online - I bet it isn't even networked outside of the private fare collection network. 

TL;DR even mr robot still evades fares the old fashioned way. 

[QM1to6Ave]

1 hour ago, itmaybeokay said:

🤓 Stunning, then, the number of CS and EE faculty here on the train in the AM

As someone with a reasonable understanding of code and encryption, also network topology and basic electrical engineering:
It's way harder than you think. Nearly impossible. The system is actually quite complex. 

The whole archetecture can be gleaned from this publically available Cubic co patent: 

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6595416.pdf

Both the turnstiles and the MVM are networked - but not in the way that we think about it today. 

Serial connections. Strictly point-to-point. All security is on the physical layer. No penetration without physical access. Not happening. You can't breach an MVM without opening the box, end of story. 

The metrocard itself? I won't link it but the format has been pretty thoroughly explored. It's not a standard magnetic stripe format, so you need to build hardware to read it. Basically, credit cards, and pretty much all other magnetic cards have "timing bits" encoded which are comparable to sprockets in film. The metrocard data is magnetically encoded onto three linear tracks which are read as they pass over a static head in the turnstyle, and as such, the time domain is a key parameter for decoding. Lacking the timing bits, the turnstyle actually has a rotary encoder opposite the head which reports the rate-of-swipe to the magnetic decoding system. 

Bear in mind, in the same swipe its being read, it's also being written. There are some check bits for which I am not sure if the algorithms of encoding have been derived - I'm not interested in looking either - but lets say hypothetically you could write the correct check bits and add money to a metrocard. You wouldn't get far - stunningly, they've thought of that. The area controllers talk to a central database periodically communicating card serial number, swipe index, and value remaining. That data is also written to the card. 

So yeah, theoretically: Lets say I have a card, swipe at a turnstile, and have $5 left on the card. I had copied the magnetic data off the card before swiping and now re-encode the card to it's pre-swipe state. I swipe it again, it says $5 left on the card still, whoo hoo! Except: Now it's been transmitted to the database that the card serial number has had the same swipe index transmitted twice, at two different times at two different locations. One of two things happens: 1) the next time you swipe the card, it encodes the balance the database expects 2) the card is simply blacklisted. Also if you're caught you'll be arrested. 

I guess you could try hacking the central database, but now we're talking felony computer crime for free fares - and nobody outside the agency even knows if that database is connected to the internet. 

Considering the fact that there's no way to add value to a metrocard online - I bet it isn't even networked outside of the private fare collection network. 

TL;DR even mr robot still evades fares the old fashioned way. 

With all that fancy-pants tech, how did those low-lives hanging out in the stations figure out how to bend the mag strip in such a way that it gives you free rides? I thought this problem was still an ongoing issue?

[Around the Horn]

5 minutes ago, QM1to6Ave said:

With all that fancy-pants tech, how did those low-lives hanging out in the stations figure out how to bend the mag strip in such a way that it gives you free rides? I thought this problem was still an ongoing issue?

IIRC, the system lets you in if you swipe an unreadable card four times (or something along those lines; they've probably fixed that loophole by now) so the trick was simply bending the card so it was unreadable.

[QM1to6Ave]

11 minutes ago, Around the Horn said:

IIRC, the system lets you in if you swipe an unreadable card four times (or something along those lines; they've probably fixed that loophole by now) so the trick was simply bending the card so it was unreadable.

And yet I can swipe my legitimate card 100 times in a row and still get the "swipe again" message over and over smh

[Italianstallion]

On 2/17/2019 at 10:27 AM, Q23 via 108 said:

They would have to change the signs at all stations. 

This is the least important reason against such a change. Many, many route changes have occurred in the past few decades where all the signs at many stations have had to be changed. It's not that hard. They just decal them over with new signs.

[danielhg121]

N/b R32 at B60 St if anyone wants it

[VIP]

6 hours ago, danielhg121 said:

N/b R32 at B60 St if anyone wants it

Now nobody likes the R-32  Trains 😂

[TheNewYorkElevated]

20 minutes ago, VIP said:

Now nobody likes the R-32  Trains 😂

I caught one at 145th Street today. :l 

[N6 Limited]

23 minutes ago, VIP said:

Now nobody likes the R-32  Trains 😂

LOL R-179s only please