Written by Spirtech on 09/02/2021 • Contact
I’m going to tell you Leslie’s story. It’s the first day of the month, Leslie wakes up. As usual, she is late. She tries to get ready quickly, gets out of the house and then runs to the subway. When she arrives at the metro station, she realizes that she needs to reload the season pass of her transport card. Unsurprisingly, there are huge lines at the vending machines.
However, Leslie remembers that she can reload her card with her phone. She quickly installs the transport app from the online store. 4G works well here, that’s why the download is very fast.
She doesn’t waste a minute and opens the freshly installed app. Leslie buys her season pass for the month, then she takes out her transport card and presents it to her phone. As if by magic, her card is reloaded! Next time, Leslie thinks that she will quietly reload her card from home, it's even better!
I know: you’re going to argue that magic does not exist, and you’re right... but Spirtech exists! At Spirtech, we know exactly how to set up a solution to load your card with your phone. We have a solution called CCM allowing a transport operator to easily implement this possibility with Android and iPhone, because there’s something for everyone. We have deployed our complementary RL HSM solution in several transit networks around the world. We are currently implementing it in Mexico City and in Belgium.
What’s cool at Spirtech is that we think about everything, even what you wouldn’t always think about, including security. We make security our priority. It would be a shame to see the money you put in your card being stolen by a nasty hacker. Let me show you the other side of the magic of card reloading, possible thanks to our amazing engineers.
Let's start from the beginning. There is a technology called NFC (Near Field Communication). It allows wireless communication at very short range. This technology allows the exchange of information between a terminal and a portable device.
In our current case, the portable device is a transport card. This device contains secret keys protecting what is allowed or not, depending on the ticket purchased. For example, Leslie is allowed to ride the metro for a month because she has loaded this month season pass.
The terminal can be a reloading terminal in a station, a validator on a bus, a tram, or allowing entry into the metro, a phone of an agents, a device of a controller, etc.
The terminal can thus have multiple forms. It can authenticate a card, read its contents and perform an action, such as validating the ticket, reloading the card, opening gates, etc.
As I mentioned above, it is essential to secure the entire transport ticketing system, namely portable device and terminals, in order to avoid hacking and theft. All equipments are therefore secured with smart cards thanks to an open ticketing standard called Calypso. This standard has been specifically designed for ticketing in the field of transportation and it’s one of Spirtech key expertise.
However, a phone is more vulnerable than other terminals and readers in the ticketing system. This is why our team of engineers has developed the CCM solution: a simple and reliable module able of securing the transactions carried out by your phone, thanks to a remote key management by the RL HSM server.
Written by Spirtech on 09/02/2021 • Contact
I’m going to tell you Leslie’s story. It’s the first day of the month, Leslie wakes up. As usual, she is late. She tries to get ready quickly, gets out of the house and then runs to the subway. When she arrives at the metro station, she realizes that she needs to reload the season pass of her transport card. Unsurprisingly, there are huge lines at the vending machines.
However, Leslie remembers that she can reload her card with her phone. She quickly installs the transport app from the online store. 4G works well here, that’s why the download is very fast.
She doesn’t waste a minute and opens the freshly installed app. Leslie buys her season pass for the month, then she takes out her transport card and presents it to her phone. As if by magic, her card is reloaded! Next time, Leslie thinks that she will quietly reload her card from home, it's even better!
I know: you’re going to argue that magic does not exist, and you’re right... but Spirtech exists! At Spirtech, we know exactly how to set up a solution to load your card with your phone. We have a solution called CCM allowing a transport operator to easily implement this possibility with Android and iPhone, because there’s something for everyone. We have deployed our complementary RL HSM solution in several transit networks around the world. We are currently implementing it in Mexico City and in Belgium.
What’s cool at Spirtech is that we think about everything, even what you wouldn’t always think about, including security. We make security our priority. It would be a shame to see the money you put in your card being stolen by a nasty hacker. Let me show you the other side of the magic of card reloading, possible thanks to our amazing engineers.
Let's start from the beginning. There is a technology called NFC (Near Field Communication). It allows wireless communication at very short range. This technology allows the exchange of information between a terminal and a portable device.
In our current case, the portable device is a transport card. This device contains secret keys protecting what is allowed or not, depending on the ticket purchased. For example, Leslie is allowed to ride the metro for a month because she has loaded this month season pass.
The terminal can be a reloading terminal in a station, a validator on a bus, a tram, or allowing entry into the metro, a phone of an agents, a device of a controller, etc.
The terminal can thus have multiple forms. It can authenticate a card, read its contents and perform an action, such as validating the ticket, reloading the card, opening gates, etc.
As I mentioned above, it is essential to secure the entire transport ticketing system, namely portable device and terminals, in order to avoid hacking and theft. All equipments are therefore secured with smart cards thanks to an open ticketing standard called Calypso. This standard has been specifically designed for ticketing in the field of transportation and it’s one of Spirtech key expertise.
However, a phone is more vulnerable than other terminals and readers in the ticketing system. This is why our team of engineers has developed the CCM solution: a simple and reliable module able of securing the transactions carried out by your phone, thanks to a remote key management by the RL HSM server.
