How I started a London City Boy craze…
August 6th, 2008
File this one under unforeseen consequences: today I opened the London Paper on my commute home, and came face-to-face with myself. Or rather, face-to-hand: as the London Paper had stills of my video on removing the RFID chip from an Oyster card. Apparently, I’m (partly) responsible for sparking the new ‘City Boy craze’ of extracting the chips from Oyster cards and putting them into expensive watches. The TFL cats are trotting out the same empty threats of fining people they catch with liberated chips, which is just stupid. Removing the plastic surrounding the chip is no different from taking the card out of its wallet.
I doubt there’s any substance to this story: Parliament is in recess so it’s the silly season with regard to news stories. And there’s no pictures of the supposed Oyster watches. The least they could have done was link to my video in the online piece, or give due credit to myself, Skeptobot, or Chris Woebken. Hell, if City Boys really want Oyster-enabled watches, I’d be glad to provide the service… at a price.
Entry Filed under: General
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3 Comments
1. BrendonH | August 7th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
The londonpaper story has to be false, because as any fule kno, City Boys congratulate themselves with £11 trillion bonuses and wouldn’t dare be seen amongst the pay as you go poor on the Underground, particularly as a champagne-fuelled helicopter would normally suffice.
2. Imran | August 7th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
A spokesperson said: “By travelling with a defaced Oyster card you risk a penalty fare as passengers need to produce a valid, intact ticket when requested.”
What year is this guy from? Surely the whole point of an oyster card is that the “valid, intact ticket” is entirely digital and stored on the chip? Bleh.
3. reef | August 7th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
If I was TfL, I’d be more concerned about this: Oyster card hack to be published
Perhaps they’re just bitter now and stuck in some sort of blame loop.
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