[shittyanalogy]

Do you honestly think that hundreds of machines capable of authorizing simultaneous credit card transactions and synchronizing mag stripe cards against a central service all receive a price update through direct manual access?

[fcbrooklyn]

I live in NYC. It wouldn't surprise me if these machines require direct access for an update, however these machines are serviced >all the time<. Apart from anything else, they need to collect the cash from the ones that accept it, so it's likely that on a given day you'll see a couple of armed MTA employees with a machine open messing with it.

[a_c_s]

Remember this system was rolled out in 1993, meaning any hardware/software combo started development before that. So the question is: do I believe it likely that a system developed before the internet became widespread has an archaic, non-networked way of handling software updates?

My answer is yes.

(Though for the sake of whomever maintains the system I'd certainly hope to be wrong about this! Either way, an update to all of these machines is likely not the trivial change the author presumes it to be.)

[LammyL]

I would expect this change to be easier than you say. If they increase fares, I am pretty sure they are able to set the new fares overnight on all their machines and not have a delayed rollout schedule. Imagine the chaos of they couldn't.

[Guvante]

Twenty year old machines? I would certainly believe it.

Also you would want to test every machine that gets the update in either case, so you need some kind of tech to touch every machine.

[snowwrestler]

Maybe they can be fully updated remotely. But let's think about this...is that really such a good idea? Can we trust subway card machine software to be fully secure against malware and remote exploits?

Maybe it's better if the network interactions of these sorts of machines are strictly limited to operational transactions. Maybe it's better if it does takes a human being with a key, guarded by a cop with a gun, to update this software.

[iquantny]

I was going to ask that as well. Thanks!