On 15/04/2008, Marghanita da Cruz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote: > > > On 15/04/2008, Martin Visser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > I understand your need to keep it vague, but if the data owner loses > > > his card/token/barcode (his copy of the data) and the motorbike rider > > > meets a grizzly end, is a whole village going to be very upset - or > > > will regular paper bookkeeping be trusted enough as a backup. > > > > > > > Nothing should be dependent upon a particular person, device or > > storage medium. The village might be serviced by different people with > > different laptops each time. There are lots of people fulfilling this > > function, each with his/her area to service. The data from all these > > people only comes together at the central office. The laptop should > > only really be storing the data it picks up on its travels, not > > carrying a repository of millions of account holders. > > This is becoming a little like a game of charades.
Sorry about that. I'm trying to get permission to release the details. > But is it only one > motorcycle borne reader/writer who accesses the card? There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of motorcycle-borne people, each servicing an area within their country (this is a global effort). We cannot assume that the same person, with the same hardware, will always visit a settlement. > As ERG and the NSW government have discovered the card and reader are not > the hard bit, but there might be some relevant information here. > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_card> or here > <http://www.erggroup.com/products/index.asp> It looks to me that the Octopus card still requires a connection back to a remote server somewhere to run the transaction. It's also geared more as an ID device rather than a data storage medium. We'd prefer to avoid proprietary hardware, and stick with commodity solutions as much as possible. Low cost and avoidance of lock-in are important. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
