• (nodebb)

    It’s not like anybody wants to use a website to buy things

    This seems unutterably quaint today in 2025. Well, quite frankly, it seemed unutterably quaint when this was first posted back in 2017, and it has only gotten more unutterably quainter since then.

  • Registered (unregistered)

    So then Rachel wrote an app to intercept the printout and routed it to a robotic arm that punched the information into a kiosk keyboard. Problem solved without a $2000 expenditure.

  • Darren (unregistered) in reply to Registered
    Comment held for moderation.
  • (nodebb)

    Displaying and manually entering credit card numbers is not PCI compliant. So not only is this system inefficient, it's probably illegal.

  • (nodebb) in reply to Barry Margolin

    Not exactly illegal, but certainly a violation of the PCI DSS (contract law, not criminal law). One call would get the bus company banned from taking payment cards until they fixed their system. The right documentation could have given Virgil some very unpleasant days.

  • PedanticRobot (unregistered)

    I'm with Virgil, I also would have balked at paying some vender 2 grand a month. Then again I'd have to foot the bill out of my own pocket instead of throwing other people's (ie tax payer) money around willy nilly. If we had more people like Virgil, maybe the internet wouldn't be the greedy corporate hellscape it is today.

  • (nodebb) in reply to PedanticRobot

    If we had more people like Virgil, maybe the internet wouldn't be the greedy corporate hellscape it is today.

    That's as may be, but given the "solution" (which probably cost the bus company more than $2000 a month in salary and associated costs(1)), there would be a whole hell of a lot more leaks of credit card numbers and similar.

    (1) To say nothing of the strong possibility of reputational damage and sanctions from PCI-DSS and further reputational damage from the sanctions.

  • Paul Clapham (unregistered)

    The bus in your photo belongs to my home city, Vancouver, Canada, where we have been able to tap our credit cards for payment since 2010.

    Nice story though.

  • AzureDiamond (unregistered)
    Comment held for moderation.
  • Dave Aronson (github)

    Never mind having the robotic arm punch in the data, have it punch Virgil.

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