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If you’re going to screen visitors at a high security Canada 150 event, it’s probably not a good idea to give identically coded entry tickets to 25,000 people.
Last April, Veterans Affairs Canada hosted thousands of mostly Canadian visitors to Vimy 100 in France, marking the centennial of the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
Travellers got e-tickets in Canada with personal information such as their name, place of birth and date of birth. There was a bacode to be scanned for entry to Vimy.
But the week of the event, French authorities made everyone get new tickets. No reason was given to the public. Mostly the transition went smoothly, but it was a last-minute glitch for some.
Now a retired computer programmer from Alta Vista and his sharp-eyed brother think they have discovered what went wrong. Every entry ticket had the same barcode, and the same row of digits beneath the bars.
And the one-code-fits-all approach made it easier to create fake tickets, by copying the code.
It was David Godwin, of Vancouver, who first noticed the identical number, his brother Charles in Ottawa said. He’s not sure why his brother noticed.
They were planning to attend Vimy 100 with some school friends, and sure enough all the friends had the same barcodes too.
More checking by this newspaper shows this was not just mistake with one group. Former MP Ted Hsu of Kingston and his entire family had the same barcode.
It’s a system that works well for general admission events without reserved seating, but Charles Godwin said it lacks security because the bar code scanner cannot identify individuals. As well, he was able to rewrite the PDF of the original ticket, keeping the barcode but changing the name and other details, which would allow anyone to enter Vimy by presenting the ticket and a passport to gendarmes at the entrance.
“Adobe Acrobat handled it right away,” he said.
“The system was set up telling us we had to provide all kinds of personal information so, allegedly, we could be individually vetted for security reasons,” he said. “Now what rocket scientist would then generate 25,000 identical scan codes? That doesn’t make it very easy to revoke an individual ticket.”
Vimy 100 was a high-security event because of a number of high-ranking dignitaries including the president of France, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Governor-General David Johnston, and Princes Charles, William and Harry.
Veterans Affairs said earlier that “due to additional measures put in place at the request of the Government of France, all electronic tickets had to be re-issued for the event.” It did not give a further reason.
We have asked the department whether the lack of individual barcodes was the reason for recalling all the original tickets.
Veterans Affairs Minister Seamus O’Regan wouldn’t respond to questions about the tickets. A spokesman noted that he did an interview in mid-December about the Vimy 100 event, and that is enough.
At that time, this newspaper described the wave of complaints to the department from visitors who were crushed against metal barriers, left without adequate toilets or water in hot sun, and forced to wait for hours for shuttle buses after the even ended.
tspears@postmedia.com
twitter.com/TomSpears1
查看原文...
Last April, Veterans Affairs Canada hosted thousands of mostly Canadian visitors to Vimy 100 in France, marking the centennial of the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
Travellers got e-tickets in Canada with personal information such as their name, place of birth and date of birth. There was a bacode to be scanned for entry to Vimy.
But the week of the event, French authorities made everyone get new tickets. No reason was given to the public. Mostly the transition went smoothly, but it was a last-minute glitch for some.
Now a retired computer programmer from Alta Vista and his sharp-eyed brother think they have discovered what went wrong. Every entry ticket had the same barcode, and the same row of digits beneath the bars.
And the one-code-fits-all approach made it easier to create fake tickets, by copying the code.
It was David Godwin, of Vancouver, who first noticed the identical number, his brother Charles in Ottawa said. He’s not sure why his brother noticed.
They were planning to attend Vimy 100 with some school friends, and sure enough all the friends had the same barcodes too.
More checking by this newspaper shows this was not just mistake with one group. Former MP Ted Hsu of Kingston and his entire family had the same barcode.
It’s a system that works well for general admission events without reserved seating, but Charles Godwin said it lacks security because the bar code scanner cannot identify individuals. As well, he was able to rewrite the PDF of the original ticket, keeping the barcode but changing the name and other details, which would allow anyone to enter Vimy by presenting the ticket and a passport to gendarmes at the entrance.
“Adobe Acrobat handled it right away,” he said.
“The system was set up telling us we had to provide all kinds of personal information so, allegedly, we could be individually vetted for security reasons,” he said. “Now what rocket scientist would then generate 25,000 identical scan codes? That doesn’t make it very easy to revoke an individual ticket.”
Vimy 100 was a high-security event because of a number of high-ranking dignitaries including the president of France, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Governor-General David Johnston, and Princes Charles, William and Harry.
Veterans Affairs said earlier that “due to additional measures put in place at the request of the Government of France, all electronic tickets had to be re-issued for the event.” It did not give a further reason.
We have asked the department whether the lack of individual barcodes was the reason for recalling all the original tickets.
Veterans Affairs Minister Seamus O’Regan wouldn’t respond to questions about the tickets. A spokesman noted that he did an interview in mid-December about the Vimy 100 event, and that is enough.
At that time, this newspaper described the wave of complaints to the department from visitors who were crushed against metal barriers, left without adequate toilets or water in hot sun, and forced to wait for hours for shuttle buses after the even ended.
tspears@postmedia.com
twitter.com/TomSpears1
查看原文...
