Big changes to magicbands?!

[CaptainAmerica]

At least for FastPass+, it would be great if there was some sort of Group Leader setting where up to so many people can be scanned at once from a single piece of media. Previously one person could hand a small stack of FastPasses to the Cast Member and proceed.

I don't think that would work logistically. If the whole family has Fastpasses for Splash Mountain but Dad and Joey are ready to ride while Mom and Crissy finish up their ice cream and intend to ride ten minutes later, you can't scan Dad's band and deduct the entire party of four. Even more complicated is if the family members have different FP+ itineraries.

 

[ford91exploder]

One problem I see this solving is the "Please be sure you are touching the MICKY EARS to the reader" thing... I hear this again and again both waiting in line to get into the parks and waiting in line at fast pass stations. People just hold their wrists up to the reader and it doesn't register... Of course, this could probably also be solved by making the ears less subtle on existing bands and adding signage to better address it but this way, they can sell people more options go to with their band faces, too, I guess.

Yet the KTTW RFID cards work perfectly every time without the asinine 'Mickey to Mickey' alignment issues, So why do we have this expensive band thing which does not work as well as cheaper alternative????

 

[yedliW]

The only other issue I could see with phones/watches is battery life.. Still, you could have a RFID card in your wallet as a backup, maybe.

Another issue would be on the water rides.. do you want to take your phone on Splash or Kali (without a waterproof container of some sort)?

People seem to forget you actually want the devices to have a limited lifecycle to a large degree.

The means selling more stuff, and it means the install base will not be perpetual... You don't want to limit tomorrow's features because of 5yr old devices you have to support that are 3generations behind.

Dying devices that are replaced means less old stuff that customers want to use...

It also forces people to the newer tech.. which makes the system more efficient if they don't have to account for older versions.. I used to work for a large wireless carrier, you would be surprised how many people still had analog phones when we were ready (and allowed to by the FCC) to turn off the old network to use the spectrum on more digital bandwidth.

The question I have is how big is it? It is tough to tell scale from the photo on the post.

 

[imkrazy182]

Yet the KTTW RFID cards work perfectly every time without the asinine 'Mickey to Mickey' alignment issues, So why do we have this expensive band thing which does not work as well as cheaper alternative????

They size of the antenna could be the issue. In the card it is large, the whole card to be exact. But with the band, it is much smaller. Like 1/10th the size, or even smaller. It has to be very close to the center of the touch point.

If you wireless charge your phone, think how you must place it right in the center, a little off could mean no charge.

 

[G00fyDad]

I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to this part of IT, but I have a question. Maybe this has been answered (forgive me if it has) but why doesn't Disney just assign you a lifetime identifier and just program your band to your identifier for each band sent out? Wouldn't that solve the server/capacity issues?

 

[ford91exploder]

They size of the antenna could be the issue. In the card it is large, the whole card to be exact. But with the band, it is much smaller. Like 1/10th the size, or even smaller. It has to be very close to the center of the touch point.

If you wireless charge your phone, think how you must place it right in the center, a little off could mean no charge.

Let's just say Maxwell's equations rule much of my day and I'm familiar with both the theory and practice of antenna systems. Disney's problems are simply poor design of the MB system because as you point out the aperture in a KTTW card is far greater than in a MB that could have been compensated for with a bit more power to the exciters on the mickey heads.

 

[Rob562]

I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to this part of IT, but I have a question. Maybe this has been answered (forgive me if it has) but why doesn't Disney just assign you a lifetime identifier and just program your band to your identifier for each band sent out? Wouldn't that solve the server/capacity issues?

Because people lose things. You need to be able to identify a specific Band by serial number to be able to deactivate it.

There's also the matter of selling MagicBands in the parks. You need a serial number that can be linked to any person at all.
As far as I know, the serial number is encoded onto the Band during manufacture and has no way to be re-assigned afterward. If you wanted to encode a person's specific ID number onto the Band at time of sale you'd have to have a MagicBand making machine in-park.

-Rob

 

[G00fyDad]

Because people lose things. You need to be able to identify a specific Band by serial number to be able to deactivate it.

There's also the matter of selling MagicBands in the parks. You need a serial number that can be linked to any person at all.
As far as I know, the serial number is encoded onto the Band during manufacture and has no way to be re-assigned afterward. If you wanted to encode a person's specific ID number onto the Band at time of sale you'd have to have a MagicBand making machine in-park.

-Rob

Thanks for the answer. I was thinking they would have something more mobile to wirelessly connect to the Magic Band and add or change information. But maybe that would take an entire extra add-on to the infrastructure of the system.

 

[flynnibus]

If the ID were configurable... you open yourself to having devices cloned and hacked. Instead you have a hardware defined ID that can simply be mapped to a user.
By having the User->ID mapping only in the Disney back-end, you have a more secure system.

 

[bhg469]

If the ID were configurable... you open yourself to having devices cloned and hacked. Instead you have a hardware defined ID that can simply be mapped to a user.
By having the User->ID mapping only in the Disney back-end, you have a more secure system.

Yup, if you scan the band at home you basically see the number that is printed on the band itself. Being able to spoof that would be a huge issue since its not difficult to scan someone's magic band.

 

[danlb_2000]

I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to this part of IT, but I have a question. Maybe this has been answered (forgive me if it has) but why doesn't Disney just assign you a lifetime identifier and just program your band to your identifier for each band sent out? Wouldn't that solve the server/capacity issues?

I am not sure if I buy the capacity issues, if they do exist then that is a database design issue not an issue with to many bands. Even if they have a couple 100 million bands in circulation, that not a lot of records by today's standards.

 

[G00fyDad]

I am not sure if I buy the capacity issues, if they do exist then that is a database design issue not an issue with to many bands. Even if they have a couple 100 million bands in circulation, that not a lot of records by today's standards.

That's what I was thinking but Disney has never lied to us before...

Spoiler: Ahem....

 

[aaronml]

Yup, if you scan the band at home you basically see the number that is printed on the band itself. Being able to spoof that would be a huge issue since its not difficult to scan someone's magic band.

There are multiple IDs on each band. What you are able to scan at home is the "Public ID". There is a separate encrypted ID on each band called the "Secure ID" that is used for payments, etc. AFAIK that is much harder to clone.

 

[ioa792]

All I want is Apple Watch/Apple Wallet functionality for my pass. If Walgreens can have their rewards card work through iPhone NFC I should have my Disney pass there too.

 

[bhg469]

All I want is Apple Watch/Apple Wallet functionality for my pass. If Walgreens can have their rewards card work through iPhone NFC I should have my Disney pass there too.

As long as it is just for sales. Once it is at the turnstiles it will be a cluster of idiots. They will have to have twice the staff to help people through the automated entry.

 

[Brad Bishop]

It's pretty amazing how many people don't quite get how RFID works and will sit there and hold their magic bands against the reader. Once it flashes white, it's read your band - you can stick your finger down. Don't need to wait for everything to finish swirling.

 

[WhatJaneSays]

Yup, if you scan the band at home you basically see the number that is printed on the band itself. Being able to spoof that would be a huge issue since its not difficult to scan someone's magic band.

You can spoof a MB already with the right scanner and an appropriately programmable chip-set.

I won't say the specifics but "pseudo-spoofing" of your own MB to new MB is easily enough done for admission purposes. Again I won't describe the process but I saw a test it on a friends AP to allow another person admission at nearly the same time (the second person had an AP at the time as well which they used to enter the park less than 5 minutes after the test). When it worked they were immediately like "Ok that is a MAJOR flaw in the system" and the guys wrote an email exposing the issue and got a very nice response. I heard they tried again a few months ago and ... it still worked ... so I guess it's not that big of a concern.

 

[V_L_Raptor]

The current bands can already do that sort of tracking if they so desired to use it.

What would be the radius for the new antennas, vs. those in the current bands?

 

[WDWdream97]

I said this before and I will say it again. Can they please just make it so that you can use an Apple Watch as a MagicBand?

 

[Gringrinngghost]

There are multiple IDs on each band. What you are able to scan at home is the "Public ID". There is a separate encrypted ID on each band called the "Secure ID" that is used for payments, etc. AFAIK that is much harder to clone.

You can spoof a MB already with the right scanner and an appropriately programmable chip-set.

I won't say the specifics but "pseudo-spoofing" of your own MB to new MB is easily enough done for admission purposes. Again I won't describe the process but I saw a test it on a friends AP to allow another person admission at nearly the same time (the second person had an AP at the time as well which they used to enter the park less than 5 minutes after the test). When it worked they were immediately like "Ok that is a MAJOR flaw in the system" and the guys wrote an email exposing the issue and got a very nice response. I heard they tried again a few months ago and ... it still worked ... so I guess it's not that big of a concern.

You can't actually clone a MB, you would need to break the master key which is AES-256. You can only read so far for these bands. I'm also sure that they have certain device IDs enabled that can preform handshakes.

I said this before and I will say it again. Can they please just make it so that you can use an Apple Watch as a MagicBand?

Their plans are to bring them over to phones which in theory bring them over to Apple Watches