It is not easy being a fair business runner anymore. You want to make sure that your services reach all the people who are in need of it the most. To make it happen you not only have to build a robust system, you also have to make sure that your system is not being used in the wrong way. Indian Railways which caters to thousands of people every day is also taking steps in order to thwart the malpractice of its services.
You may not be able to reserve seats using Virtual Private Service anymore
According to sources, train ticket bookings, particularly Tatkal or premium Tatkal category, may not be possible if users are using Virtual Private Server (VPS) for reservations.
This step has been suggested after continuous monitoring undertaken to detect the usage of illegal software for buying online tickets. The ministry has found that the majority of touts are using VPS for masking Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to book rail tickets. This has made it difficult to track their original locations.
To take of this matter ministry of railways has suggested the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) block traffic coming through VPS’ especially from a particular web service, which pins Mumbai as the default IP address location, to prevent touting activities.
Other suggestions for thwarting the malpractice
The Ministry of Railways has also suggested implementation of better algorithms to enforce Captchas (response test used to determine whether the user is human or not), disabling of copy and paste option on IRCTC’s webpage for stopping auto-filling of one-time password (OTP), and restricting time window to fill passengers’ details are other recommendations to upgrade the portal sent this earlier week.
“Regular passengers/ agents don’t use VPS for booking. Hence blocking the traffic coming from VPS’s can restrict the most touting activities…Even developers are trying to integrate captcha solvers into automation software. Hence it is requested to implement better algorithms to enforce captchas for effective working,” the suggestion note explained.
It should be noted that ticket bookings by illegal agents or touts have been a major issue for a long and the ministry keeps taking measures to prevent such activities, which lead to financial losses too. The Railway Protection Force (RFP) regularly conducts a drive to look into the issue of malpractice, said an official aware about the matters.
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