Travelers planning to go home during the Lunar New Year holidays had trouble booking a high speed rail ticket online yesterday morning, as hackers tried to prevent buyers from logging onto the system.
The online ticketing system of the Taiwan High Speed Rail Co(THSRC) was activated at 12am yesterday for those scheduled to travel between Feb. 1 and Feb. 12.
The Lunar New Year holidays begin on Feb. 6, or Lunar New Year's Eve, and ends on Feb. 11.
PHOTO: LO PEI-DER, TAIPEI TIMES
However, interested buyers said they could not access the rail company's Web site.
THSRC spokesperson Ted Chia (賈先德) said yesterday that the firm's technical specialists later identified the problem as hackers attempting to block other requests, as some of the requests were sent simultaneously from the same Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.
"By sending multiple requests at a time, they [hackers] succeeded in barring others from making reservations online," he said. "But by blocking these IP addresses, our system was able to resume operation at 2am."
Chia said that as of 6am yesterday, a total of 60,977 tickets had been sold online. Passengers can pick up the tickets on the day they are scheduled to leave.
Some frustrated buyers who could not log onto the system during the night were forced to go to the high speed rail station early yesterday morning to buy pre-sale tickets.
A passenger told a television news reporter that he had been trying to log onto the system since 11:50pm on Friday.
"I kept trying until 2am, but it [the system] kept saying the server was busy," he said.
As of 5pm, a total of 140,671 tickets had been sold, including 122,091 sold online. Many trains still have empty seats.
Chia said that many passengers logged onto the system early because they wanted to purchase tickets for some of the more popular time slots, such as the evening of Feb. 5.
He suggested that passengers try different ticket-booking techniques. For example, if they could not buy tickets all the way from Taipei to Kaohsiung, they could try purchasing a ticket from Taipei to Chiayi first and another ticket from Chiayi to Kaohsiung, he said.
Chia also said the company plans to launch a voice-booking system this year, but declined to specify when it would start.
Meanwhile, the Taiwan Railway Administration had announced earlier that the public can start booking tickets for Lunar New Year holidays on Jan. 19.
A fourth public debate was held today about restarting the recently decommissioned Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant, ahead of a referendum on the controversial issue to be held in less than two weeks. A referendum on Aug. 23 is to ask voters if they agree that “the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant should continue operations upon approval by the competent authority and confirmation that there are no safety concerns.” Anyone over 18 years of age can vote in the referendum. The vote comes just three months after its final reactor shut down, officially making Taiwan nuclear-free. Taiwan People’s Party Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) represented
ENDORSING TAIWAN: Honduran presidential candidate Nasry Afura said that Honduras was ‘100 times better off’ when it was allied with Taipei The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday said it would explore the possibility of restoring diplomatic relations with Honduras based on the principle of maintaining national interests and dignity. The ministry made the remarks in response to reporters’ questions regarding an article titled: “Will Taiwan Regain a Diplomatic Ally?” published in The Diplomat on Saturday. The article said Honduras’ presidential election in November could offer Taiwan the chance to regain an ally, as multiple candidates have promoted re-establishing diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Honduras severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in March 2023 in favor of Beijing, but since switching its diplomatic recognition,
Scoot announced yesterday that starting in October, it would increase flights between Taipei and Japan’s Narita airport and Hokkaido, and between Singapore and Taipei. The low-cost airline, a subsidiary of Singapore Airlines, also said it would launch flights to Chiang Rai in Thailand, Okinawa and Tokyo’s Haneda airport between December and March next year. Flights between Singapore and Chiang Rai would begin on Jan. 1, with five flights per week operated by an Embraer E190-E2 aircraft, Scoot said. Flights between Singapore and Okinawa would begin on Dec. 15, with three flights per week operated by Airbus A320 aircraft, the airline said. Services between Singapore
‘ANGRY’: Forgetting the humiliations and sacrifices of ‘the people of the Republic of China’ experienced disqualified Lai from being president, Ma Ying-jeou said Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday criticized President William Lai (賴清德) over what he called “phrasing that downplayed Japan’s atrocities” against China during World War II. Ma made the remarks in a post on Facebook on the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. Ma said he was “angry and disappointed” that Lai described the anniversary as the end of World War II instead of a “victory in the war of resistance” — a reference to the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945). The eight-year war was a part of World War II, in which Japan and the other Axis
RSS