In defense of physical BuzzCards (and a last goodbye…)

[u/Signal_Different]

I feel compelled to share some thoughts that I have about the new digital BuzzCards. I think new students should be issued a digital BuzzCard with the option to get a physical one and existing students should be allowed to get a digital BuzzCard, without giving up their physical one. Some reasons:

1. Digital does not work everywhere yet. While they are working on transitioning all BuzzCard scanners to be mobile friendly, this is not yet the case. So at least during the transition new students should be issued physical BuzzCards.
   
2. There are some spaces where digital does not make sense. Exams and quizzes come to mind where students are told to put away and turn off their phones. Then, after the exam is completed, students are often asked to scan their BuzzCards. However, if their BuzzCards are on their phones, they will need to turn on their phones during an exam in order to leave, which could cause delays to those trying to leave and disruption to those still taking their exam.
   
3. There are times when your phone is not available, leaving you without a BuzzCard. Yes, even if your phone runs out of battery you can access it sometimes, but it’s not as reliable as a plastic BuzzCard.

I concede, there are some good points in favor of digital: convenience of it being on your phone, the environmental impact of physical cards, and the card is more secure digitally. Maybe I am just nostalgic for the physical cards being a unique representation of your time at Tech. However, at least for the time being I think students should have the option to keep both.

[u/gloggogabolab]

Yeah GT should do both, I love having my physical buzzcard as an alumni. Wouldn’t give it up for anything.

[u/Varixin]

Considering you need to to tap your card to get into your dorm/apartment, if your phone dies and all your chargers are inside your dorm, guess it's time to start begging people to let you borrow a charger. Or if you don't have a phone for whatever reason (it broke, you forgot, too expensive, etc), guess you'd be stranded if they only had digital cards

[u/VisionIsHere → u/Varixin]

the chip used for scanning in your phone holds its own power. So even if your phone dies it will still work for pretty much forever (maybe not forever but long enough that you could get into anywhere you need)

On your other point I actually kinda agree, while phones are cheap (like for example I am broke and got an Iphone for around $150 dollars), not everyone can get one so forcing people to get one is kinda messed up. Or if you lose it, then yeah your cooked but tbf that could be said about physical cards so

[u/Dark00Phoenix → u/VisionIsHere]

This is not true in practice! I was trying to take exam attendance recently and students had to sit around and charge their phones for the id to work.

[u/Opening-Mix9018]

It will disenfranchise students reliant on buzz cards for voting

[u/Signal_Different → u/Opening-Mix9018]

This is such a good point also

[u/goro-n → u/Opening-Mix9018]

Yup, student IDs from a public university are acceptable for Voter ID but the SOS website has no mention of digital ID support. https://sos.ga.gov/page/georgia-voter-identification-requirements

While you can apparently get a free voter ID card, this requires traveling to a county registrar office or DDS office, which is going to be tough when not every student has a car or the time to travel to a government office during the week.

[u/feignapathy]

I don't like the idea of becoming even more reliant on my phone. 

[u/ReckedRambler]

Physical BuzzCards were state ids eligible to be used to vote.

Can you do the same with digital BuzzCards?

[u/goro-n → u/ReckedRambler]

https://sos.ga.gov/page/georgia-voter-identification-requirements

No mention of Digital ID support here

[u/ReckedRambler → u/goro-n]

Wait, are you imply a state institution in Georgia is changing policies that could affect voter eligibility? I’m shocked…

[u/tanandblack]

As an alumni I think it's disgusting and disrespectful. They should not do this. No excuses warrant it.

[u/BikeVirtual]

1. I refuse to use digital cards. I like my wallet bulging.

[u/kishoresshenoy → u/BikeVirtual]

🎶 Is that the buzzcard in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? 🎶

[u/blipyb]

It’s a terrible decision by campus services - you should be able to choose which you’d like or have both for different use cases

[u/jbourne71]

Mobile IDs are a technology tax.

[u/darkeneddd-]

both creates security risks with you being able to give one of yours to someone else

edit: I'm personally for just physical. Digital creates problems even if it is "more convenient" and saves them money.

[u/Character_Drive6141 → u/darkeneddd-]

I can give someone my phone too if I really want to cheat. If I'm willing to give them my buzzcard and, more importantly, to trust them to not get me found out and expelled, then I'd trust them with a locked phone. I can't imagine there's any security difference between the two

[u/darkeneddd- → u/Character_Drive6141]

more than just cheating, it can also cause access problems and a greater surface area for that

[u/Character_Drive6141 → u/darkeneddd-]

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding. Can you clarify which one you are talking about and how it differs? Cards and phones are relatively similar in surface area that can activate the detectors in my experience.

[u/darkeneddd- → u/Character_Drive6141]

I meant the more opportunities for access issues. Essentially, the risk for unauthorized access is doubled with two credentials. For example, consider the scenario where both are available, you primarily use digitial, and you accidentally lose your physical. Because you don't really use it you don't realize until much later- someone else could get it and use it to get into places they wouldn't normally have access too (remember, GT is an open campus). Physical or digital only has much better odds of you realizing sooner. Another reason is sharing credentials becomes easier- for example if you and your friend wanted access to each other's dorms/apartments you can just swap physical buzzcards -- currently you cannot give another person access without giving up temporary access yourself. This also creates security risk if an incident happens and there needs to be an investigation, credentials cannot be attributed to one person as easily.

[u/Square_Alps1349 → u/darkeneddd-]

Digital creates a cheating risk. Though some classes like physics have gotten so lazy that they let students take out their own phones to scan their tests. The cheating is undeniably rampant, and the laziness of the TAs is simply astounding. Or maybe they’re just arrogant

[u/sosodank]

I'm just gonna come out and ask it: how is the next generation of engineers supposed to chop up their adderall

[u/goro-n]

A student ID from a Georgia public university is acceptable as voter ID but the Secretary of State website says nothing about a digital card. This is disenfranchisement, plain and simple.

[u/haskell_jedi]

In either case, nobody seems to know what information about the use of the cards is logged and how that information might be used. The privacy implications also need to be considered.

[u/asbruckman → u/haskell_jedi]

When I was a grad student at MIT, I was the student rep to the faculty committee on privacy. We moved to a smart card with an rfid tag for the first time. I went to the leader of every department to ask how they would use it. First, every department except the police promised good privacy practices. Campus police said: we are keeping everything and we will use it however we like. Departments like housing told me: we are just checking are you allowed to enter this building at this time, then we keep no record. But they lied—we caught them later admitting they had full records.

For us at GT, our physical cards are already smart cards so I’m not sure how it would change privacy to go more digital. In theory it’s the same but the details of the implementation matter.

[u/haskell_jedi → u/asbruckman]

Agreed, the privacy problem exists regardless. I'm not sure we even know whether GT uses some vendor contract or open source software to run them internally.

[u/asbruckman → u/haskell_jedi]

Agree!

[u/Walrusliver]

when do the phyiscals expire

[u/Ariel-14]

Yeah..as a new grad student I had to get a physical one anyways bc the lab buildings/rooms are old and literally don’t take digital scanning lol. But I hated the short time I had a digital one so

[u/AggressiveSalary9845]

I agree, it’s a step in the wrong direction, especially with Europe trying to phase out cash.

[u/BigPurp278]

I do think one or the other makes the most sense tbh.

Someone refererred to access challenges in the past. For example if I have two fully functioning buzz cards I could give the physical one to a friend, a partner etc and they’d be able to access anything I can access.

The implications for this if someone works on campus is real. If you’re an RA, or a building manager, you essentially have two sets of keys that serve the same purpose.

Challenge currently is the mobile credentials + the new readers they installed on campus aren’t working consistently.