Next time you are at a German airport, take a peek at Lufthansa's rapid check-in kiosks, which bear a close resemblance to cash machines. As well as allowing German frequent fliers to check in more speedily, the kiosks allow them to check in using their mobile phone.
The system, known as m-Barq, extends the internet electronic ticketing and check-in system Lufthansa introduced last year. They can now have their e-tickets delivered to their internet-enabled mobile phone. Instead of a number, travellers download a barcode, which they wave in front of the automated kiosk. After answering a few security questions, boarding cards are printed.
A new UK-based firm called Link77 has gone one better, however, and developed the world's first secure e-ticket system using text messaging as its medium. The company's Ticket Mobile system allows cinemas, promoters and club organisers to securely e-ticket events via mobile phones.
Text messaging was never designed for e-ticketing, but for more mundane advisory messages, such as details of local traffic jams.Therefore, no one thought to include features such as encryption and authentication in the original text messaging standards.
Link77 has side-stepped the fact that it is nearly impossible to ensure a text message is received by only one person, by including non-standard characters in the header and footer of a typical message transmission.
By including a "delta" (triangle) symbol in the header, when the text message reaches the users' mobile, it displays the symbol on the title page of the message. And, if the recipient tries to copy the e-ticket, the header data on the text message is lost, and the security symbol goes missing.
Simon Luttrell, Link77's founder, says this inability to forward complete e-tickets makes the system secure.
Luttrell recently left Psion. He sold Psion his first mobile internet company, Fonedata, for £1m before the dot.com crash. He admits the system could be compromised, but the value of the targeted market - around £10 for each ticket - makes such fraud uneconomic.
There are other checks, such as an encoded (and invisible) PIN in the footer of each e-ticket, which can be verified if the text message is sent back to base. The e-ticket master can check if the copy e-ticket has come from the right mobile. Luttrell has patented his brainchild and is negotiating licensing deals.
More immediately, however, text messaging can be used to track your investments, thanks to a link between two French compa nies, Alertim and MobileWay. Their service, PrimAlert, offers investors a global email, paging and text messaging alert service.
Alertim operates Boursealert, a French alerting company, which started two years ago, but Primalert is several steps ahead, since it ties in global brokerage services with global market alert facilities.
UK, German and Spanish mobile phone users can already use the Alertim service, with other networks coming onstream this year.
Subscribers input their requirements to the system, allowing them, for example, to be alerted if a stock hits a given price.
The Alertim.com main web portal also acts as a gateway to the world's online brokerages, allowing, for example, UK users to trade online in, say, French shares, with a French brokerage house, and receive alerts from the Alertim site on their stock prices. The company says 12 exchanges around the world are on the service.
Because the service is real-time, Alertim must pay for the information feeds from various exchanges. Subscribers buy blocks of 250 "e-points" at eight euros (£4.90) a pop. A monthly scan of a single stock costs 10 e-points (20p), with emails costing 20 e-points (40p), and text messages or paging alerts costing 30 e-points (60p) each.
Rieunier says the Alertim service compares the users' alert settings every 10 seconds with the relevant exchange and sends an alert within 60 seconds of a users' alert level being reached.
Links
Lufthansa
www.lufthansa.com
Link77
www.link77.com
Alertim
www.boursealert.fr
Mobileway
www.mobileway.com
Primalert
www.primalert.com
