Semestertickets ohne Überwachung - How I Reverse Engineered Your Public Transport App

Explore the technical process of reverse engineering German public transport apps to liberate digital tickets from proprietary surveillance systems. Learn how the speaker developed Zügli, an open-source solution that extracts Semestertickets (student transport passes) from tracking-heavy official apps and converts them into privacy-respecting PKPass format files. Discover the security vulnerabilities and anti-reverse-engineering measures found in various traffic association apps, understand why digital ticket barcodes remain valid regardless of display method, and examine the political and technical barriers that force students into proprietary walled garden ecosystems. Gain insights into the reverse engineering methodology used to bypass app restrictions, the legal and practical implications of ticket liberation, and how this work enables ticket access on devices outside Google and Apple's ecosystems while eliminating unwanted tracking and advertising.