looks like modern day Frank Abagnale Jr. to me. Only thing is it has a lot of moving parts. I think more maintenance and power issues. Hope they work out the case when the machine fails in middle of operation. People will break this add on in that case.
Hacker serving 5-year sentence invents ATM add-on to prevent theft
21–30 of 53 posts
Re: Hacker serving 5-year sentence invents ATM add-on to prevent theft
#22I'm sorry, but don't smart cards completely obviate the skimmer issue? Aren't they widely used in Canada and Europe? I'm not terribly knowledgeable in this area, but I thought this was a solved problem being held up by corporate interest in the US.
The smart card I have requires only a PIN, and that PIN can be intercepted by suitable hardware can it not?
Isn't the whole point of the "smart" that the card is difficult to replicate and must be present?
Re: Hacker serving 5-year sentence invents ATM add-on to prevent theft
#23It's a nice idea (inserting the card widthways), but it's completely over-engineered. It's never going to be used as a retro-fit - it looks too much like a skimmer. In fact, if they became commonplace, it would make fitting skimmers that look like this device so much easier than trying to hide a skimmer in a discrete housing.
Instead, allowing the card to be inserted widthways, and pulling it into the ATM as normal, then within the ATM read the card either by moving it sideways into a normal card reader (so that the card moves left, rather than forward), or more likely, a reader where the head moves across the magstripe as the card is held in place.
Anyway, as has been pointed out by another poster, chip-and-pin makes magstripes effectively obsolete, I imagine the magstripe is only included for backwards compatibility.
Re: Hacker serving 5-year sentence invents ATM add-on to prevent theft
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
The smart card I have requires only a PIN, and that PIN can be intercepted by suitable hardware can it not?
Isn't the whole point of the "smart" that the card is difficult to replicate and must be present?
Yes that's true, I was thinking of the case where we assume the card is stolen.
Re: Hacker serving 5-year sentence invents ATM add-on to prevent theft
#25Can someone change the title. It should be "Criminal serving 5-year sentence puts white hat on and invent ATM theft prevention device".
Re: Hacker serving 5-year sentence invents ATM add-on to prevent theft
#26I don't know if the design is effective... what prevents anyone from installing a skimmer on/within this device?
Current skimmers need a horizontal swipe to read. This device requires the user to insert the card in the wrong orientation for the skimmer. The device holds onto the magnetic strip end of the card while it rotates, so it's not possible to skim after the device has performed the rotation. It's not clear how difficult or easy it is to make a skimmer that reads a card that is swiped vertically, though.
But, think about if a criminal duplicates the design and screws it to the front of existing / old machines? Most users will think that it's not a skimmer but the "secure" device.
Also: Place the skimmer to the LEFT most portion of the horizontal hole. The card is the rotated and pushed past the skimmer as it's inserted into the machine :)
Re: Hacker serving 5-year sentence invents ATM add-on to prevent theft
#27I'm sorry, but don't smart cards completely obviate the skimmer issue? Aren't they widely used in Canada and Europe? I'm not terribly knowledgeable in this area, but I thought this was a solved problem being held up by corporate interest in the US.
Yes, in Europe Chip-and-PIN cards are the norm - the card has an embedded microchip which the reader communicates with electronically. But they still have the magstripe as well, for backwards compatibility.
Re: Hacker serving 5-year sentence invents ATM add-on to prevent theft
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
The smart card I have requires only a PIN, and that PIN can be intercepted by suitable hardware can it not?
I've heard of pinhole cameras being used in card skimming operations where PIN numbers are required.
That doesn't do anything for a chip and pin card. You need the chip too.
Re: Hacker serving 5-year sentence invents ATM add-on to prevent theft
#29Nice innovation. Being a convicted hacker myself and serving time in a federal camp, I give him credit for wanting to make amends, that is definitely an awesome motivation...not buying the part about being happy about being caught (forced intervention), since I know from experience and people I've met. I understand being liberated, starting your consequence (the nickel sentence), and feeling hope of change when your…
Thanks for the post, I was wondering how someone else having been through similar circumstances would have felt about someone being 'happy' to be caught.
All said, it probably gets him a similar recognition from ATM mfg'rs & business people as an advanced degree, no? Couldn't a certain type of mind see an arrest like this as a badge of honor or starting sales platform to build a career in security?
That's an honest question. Arrest records seem to be a death sentence in so many professional industries, and the 'reformed hacker' professional seems to be a real identity for some professionals. How hard was it to find work after your run-in?
Re: Hacker serving 5-year sentence invents ATM add-on to prevent theft
#30Like other readers have said, the real step forward in this area would be chip and pin. That raises a potentially more interesting question though, how do you transfer a country the size of the US from swiping to the chip and pin?
Even here in the UK, where absolutely everywhere that uses a card is using the chip, a bank can't ditch the magnetic strip because then suddenly they're the only bank where you can't use your credit card abroad.
Would ATMs that read the chip without actually taking the card in the whole way work to obsolete these skimmers? (The chip is always at one end of it, so why does the rest of the card need to enter the machine?)