These are the types of things that keep me worrying about self driving cars and if an entire system can be hacked to do the opposite of avoiding obstacles by malicious forces.
How I hacked modern vending machines
71–80 of 90 posts
Re: How I hacked modern vending machines
#72Val Kilmer did the same thing to a coffee vending machine in the movie Real Genius . Instead of using Android, he used a freezer and a small hacksaw to section off coin-sized slugs from a frozen rod. Have to give the points to Kilmer’s character because in addition to doing it first, his crime left almost no trail and didn’t come with felony exposure (most juries would not believe ice slugs are counterfeiting) Making…
>I know FBI agents happy to bring charges for matters this trivial.
Just curious, what does one need to do in order to network with FBI agents and have them divulge what they're willing to charge people with?
Re: How I hacked modern vending machines
#73Val Kilmer did the same thing to a coffee vending machine in the movie Real Genius . Instead of using Android, he used a freezer and a small hacksaw to section off coin-sized slugs from a frozen rod. Have to give the points to Kilmer’s character because in addition to doing it first, his crime left almost no trail and didn’t come with felony exposure (most juries would not believe ice slugs are counterfeiting) Making…
>I know FBI agents happy to bring charges for matters this trivial. Just curious, what does one need to do in order to network with FBI agents and have them divulge what they're willing to charge people with?
Work in corporate security or law enforcement.
Re: How I hacked modern vending machines
#74Much simpler hardware hacking: slightly bend the control panel and/or the door with a small lever (a coin might be sufficient). On some models, opening the door starts the "admin mode" where you can control each spire, do tests, change prices etc. The sensor for door opening can be fooled by the slight bend, hence allowing you to take whatever you want.
Perhaps if the vending machine isn't in a public space / covered by CCTV etc. This approach just makes the "hacker" look like a normal user to the casual observer.
I can assure you this hack looks casual: you do it in groups of two and it seems to anyone standing 2m away just as if one is leaning on the machine.
Re: How I hacked modern vending machines
#75On the one hand it's interesting to see the machines get hacked. On the other hand I love living in a country where the machines generally don't get hacked or vandalized because it means we get to have the convenience of more machines.
My favorite vending machine moment in college occurred when the person stocking the soda vending machine forgot to lock it. We all enjoyed free soda and, most impressively IMHO, no one took advantage and tried to take all of the soda from themselves. People just treated it like a refrigerator and would grab a soda when they were so inclined.
Re: How I hacked modern vending machines
#76Curious how the disclosure was handled here. Was it responsible? I can easily see a black market of accounts popping up at this university. It takes a long time to develop hardware stuff, and a month is probably not reasonable to expect changes to be made.
Re: How I hacked modern vending machines
#77Re: How I hacked modern vending machines
#78Most of these systems are inherently insecure. Tbh, I cannot think of a simple way to make this really secure that doesn't require a somewhat more sophisticated system, especially if you don't want the machine to stop working if network connectivity drops, or servers of the vendor are down. If you come up with a really robust system, you're probably gonna charge quite a bit more than the company offering this system, and I'm pretty sure most customers just don't care or take this seriously.
The other point is that often times these machines that support an app get set up in companies for their employees, where you can be reasonably sure that everyone will play by the rules. We have a coffee machine at work that uses RFID tokens to handle credit with no security or encryption, and it works, even though we're all IT folks. A university with a CS department and its respective students is a different story though. :-)
Re: How I hacked modern vending machines
#79Val Kilmer did the same thing to a coffee vending machine in the movie Real Genius . Instead of using Android, he used a freezer and a small hacksaw to section off coin-sized slugs from a frozen rod. Have to give the points to Kilmer’s character because in addition to doing it first, his crime left almost no trail and didn’t come with felony exposure (most juries would not believe ice slugs are counterfeiting) Making…
>I know FBI agents happy to bring charges for matters this trivial. Just curious, what does one need to do in order to network with FBI agents and have them divulge what they're willing to charge people with?
Be very unlucky. Then the networking happens against your will.
The divulging comes in the form of an indictment, or, if you decide your integrity is not for sale and you turn down a plea offer, multiple days of hearings, trial, and sentencing.
Re: How I hacked modern vending machines
#80This reminds me of how in the '90s my university gave out smartcard student IDs that had a little cash account on them for vending machines and dorm laundry rooms. They installed readers into the soda machines, and they put a central panel in each laundry room with a reader and a keypad for you to indicate which washing machine you wanted to activate. We found out that the vending machine hardware would query the car…
Real-world race condition! In the same period I remember the copiers in my college library would debit their magstripe cards about 1-2 seconds after the 'copy' button was pressed. A frugal / amoral user could easily eject the card, reinsert, copy the next page, eject, reinsert...