Haven't been keeping up with El Reg recently, so this story about a man who used an MP3 player to hack ATMs is via the Kitcat, and is doubly interesting:
Firstly, the guy used the player to record the tones being sent over the lines. I tend to avoid paying a few quid just to get out ten, but the times I've stood around such a machine and heard these tones, I've always wondered if it would be possible to record and decode them, even if just to see what number was being dialled. (I always figured it would go quiet, like a modem, after initial connection...) Alas, there are no further details in the article, so quite how the tones were intercepted remains a mystery currently.
Secondly, it notes that "Police uncovered the scam almost by accident when they stopped Parsons for making an illegal u-turn in a car in London". This is, I guess the way forward. Years ago, I used to read 2000AD, and I distinctly recall Judge Dredd, hard-nosed bastich that he is, pulling people over for.. well, anything - getting in his way, or whatever. A swift, centralised identication process meant that he could always justify his intervention with the phrase "everyone's guilty of something".
Judge Dredd, I believe, was always meant to be a satire on the US police force. As with good satire, it never fails to end up a prediction...
Firstly, the guy used the player to record the tones being sent over the lines. I tend to avoid paying a few quid just to get out ten, but the times I've stood around such a machine and heard these tones, I've always wondered if it would be possible to record and decode them, even if just to see what number was being dialled. (I always figured it would go quiet, like a modem, after initial connection...) Alas, there are no further details in the article, so quite how the tones were intercepted remains a mystery currently.
Secondly, it notes that "Police uncovered the scam almost by accident when they stopped Parsons for making an illegal u-turn in a car in London". This is, I guess the way forward. Years ago, I used to read 2000AD, and I distinctly recall Judge Dredd, hard-nosed bastich that he is, pulling people over for.. well, anything - getting in his way, or whatever. A swift, centralised identication process meant that he could always justify his intervention with the phrase "everyone's guilty of something".
Judge Dredd, I believe, was always meant to be a satire on the US police force. As with good satire, it never fails to end up a prediction...
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