Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ukma!gatech!rebel!george
From: george@rebel.UUCP (George M. Sipe)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Magnetic encoding on cards.
Message-ID: <744@rebel.UUCP>
Date: 21 Jul 89 18:49:47 GMT
References: <2549NU013809@NDSUVM1> <4181@ima.ima.isc.com> <6688@athertn.Atherton.COM>
Reply-To: george@rebel.UUCP (George M. Sipe)
Organization: not yet
Lines: 15

In article <6688@athertn.Atherton.COM> jimb@athertn.UUCP (Jim Burke) writes:
>..........................................................  The pump
>must write to the card in order to erase the credit.  It seems like there
>is room for abuse for this system if card reader/recorder devices were
>readily available unless they used one heck-of-an encryption scheme on
>the cards.

The pump may just be reading a fixed ID from the card and passing that info
to a 'central' micro over in gas station HQ.  Not much different than a bar
code.

-- 
George M. Sipe,		       Phone: (404) 447-4731
537 Lakeshore Drive, Berkeley Lake, GA  30136-3035
UUCP: ...!{decvax,linus,rutgers}!gatech!rebel!george