Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!decwrl!sun-barr!apple!motcsd!dms!albaugh
From: albaugh@dms.UUCP (Mike Albaugh)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: credit-card encoding (was Re: Wiegand wires?)
Message-ID: <1162@dms.UUCP>
Date: 2 Oct 90 15:19:31 GMT
References: <!0P%+$+@rpi.edu>
Organization: Atari Games Inc., Milpitas, CA
Lines: 37

From article <!0P%+$+@rpi.edu>, by wrf@mab.ecse.rpi.edu (Wm Randolph Franklin):
> In article <34388@cup.portal.com> mmm@cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson) writes:
>> [... the hot-iron duplicator hack ...]
> There was a  story  a year or two ago  about people  being convicted  of
> counterfeiting  BART  tickets.  How  could  this  be detected since  the
> individual tickets aren't serial numbered, are they?  What difference is
> there  between a  ticket that BART  added $10 to, and a  copy  of such a
> ticket?


	As I recall, the mag-stripe on a _real_ BART ticket has a
substantially higher Curie temperature than grut mag-tape. The hack
involved using a stripe of 1/4" reel-to-reel tape, which was glued to
an old ticket (or piece of paper) _after_ being "ironed". These hacks
are quite detectable by _sight_, if the station agent happens to be
suspicious. There may have been folks who managed to "iron" directly from
one ticket to another, but I never heard of any.

	Note also that the iron technique would tend to produce "spread-out"
patterns which may get "corrected" by the fare-gate reader, but could
still show up on the more complex widget the station-agent uses to, for
example, verify damaged tickets.

	Even if the counterfeiters had substantially higher-tech gear than
the average hacker, it is hard to make money faking something worth $20
max, unless you _sell_ it. It is quite possible the arrests were made
as a result of "normal police procedure", e.g. following up on street-talk.

	Of course, _I_ never had anything to do with this stuff and don't
know anybody who did.

					Mike

| Mike Albaugh (albaugh@dms.UUCP || {...decwrl!pyramid!}weitek!dms!albaugh)
| Atari Games Corp (Arcade Games, no relation to the makers of the ST)
| 675 Sycamore Dr. Milpitas, CA 95035		voice: (408)434-1709
| The opinions expressed are my own (Boy, are they ever)