[Mag-stripe readers]

I never really expected to still be working on this ten months later, but I finally have a working reader. An outrageously cheap Magtek reader came up on eBay, so I ended up buying instead of building. Over the next few days I'll be brushing up on my C++ to come up with something to make the output a little easier to analyze. I'm not ruling out building a reader as well, since six of the several dozen cards I'd stored up against the day when I had a functional reader seem to be in nonstandard formats, beyond the capabilities of the reader I bought. For those of you still working on similar projects, I found a quick reference on the relevant ISO standards;

http://www.cyberd.co.uk/support/technotes/isocards.htm

Thanks for all the input. I'll try to remember to report back on my future successes (or lack thereof).

[Mag-stripe readers]

So, what is everyone doing with their card readers? I mean cards that are interesting (hotel keycards, etc) use non-standard encoding.

Just curious.

Well, I've gotta say that most of the card readers that I've come across are more like $40-50. Worse than that when I started this thread, actually. I've also just been generally jazzed on the homebrew reader idea ever since Sephail gave his MetroCard talk at HOPE 6. Putting all that aside, the thing I really want to take a look at is the contents of drivers license stripes, although I've accumulated quite a few other cards that I'll be taking a look at when I lay hands on a reader, whether homebrew or manufactured.

[The server hosting Hak5.org and the Hak5 forums was hacked.]

Good job getting things back up and running so fast guys. Password (used only here) is changed, no big deal, life happens. How about an episode focusing on the attack methodology and the response/recovery and the steps taken to defend in the future? I know I'd be interested.

[Mag-stripe readers]

I wrote my own version of a magstripe .wav decoder, it only understands track 2 data (BCD), and is not the cleanest code (but its purpose is just a learning tool for me, so that's ok). RapidShare link: http://rapidshare.com/files/192690964/mag-20090201.zip.html

Thank you for including the source code. This could potentially be a big help once I track down a workable head.

[Creating my own personal Linux distribution for Penetration Testing and White-Hat Hacking]

It may be too late for a suggestion to make it into v1.0 by now, but I'll go ahead and throw mine in;

macchanger

[3D Printing/Rapid Prototyping]

I just tripped across this through my livejournal, and thought it was too cool not to share.

http://www.reprap.org/bin/view/Main/WebHome

The project is called Reprap. It's a plastic extrusion machine for creating 3 dimensional objects, but here's the perk; it can make most of (60%) its own parts, so you can run off additional copies. The criteria for the design required that all the other parts be easy to acquire in most places. I just wish I had the money and space to piece one together. Check it out! It's too cool for this kind of community to miss out on.

[netcat mods]

I don't know about Norton, but it certainly gave my copy of AVG fits. Too bad, since I've had the same problem with losing things from my USB key.

[Mag-stripe readers]

ok

the head which you used is wrong head

you need a head from mono walkman,some old model, or buy some new micro cassette recorder.

the head is a little smaller but if you be careful you can find the rigth position.

i am here ....

on this stage ...

if you get some data out please let me know ssleeper@ymail.com

P.S.

i think this link will help you

http://lekernel.net/scrapbook/cardreader.html

Thanks _sleeper_, that link was actually very helpful. It looks like I'll be rummaging through thrift stores for a while, looking for something with a suitable head. Using iron filings to get a visual fix on the location of the stripe was something that never would have occurred to me. I can think of an improvement for the design shown at that cardreader site, though. How about three read head, each at a one of the track positions? A three way switch would allow for quick, easy selection of which track to read.

[Mag-stripe readers]

Okay, time for me to confess to a facepalm moment; since I started this thread, I've taken another stab at compiling sephail's software. It turns out the reason I couldn't get it to go before had to do with the dependancy, libsnd-dev. I had tried to install it onto my Ubuntu box from command line. It turns out that Ubuntu has a package available called libsndfile1-dev, and once I found that through a package manager gui, dab.c and dmsb.c both compiled just fine. I can't report any successful reads just yet, but that may have to do with what I'm using for a read head. I've tried scavving a head out of one of those MP3 through a cassette deck adapters, but since it's intended to be a write head, my confidence in the idea isn't huge. Said confidence has also dwindled in the failure to read a damn thing from it, even trying with audacity to just record the info and process it through the software after the fact.

[hak5 guys gamer tags]

I == CrypticCoyote

[What was the best freebie you ever got for fixing or saying a computer is trash?]

I'll admit that Nophix has got me beat, but I did get given a $400 touch screen terminal in exchange for a lot of unofficial tech support at the old workplace. It was old and not very useful, but fun to poke at.

[What Consoles Do You Own? What Specs is your Gaming PC?]

Let's see... as for consoles;

PS1

PS2

PS3

PSP

Xb0x 360 Elite

NES

Super NES

N64

GameCube

Wii

DS Lite x 2

Sega Genesis

... I think that's all of them.

No gaming PC. I got tired of the expenses associated with a perpetual upgrade cycle.

[Ethernet device logging.]

Actually, this doesn't sound too different from the USB Hacksaw project. There we were using autorun to install a program that would grab everything off of subsequently inserted USB keys, but using the same idea with a different payload, installing a packet sniffer and sending out the captures... Well, unless I'm missing something it's not impossible, certainly.

[Mag-stripe readers]

why dont you just get an parallel to usb adapter?

Since acidus explicitly mentions not to try his game port version of the reader with a USB adapter, I have not great confidence in the parallel port version working that way.

[Docu - Hackers are People Too]

I know I'd love to see it, but the budget isn't there to buy it at the moment, and it's not available from Netflix. Maybe the Hak5 cast can give a little nudge to Netflix, since they're a sponsor and everything?

[Mag-stripe readers]

I've wrestled with this problem for a while. I'd like to build a mag-stripe reader for use on my PC. I know it's been done before, both by Acidus and Sephail, but neither of their projects is really workable for me. Acidus did some really clever stuff to get a reader to work through a game or parallel port, but those solutions aren't easily adapted to a world where the 'U' in USB is really starting to mean something. Sephail's method, running the input through the analog/digital converter already in his computer (aka the sound card) is probably easier to adapt to a newer computer, but the code he wrote depends on older, obsolete software on a linux box. I'm okay with linux, but not so good with it or coding that I can rewrite his software to work with Ubuntu 8.10. Anyone feel up to the challenge? I'd even like to see an episode to showcase the problem, if enough people share the interest.

[Need some ideas to mod hte laptop!]

How about something a little more functional? Run a U.FL to rp-sma pigtail from the secondary connection on the wifi card, drill the case to mount the connector. It makes for easy wardriving.