ATM card skimming happening right in NYC
Previously on C.S.I… a man found an actual card skimmer in the wild, in the flesh. Today, Gizmodo reader Sean became the card skimmer/PIN camera’s latest almost-victim. Where? Chase Bank in Manhattan, East Village.
Sean Seibel was inside a local Chase bank where he inserted his ATM card into one of two side-by-side automatic teller machines. When the machine told him it could not read his card, it took him a bit of jiggling to get his card back. He tried it a couple more times and got the same results. Before trying the other machine, he inspected the slot of the current ATM he was using and realized that it had a false plastic cover attached to the slot. The amazing thing about the cover was that the translucent green plastic matched the card reader slot perfectly, meaning that it was made specifically for Chase ATMs. After snapping a few photos with his iPhone, he alerted the branch manager and explained what happened.
As he was leaving, Seibel remembered reading about card skimmers having small cameras in the proximity in order to read PIN pad activity, so naturally, he went back to the ATM to inspect, which is where he found an extra mirror attached to the vandalized machine that the other ATMs didn’t have. Drilled into the mirror was a tiny pinhole with a camera inside, directed at the PIN pad. Seibel alerted the branch manager again and asked Chase why they hadn’t inspected the ATM after he had warned them the first time. Chase honestly replied that they hadn’t thought of it because they had never encountered that sort of thing before.
From the crazy amounts of feedback we received last night after we posted the first story, it seems that card skimmers are a common crime everywhere from Thailand to Mexico. But actually hearing about it happening to our very own readers here in America makes us want to help get the word out. Seibel says it best: "Take this as a warning and please inspect every ATM machine you use, no matter how secure you think the environment is."
See the full article at Gizmodo.
Teens Capture Amazing Shots 20 Miles from Earth's Surface With a Balloon
Using a $77 Nikon Coolpix and a $60 latex balloon filled with helium, a team of teenage students captured these remarkable shots from 20 miles above the Earth’s surface.
Radio-synced to Google Earth, the team tracked the package as it soared 885 feet per minute into the sky, taking shots on a periodic timer. The balloon eventually failed around 100,000 before the system parachuted to the ground.
See more pictures and the full article at Gizmodo.
Casinos are warned about card-counting iPhone app
- Image via Wikipedia
Nevada gambling regulators have warned casinos in the state about a card-counting program that works on Apple Inc.‘s iPhone and iPod Touch that illegally helps players beat the house in blackjack.
Card counting itself is not illegal under Nevada gambling laws, but it is considered a felony to use devices to help count cards.
The Nevada Gaming Control Board sent a memo to casinos last week warning them of the program.
See the full article at Yahoo! News.
How to hack those programmable road signs
Ever wanted to put your own message on one of those portable road signs along the highway? Well now you can with just a little tampering and a whole lot of illegal!
Million Dollar Border Security Machines Fooled with Ten Cent Tape
So much for biometrics and immigration security: A South Korean woman managed to fool a million-dollar fingerprint reading machine in Japanese border controls using a simple piece of tape stuck to her fingers. It happened at Tokyo airport. The woman has repeatedly entered Japan using the same trick without anybody noticing. Japanese officials say that they suspect many others have been doing the same things, demonstrating that the biometric systems they installed in 30 airports in 2007—to the tune of $45 million—are completely useless. The woman was deported in July 2007 for illegally staying in Japan as a bar hostess in Nagano, but she entered again with the system, using the tape and a fake passport allegedly provided by a South Korean broker.
