A Young Gentleman'S Primer On The Reading And Emulation Of Magnetic Cards (Break It!)

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Presented at ShmooCon 2006 by

Abend

Magnetic cards have been in the wild for years. In that time, there has been lots of talk about how to read them, but most of the information on how to duplicate them has been limited to "Magnetic card writers are too expensive for you." The goal of this presentation is to give an overview of magnetic card technology, demonstrate a way to deceive a card reader into thinking it just saw a card, and demonstrate a cheap card duplicator. The presentation will cover what magnetic cards do, how they are read and written. No prior knowledge of magnetic card data is assumed. The presentation will start with the basics of card manufacture, move on to how the data is formatted and encoded, demonstrate reading the data by both analog and digital methods, and then demonstrate methods for emulating and duplicating cards. Abend's mild-mannered alter ego is a software developer for EMC. When he's not at work, he's torturing electronic devices with hot (soldering) irons to make them do things they shouldn't. He learned software engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and electronics everywhere else. Abend presented on magnetic card (in)security to the WPI ACM SIGSEC, and got some attention from the campus police. He also breathes fire.