Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Man uses Digital Audio Player to siphon cash from ATMs

While sniffing out ATM info has been used by tricksters criminals for years, a Manchester-based bloke was trafficking private bank information from various cards to illegally purchase goods -- with the help of DAPs, no less. Although your evil twin could manage to reprogram an ATM to disperse 300 percent more cash than it really should, this fellow secretly attached an (unsurprisingly anonymous) "MP3 player" to the backs of free-standing cash machines in "local bars, bingo halls, and bowling alleys." The device recorded the tones from transactions, which were then decoded and "turned into information used to clone new credit cards." The fellow learned his savvy computing skills from "a friend in Cambridge," and was oddly not caught jacking cash or throwing down on a new HDTV; rather, police caught on to his scheming when they located a counterfeit bank card in his vehicle during a routine traffic stop, which led them back to his presumably disclosing home. While we applaud the ingenuity, the motives are certainly below traditional moral standards, but this certainly isn't the first (nor the last) criminal offense involving DAPs.

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