[Koala] was worried his pseudo smart card trick wouldn’t be considered a HackaDay worthy. We’re more worried the internet police will find this article and have us all tarred and feathered.
Jokes aside, it seems Laundromat owners sure aren’t learning. Long story short, using a Bus Pirate and a few techniques we’ve seen before for smart card hacking [Koala] is able to write whatever amount he needs onto his pseudo smart card; thus giving him a free load of laundry.
This is why challenge/response systems like DST40 exist..good luck with that one..
So this “smart” system uses a standard SPI EEPROM with the part number printed on it and writes the remaining amount in clear text without even so much as a checksum?
You know, it’s also wrong to steal cars but if I regularly left mine in the parking lot with the doors unlocked and the engine running I wouldn’t be real surprised to find it gone one day.
Hacking these “secure” systems is a form of peer review for the manufacturers who should be aware of the phrase “physical access = root access. There are a lot of other hacks on this websites that could easily fall under the scrutiny of the ethics police (the jet powered motorcycle would appear to be a candidate) if the website’s core purpose was to discuss angels and their navels that is…