Don’t they need power memory or etc??
In: Engineering
The amount of electrical power needed to read a magnetic stripe and store maybe at most a few kilobytes of data for a few hours/days isn’t that great. If the skimmer is designed to fit over an existing reader, it may be possible to disguise a small batter and a few electronics in some fairly creative ways.
Many years ago I case a case with some skimmers. The skimmer itself went over the card reading entry to the vestibule where the atm was. Then, at the atm itself they had a small camera looking down on the keypad. They had a guy outside keeping track of who was matched to what.
Then, with that data they punch out a duplicate card and go to town. Then they used the new cards on those smaller units that didn’t have their own cameras.
They had a group guys doing it here, and a second group in Montreal. If they had just traded their fake cards, they never would have been convicted. Logistically those trials are complicated. Flying cops from Vancouver to Montreal, and witnesses from Zmobtreal to Vancouver…,
We got him. He got deported to Romania.
Yes, they need power, have a CPU, and need memory. But the amount of power required for small electronic devices is tiny.
Think Pocket Calculator or Digital Watch (still a pretty neat idea). They run on one or two button cells for months or years, and ATM skimmers are just small electronic devices. The skimmer might only be in place for a few days, so a button cell will be more than sufficient.
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