Back to School if I sell my soul

[large_ghostman]

I can go back to School starting next! Yay. On one condition
I promise I will cease to sell or otherwise conduct a business on School premises and I sign some paper that effect.

I am actually starting to like a full time tutor at home, but it has seriously dented my income!
I miss some of my friends, but I skype and email some of them.
They emailed dad telling of there kind offer to have me back, I asked dad to send back a counter offer , I go back without signing any paper but in return I solve the mystery of the vending machine stock not matching there figures

I am a bit surprised they havnt worked it out yet themselves, we have had no end of letters home and assemblies on it, things have got so bad that when you use a school vending machine there is a book by the side you fill in, basically you just put your School number and items you got.

The problem is the machines work off your School card that you use instead of money, you top it up online or at the office or canteen till. When you next use the card to access a door for class or whatever it updates the card with your balance, we dont have a register as such, when we enter School you swipe your card on the way in, it tells them the time you arrived etc and updates your card. The problem they have is the machine stock dosnt agree with the money they have taken, but you cant steal from the machine so they assume a bug somewhere.
Its a nice system but one small flaw, can you guess the problem?

 

[JimB]

The person who fills the vending machine is on the fiddle?

JimB

 

[tvtech]

LOL...

You are on a roll LG. Nice system..but you already have figured out the problem. Care to share

I am an older bugger like your DAD..and my brain just shut down for no reason. I hate it when that happens

All the best,
tvtech

 

[large_ghostman]

Although the cards are smart chip there is a problem, the system is cheap! They use the mag strip instead of the chip, when you swipe the card in the machine it simply reads the amount you have on the card then deducts the price of whatever you buy. When you swipe to enter the main building then it reads all sectors on the card to get your pupil number and update the card if needed with a new amount or whatever, when you swipe the card in the machine it dosnt read the pupil number as there is no point and because that is against data protection. The machines are not connected to any computers or anything so pointless reading pupil number.
What you can buy at School from 2 people so far, is a blank card with no pupil number but with £10 of cash on it for £5. They just have to use any normal standard magnetic reader to read the card and put the amount on.
No I dont sell the cards, yes I have mag reader and yes I have tried adding £1 to my card as a test, but I did also delete £1 after.
I did however offer advice and a ebay link to someone at School that was interested in magnetic smart cards, and I did of course charge for my time . The person I helped isnt the one selling cards though.
What is daft is the fact that they could easily encrypt the cards with a micro add on for each machine, it could do the encryption and decryption and just pass the plain data in TCP/IP or RS232 inside the machine simples. I doubt they will do that though. Making the cards secure without a major overhaul of the vending machine isnt hard and as luck would have it I already have a pic 18f1320 ready to demonstrate .
If there nice to me I will also tell them why the registration system dosnt work properly. But I dont think they will go with my offer

 

[4pyros]

Go figure they go to cards only to prevent theft and the kids now steal with the cards and cant be caught because there is no evidence.
The Irony!!!

 

[tcmtech]

I can go back to School starting next! Yay. On one condition
I promise I will cease to sell or otherwise conduct a business on School premises and I sign some paper that effect.

Who ever said you have to sign it with your name?

Odds are if they see you write something on it no one will actually check to see if its your name or not.
Practice writing another name in a different writing style than your own and see if you can slip it by.

If they catch it immediately just tell them you OCD has had this name running through your mind to no end and it just slipped out.

I did however offer advice and a ebay link to someone at School that was interested in magnetic smart cards, and I did of course charge for my time . The person I helped isnt the one selling cards though.
What is daft is the fact that they could easily encrypt the cards with a micro add on for each machine, it could do the encryption and decryption and just pass the plain data in TCP/IP or RS232 inside the machine simples. I doubt they will do that though. Making the cards secure without a major overhaul of the vending machine isnt hard and as luck would have it I already have a pic 18f1320 ready to demonstrate .
If there nice to me I will also tell them why the registration system dosnt work properly. But I dont think they will go with my offer

You're younger and smarter than them. The typical people who go on in life to run schools tend to have a outright dislike or fear of people who are younger that can obviously outdo them in applied intelligence and skill.

Believe me I can relate to you better than many as to how this works against a person in a typical school systems setting.

 

[large_ghostman]

They paid huge amounts for these units that bolt onto the vending machines, but my School isnt too hot on technology. My technology teacher would struggle heating water in a microwave. We have passwords for computer access, it took me a little while (30 seconds) to figure out my password was my name backwards and year and month of birth reversed, Considering everyone in my year was born within 12 months of each other, then cracking these super safe passwords is pretty easy.
The problem is teachers think kids are stupid, for example all doors have swipe locks and keypads, the teachers areas are protected from us kids by keypad code, us students all have codes that start (year your in)then 2032, STAFF cards all start 4046. I know this because all staff have to wear a ID card around there necks and on the card is there number, I noticed all start with 4046.
I suggested to a friend that the staff code to there areas would be dead simple like say 4046, apparently its not as he tried this. Hmmm tough one I thought, so I suggested trying 6404 and sure enough he can use there toilets etc. Did they really have to make it that simple?? do they really think we are that stupid and honest?

 

[shortbus=]

LG, does the school PA system play, Pink Floyd's , "another brick in the wall", when you swipe your card? By the way, Dexter sends his regards.

 

[JimB]

Good grief LG, I did not think that the card system would be as simple as that!

There are people selling fake cards (s somewhat illegal activity) and they bust you for doing a simple legal (in any sensible place) transaction with your cubes.
You have my sympathies.

JimB

 

[tcmtech]

There are people selling fake cards (s somewhat illegal activity) and they bust you for doing a simple legal (in any sensible place) transaction with your cubes.
You have my sympathies.

He's not giving the system it 20% under the table kickback/protection money on his sales. That's the problem.

 

[large_ghostman]

Good grief LG, I did not think that the card system would be as simple as that!

There are people selling fake cards (s somewhat illegal activity) and they bust you for doing a simple legal (in any sensible place) transaction with your cubes.
You have my sympathies.

JimB

The bit that gets me is, NO ONE knows its the cards!! NO ONE has even caught on that the cards can be so easily done. But to be fair I only knew because someone asked me how hard would it be to clone our school cards so someone else could 'clock' us in and out for registration. I didnt know and I assumed that as the cards were chip type they would be encrypted, so I did some experiments on mine. I quickly found out that the chip isnt used, and the data when I swiped the card was plain ASCI. So I went back and said it would be very very easy to clone the cards and to prove this I had erased an old credit card of dads and put my school card details on the mag strip of it, then when we went to a class I used the credit card to open the doors.
I was then asked to supply details for a fee. I feel bad about doing it because I was originally asked about bunking off early lessons and didnt mind that, but I also mentioned that the card held details of how much money we had on them. So for an extra £15 I told him how its done.
So to be fair no one knew the cards were crap, I just played around with mine. I did however for a laugh put £9,000 on mine for some reason £9,000 is the max, I first thought it was the number of digits but it cant be. If it was digits then it would £9,999, but its £9,000 ??????
I took it off that night and didnt spend any of it, but I could have brought most the stock from the school shop with it lol. They have a no money policy and that I understand, but to be honest I got the feeling the problem wasnt the fact I had money on me, I dont know why but they dont like the fact I make money??
If they did something simple like say encrypt the amount by say taking your school number( its on the mag strip anyway) and adding all the digits up then X that by the amount put on or off, then put the two's complement on but in decimal not binary, no one would ever work out the simple encryption and a micro could do it dead easy, then the micro just sends the decoded amount to the normal RS232 line in the box's.
It would solve there problem and wouldnt cost much, If I tell them how easy the cards are to cheat they will scrap them and spend all the money on a chip and pin type solution and need to replace all the vending machines (Loads) and door locks (huge amounts), that will mean even less money for materials to teach with so us kids suffer.
We are not the only school in our area that uses this system, maybe I should just make a box with the chip in and tell them dads company make them, then sell them some .
Dad is actually on my side though with not signing the paper, he say's its not there job to crush business skills but to nurture whatever skills each child has, I thought he and mum would side with the school.
Mum is worried I will miss out on schooling, dad say's I need school for some things (like learning punctuation and stuff ), but he say's that he thinks in the end whatever I learn at school will have nothing at all to do with how I earn my money when I leave school.
He thinks its more likely I will end up working for myself

 

[large_ghostman]

He's not giving the system it 20% under the table kickback/protection money on his sales. That's the problem.

NO WAY!!! but I would consider 5% net profit, if they allowed me to have a small section in the school shop . 20% and I would be forced to take some back via other means with the payment card .
Also the teacher that actually kicked off about it and made a real fuss at the meeting with mum and dad really dosnt like me

 

[4pyros]

to be honest I got the feeling the problem wasnt the fact I had money on me, I dont know why but they dont like the fact I make money??

You will end up making more then them.

Also the teacher that actually kicked off about it and made a real fuss at the meeting with mum and dad really dosnt like me

He is afraid you are smarter then him.

Fear, Jealousy that's there problems not yours.

 

[Pommie]

The stupid thing about that system is you don't even need to understand it, just clone your card each morning and double your money.

The amazing thing is that I tried this in the early eighties with a bank card. At that time ATMs went offline at night and weekend. I realized the only way they could keep track of how much you had drawn out was by writing it to the card. I tried reading my card, taking out my daily limit and then writing back the earlier data. Voila, it worked. A friend and I worked out that over an Easter weekend and with 10 cards you could spend 5pm Thursday to 9am Tuesday emptying ATMs. Could have been a profitable venture back then. BTW, we didn't have a card reader/writer but modified tape decks and software on a C64 that we were using to experiment with tape protection systems, another interesting project.

LG, back to your problem, I agree with your dad, you shouldn't have to stop. I wouldn't bother offering to fix there system as even encrypted cards would still work if simply cloned. The only way to fix it would be to read the whole card and keep a log that can be checked periodically against other records. I guess a micro + SD card would suffice.

Have fun,

Mike.

 

[tcmtech]

Personally if I was you I would really be tempted to tell them to bugger off and have someone start handing out cards loaded to their limit to everyone!

Pretty good chance once that hits local or higher up news and your story about how you tried to point out their system had a serious flaw only to get booted for selling handcrafted items in return they will have enough poo on their face to have to work with you.
Add in your intelligence, minor OCD and whatnot issues plus highly driven views of what is right and wrong and how they don't follow any fair rules whatsoever and there is no way they will come out looking like the good guys on this.

Weak minded teachers and admin don't like when kids outsmart and out ethic them but they hate getting their dirty laundry and unethical school practices aired to the public even worse!

Believe me at your age you are basically untouchable by all rational public standards. They can make a big stink and make a few open ended threats about your school records but believe me once you hit 18 no one will give a rip about what you did. Use it for good while you can!

 

[4pyros]

The stupid thing about that system is you don't even need to understand it, just clone your card each morning and double your money.

The amazing thing is that I tried this in the early eighties with a bank card. At that time ATMs went offline at night and weekend. I realized the only way they could keep track of how much you had drawn out was by writing it to the card. I tried reading my card, taking out my daily limit and then writing back the earlier data. Voila, it worked. A friend and I worked out that over an Easter weekend and with 10 cards you could spend 5pm Thursday to 9am Tuesday emptying ATMs. Could have been a profitable venture back then. BTW, we didn't have a card reader/writer but modified tape decks and software on a C64 that we were using to experiment with tape protection systems, another interesting project.

LG, back to your problem, I agree with your dad, you shouldn't have to stop. I wouldn't bother offering to fix there system as even encrypted cards would still work if simply cloned. The only way to fix it would be to read the whole card and keep a log that can be checked periodically against other records. I guess a micro + SD card would suffice.

Have fun,

Mike.

What they need to do is network the vending machines!
I bet LG could do that in one night.

 

[large_ghostman]

The stupid thing about that system is you don't even need to understand it, just clone your card each morning and double your money.

The amazing thing is that I tried this in the early eighties with a bank card. At that time ATMs went offline at night and weekend. I realized the only way they could keep track of how much you had drawn out was by writing it to the card. I tried reading my card, taking out my daily limit and then writing back the earlier data. Voila, it worked. A friend and I worked out that over an Easter weekend and with 10 cards you could spend 5pm Thursday to 9am Tuesday emptying ATMs. Could have been a profitable venture back then. BTW, we didn't have a card reader/writer but modified tape decks and software on a C64 that we were using to experiment with tape protection systems, another interesting project.

LG, back to your problem, I agree with your dad, you shouldn't have to stop. I wouldn't bother offering to fix there system as even encrypted cards would still work if simply cloned. The only way to fix it would be to read the whole card and keep a log that can be checked periodically against other records. I guess a micro + SD card would suffice.

Have fun,

Mike.

LMAO
My magnetic card reader is a old sony tape player! I found it in a box when we moved. Its a desk top thing from the 70's or 80's I think, all I had to do was alter the jumper setting's on the drive board and put rubber on the wheels. You put the card in and its taken along the read head, reads at 2400 baud but you can up it.
I have a Chinese ebay reader for smart chips and mag cards but its a bit crap, so far all I have got from dads chip is his date of birth, although I did foof up his barclay card and he had to get a new one. But they cant be that hard to crack, I dont know why but for some reason I am absolutely sure they use MD5 encryption, if thats the case then cracking should be way easy.

Always wondered how you ended up in OZ lol

If they thought about it they could network over the mains, the mad part is everyone still thinks they use the chips on the card. I looked at old cash point systems online, I cant believe they used PTSN comms and NO ONE thought to pay a good telecoms guy to help build a sniffer! Imagine a key to the phone junction box down the road from the bank!!! Man every card through that cash point cloned, wait two weeks make the cards in one hit and a single night of crime........
I was born too late . The modern system is looks much more secure if only from the point of view of little information, having said that you still hear machines in some shops etc dialing!! then you hear the squeal of data No seriously recording that even for curiosity wouldnt be right!... would it?

 

[Mickster]

The problem I see with pointing out the flaws in their system, is that you might end up getting blamed and the fact that you gave (sold) someone information doesn't help either.

 

[large_ghostman]

Well judging by the phone call mum had today they think I have something to do with the missing stock, but they think I have hacked the website you top up on.
Its beyond stupid! 13&3/4 hacking a world pay portal!!!! when said kid isnt even that good with computers lol, yet again completely missed the obvious. Mum has assured them I dont have a pc or access to one without supervision (that's a bit untrue ), School very happy to have me back if I sign and infact getting unhappy I am not there as I am messing up attendance figures for them . So I go back next week without signing anything but promising not to break school rules, they know I wont break a promise and to be fair I dont have to , new pay scheme sorted out and no need for cash at school , otherwise business as normal except I might now sell blank cards (joke).
One bit of strange but good new's is someone from a university (no idea which one) is coming to see me in a couple of weeks, apparently they want to take me and one of my parents to the uni for a day, absolutely no idea what its about and the person mum spoke too has no idea what it's about. It was explained as if it's just a day out having fun at uni!
Sounds ok except Dad pointed out university tutors/lecturers rarely come meet 13 year old kids and a parent then arrange a uni visit. I do know they have been given my project plan I did for next year, and I know it's someone from the School of engineering, so sounds like its a bribe to me . Day out and play with some cool stuff
Knowing my luck its the bloody psychology department , oh and the other strange bit is I have to find out what size hard hat fits me!!!!?????????????????? how do you find that out???

 

[4pyros]

new pay scheme sorted out and no need for cash at school

Are you going to be using the school cards for payment? LOL

apparently they want to take me and one of my parents to the uni for a day

Ya could be good or bad, lets hope good and good luck!

oh and the other strange bit is I have to find out what size hard hat fits me

You will need to measure around your head. I would suggest a cloth tape measure like tailers use.
Hard hats have a rang of an inch or so for each of there sizes. IE small mite be 15 to 17 inches.
Look online for the ranges.