Slashdot Mirror
Windows ATMs by 2005
An anonymous reader writes "O'Reilly Developer News is running a brief on how the banking industry will be running a stripped down version of windows on 65% of its ATM machines by 2005. On a morning when I'm receiving the latest windows virus in my inbox every five minutes I feel very comfortable with this."
Holy cow! Can you say, "Free cash!"
Just stand in front of ATM the next time a worm rocks through and watch it start spitting out bills.
ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You must not reboot to receive your cash.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
A FATAL EXCEPTION 0$ HAS OCCURRED.
Please contact your financial administrator
See the Pictures of the Flood of '08
... Debt.
Windows on an ATM - already happening. Already
getting errors.
"They have tried to cut out the unnecessary rubbish that clutters up the typical PC."
but.. but.. the article says they're running Windows.. now I'm confused.
Trolling is a art,
If I get cash from an Microsoft ATM, do I have to put it in a Microsoft Wallet?
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I'm not sure of actual numbers, but I recall that IBM is heavily invested in Diebold, a major ATM manufacturer. I also recall that a large percentage of ATM machines run OS/2.
If this is true, I would expect IBM to be pushing a linux-based solution.
But then again, who knows what the banks want to buy? I just got a letter last week from my bank informing me that "for my security" they will be requiring online banking customers to use 128 bit encryption. Ack! 1998 called, they want their security back!
Looks like it's time to pull all the cash out of the banks and go back to the Bank of Between The Matresses. Last thing we need is a stupid windows worm to have a huge impact on the finances of the United States (or any other countries that use this scheme).
Oh, and out of spite, i'll figure out a way to make my bed run FreeBSD* or something.
[*]"BSD" always makes me think of something like Bondage/Sado-Domination or something.
do() || do_not();
I tried pressing buttons, but the damn thing wouldn't give me a DOS prompt...ATM.exe --dispense=20000...
From Microsoft on how ATM works...
...
...
ohhhhh... you mean... gotcha... nevermind.
can you imagine 60% of the ATMs in your city hitting windowsupdate.com all together?
what about 60% of the ATMs in the US hitting it?
Damn, we'll have to rename the slashdot effect into ATMeffect
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
From a bank marketing analyst explaining the migration of ATM OS to windows:
"With open technologies it is easier to run different types of hardware on the same software."
and that's right, he's referring to Windows as 'open' technology.
Banks are merging and acquiring different machines, and tired of writing changes a half dozen times or more. yet they're going with the high cost option, instead of the obvious one.
a -security- company -CTO- exec gets a runner up prize for 'Dumbest Thing a Security Consultant Could Possibly Say' by suggesting that the ATMs wouldn't be vulnerable to the myriad MS worms and viruses because they dont work online.
this not even a year after Slammer -did- manage to shut down many ATMs which -also- were not online.
This Wired article reads like an Onion article.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
In Sweden, at least one major bank has used MS-DOS for their ATM:s. I saw one of these in a "funny" state (late 1999, I think) and of course took some shots...
:)
Images here
The server is a powerful Pentium 120 with a whopping 40 MB of RAM, so if it's slow, just keep banging on it..
Yeah, they have built in failsafes to keep this from happening. Just like the power companies have built in failsafes to keep a massive blackout from occuring.
So, are you posting from that ATM right now?
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The fake Gzip Christ isn't not user number ~0xA6CA7
I've had a picture of this ATM for the past 5 years on my website :)
<grub> Reading