Slashdot Mirror
Decode Your Barcode, Get Your Personal Info
Chris writes "The Swipe Toolkit is a collection of web-based tools that sheds light on personal data collection and usage practices in the United States. The tools demonstrate the value of personal information on the open market and enable people to access information encoded on a driver's license or stored in some of the many commercial data warehouses. Check out the Data Calculator, which shows how much your personal info is worth, and how the data brokers get it. It's all part of the Swipe Project, which will be on exhibition at UC-Irvine in March."
I saw this story as a subscriber before most everyone else did, so I go to the site and download all the software before the site ends up getting slashdotted.
I then download java, run the jar, scan my driver's license... doesn't work.
Then I rotate the image 180 and find out it doesn't work.
Then I go online and notice that California doesn't have a 2d barcode on the back of their licenses.
Which comes to the rule of the day, which is apparently applicable to myself:
You can be enough of a nerd to care about what's on your barcode, and still be a complete fucking moron
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Good thing I didn't throw it away.
Well, it would be, if I didn't live in my parent's attic and if I did actually have a driver's license.
Mod "Overrated" instead of replying "I disagree with you," you coward.
so, where can I copyright my own personal info and sue the pants off of all these freakers passing around unauthorized copies?
"Operating systems suck: you're better off using only the BIOS" --trainsaw.com
that's "Point of Sale"
When I worked at Peter Piper Pizza it was quickly learned you could exit the program handling orders to get to a prompt. You could then swipe any magnetic card through the CC reader in the keyboard to see what was on it. You just had to swipe it at the right speed to get everything.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
i already have my personal data, thanks.
You can easily see that with a service such as MSN Hotmail, who already sells your personal info, your standard "I had best enter the correct info, or else bad things could happen" person can easily give them (as this project puts it) about $10 worth of personal info right in the sign-up boxes. MSN could then do a search through some of these free services and get even more money, as the information gains value if it is all stored in one location. We can then see how offering free email to the unwashed masses can be very profitable.
Some states encrypt the data before they put it in the barcode on the back of your license. It helps to prevent fake IDs. At least in Indiana, some of the liquor stores have scanners in them, through a deal with the state to read the back of the ID which has a PDF 417 2D barcode. That way when some 5'5", black hair, brown eyed underage person presnts the ID and the data on the back shows 6'1", blonde hair, blue eyes, they know it's a fake.
Always register for customer loyalty cards under phony names: Ted Nugent, Harry Truman, and John Cocktosen are favorites.
Need a fake SSN for your long distance service? (Really they don't need this) use 078-05-1120. It's an Eisenhower era specimen number that works 99% of the time.
Wired has a great story that these are pulled from. See it here
Actually the first digit doesnt always tell what kind of card it is. You can also work the checksum algorithm from simply the numbers (This is called the Luhn alogrithm). The way credit cards are usually handled is as follows:
(where the numbers are the first numbers of the credit card number)
Visa - 4
Mastercard - 51-55
Discover - 6011
Amex - 34
In fact credit card companies have a specific range of numbers to pull from, clubs have another range, and there a few other number ranges that are broken up... see:
http://www.merriampark.com/anatomycc.htm for a better indepth overview.
- Bankruptcy: $26.50
Court records bring in some big dough:- Felonies: $16.00
But the biggest payoff comes for Military Records: $35.00.When I got out of the military in the early 90s we were strongly encouraged to take our DD-214 (summary of military records) and submit them to the county clerk when we got back home so they'd become public record, that way if we ever lost it we could go look it up. I'm REAL GLAD(tm) I worked with Privacy Act information for my whole career and developed a healthy reluctance to hand out the juicy tidbits contained on my DD-214, e.g., SS#, DOB, education, and of course your whole military career.
Also, if I were stopped by the police on the way home this data could declare me guilty of DUI before proven innocent. Pretty bad since my girlfriend coaxed the beer away for herself before I could drink it.