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ATM Repairman Accused of Taking (and Faking) Cash
fysdt writes "An ATM repairman was nabbed in Phoenix on charges of having stolen about $200,000 in ATM funds. His method was almost brilliant in its sheer stupidity: He pocketed the cash, and replaced it in the machines with 'counterfeit or photocopied $20 bills.'"
Go to ATM... Spit out money... "Yep, the dollar ain't what it used to be..."
If he'd been a little smarter, it sounds like it could've been a good way to get half-decent counterfeits out into they system without them being noticed. If the guy was really throwing photocopies in there, though, I don't know what he was expecting to happen.
the only difference between the paper he was taking out and paper he was putting in is that one was counterfeit by a crook, and the other was a bad duplicate of that counterfeit fiat.
You can't handle the truth.
1. Get a job as someone handling money
2. Replace money with fake money
3. Go to Aruba
4.????
5. Never rob a bank
Seems like he forgot to follow step 3
Geez, he has $200,000 in cash and can't make bail? He should have asked the arresting officer to stop by an ATM on his way to jail ...
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
He pushed a button on a photocopy machine. The machine is a technical wonder - you put one paper in and a copy of it appears after you push a button - like magic.
...how this even remotely constitutes as "news for nerds." I'd have expected to see this in Fark or Digg, but not Slashdot.
Really guys? Is it that slow a news day?
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
This is the first time I have seen someone with a username who is automatically at -1.
What heinous crimes did you do? Urinate in CowboyNeal's plants/pants?
I had the same reaction. I don't get the technical connection here. If he had used photoshop or something to make the copies more realistic maybe I could see it but this is just generic police blotter fodder.
Aren't color photocopiers supposed to give an error message when you try to copy a banknote?
"His method was almost brilliant in its sheer stupidity: He pocketed the cash, and replaced it in the machines with 'counterfeit or photocopied $20 bills.'"
and this is different than banks selling MBS(s)/CDO(s) and/or ING selling CDS(s) how?
the only "stupidity" I see is that he forgot to make his "campaign contributions"...
It gives us geeks somebody to point at and say "duh, stupid!"
We get to feel all superior, in this case, with real justification.
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
According to TFA, this guy worked for Diebold.
He shouldn't have fled. After what he did they probably would have promoted him to a high executive position.
An ATM guy called Kioskli. Classic.
I doubt that the fake money was simply counterfeit. Most ATM's nowadays have censors that detect the bills thickness. It was most likely something like diebold dollars.
How did he get away with it until he'd made $200,000 worth of counterfeit notes. That is a hell of a lot of $20 notes.
Most criminals get greedy, rather than stupid.
[libertarian]PS: All money is equally arbitrary.[/libertarian]
Bitcoin, faked cash in ATMs etc?
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Looks like he just messed up that system for all the other hardworking counterfeiting ATM repairmen. Before he got caught, nobody was looking for this kind of fraud. (:-)
ATM has machine in it's name? Kinda like how we get stories about Hasselhoff because he was in Knight Rider. Wait... that doesn't sound right
My Dad always told me there was a little man in the ATM printing the money it spit out!
"We'll cross the minefield under the cover of daylight..." -A. Rimmer
He's accused of stealing $200k, but his bail was put at only $25k? Which Wall Street investment group manager is he related t?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
The people who withdrew money from this ATM will probably never get their money back, since customers are always fully liable for ATM transactions. The banks will just write it off as a loss, which comes right out of their customers checking accounts. Worse, if the people don't notice they'll even be held responsible for trying to pass of counterfeit bills they thought were real.
Some years ago, I worked for a company (two companies actually) centered around the ATM vending machine service. While there, I learned how trivial it actually is to rob ATMs. While I am certain the technologies and security protocols involved have evolved beyond my previous knowledge of the time, most ATMs were a small terminal with a cash dispenser and connected to "the network" by a simple dialup modem which operated over the public POTS network. By using a device called a "skuch" box which simulated POTS networking, modems and other such things such as a laptop with transaction processing software simulating the ATM authorization network, a person could connect to a local ATM terminal, run simulated transactions and dispense real cash in massive amounts without raising a great deal of suspicion from most shops and stores which host ATMs.
As I said, my knowledge is "OLD." I am pretty sure the are now using other communications technologies such as wireless networks and such, but given that it has been shown how trivial taking over or creating your own local GSM network actually, is, adapting the previously described methods to current technologies would not only be easier, but could be done wirelessly from a "service van" close by. (I observe that many businesses still authorize credit card transactions over POTS so it seems to me that ATM debit transactions are still done over POTS as well, so many the old methods are still valid in some places.)
But you get the idea -- ATMs are cash dispensers controlled by highly vulnerable computers operating over highly vulnerable networks.
And yet Diebold, the company involved, gets away with stealing elections on a regular basis.
Say what you want about Asynchronous Transfer Protocol, it ain't gonna do the job of regular Ethernet. Someone along the way is going to nab all the good packets and replace them with fake packets. There is no protection against the man-in-the-middle for ATM.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
If he wanted to steal from the bank, here's a better, technical solution:
Every time there's a bank transaction where interest is computed, you know, thousands a day? The computer ends up with these fractions of a cent, which it usually rounds off. Just take those little remainders and put them into an account.
There were a couple movies where this was done and it worked brilliantly.
Adidas To Bring Back Sneakernet
Really,, how is using your own work tied ATM key while on camera consider brilliant ?
Was a few years ago now but I remember hearing a story that he'd used just enough real money at the top of the machine before filling the rest with paper and that gave him time to get away.
Your describing a situation where trust is lost. If trust is lost, how does the merchant know you really have gold in the vault? For that matter, even if you bring gold to the merchant, how does the merchant quickly test to ensure the gold is 100% pure and has not been cut with some other metal, or that your gold is not just gold plate? The modern world requires trust. A breakdown of which will result in anarchy. Food/water/guns will be much more valuable than gold.
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Those in category 1 would usually be annoyed that they had funny money but would be cooperative. The other 2 categories no so much. Very often these people would become belligerent and when informed that I would be bringing in the police would get threatening. The worst case was one individual who had tried to pass a counterfeit $100 bill that he had run off on his home ink jet printer. The colors were all wrong, incorrect weight, incorrect texture, was cut wrong (used scissors), missing the water mark, missing security strip, and also failed the counterfeit detector pen.He insisted that the bill was real as he had just gotten it from the ATM (our ATM only Dispensed $20s) and that he had a wallet full of them now, yes he really did show me a pile of counterfeit $100s. When informed that I was calling the cops he threatened me stormed off. The nice thing was that the Eagan police station was only a couple of blocks down the road. So while I was calling the police he was stuck at the light waiting to turn right heading towards the police station. I was able to give the police a complete description of the person, car description, and license plate number. The picked him up about half way between the gas station and police station.
Time to offend someone
... The banks will just write it off as a loss, which comes right out of their customers [sic] checking accounts...
Banks can't write off a loss out of a consumer checking account - that would be illegal. Indeed, the actual loss to the bank would be the repayment of the counterfeit money to the customers who received it, since the bank wouldn't recognize any loss on the original theft if they didn't compensate the victims. Perhaps the thought here was that banks pass the costs of fraud on to customers via fees that are higher than they otherwise would be, but that is true of every business. The original post is factually wrong.
Seriously. The old Diebold ATM at my little local bank plays a short mechanical tune with a trill at the end when dispensing cash. What is this? No one has ever been able to answer this question.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
of Las Vegas a couple of months ago... it was a re-run from years ago of course, but a good one. If it wasn't for that Danny McCoy that meddling kid would've got away with it too
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I plan on building up a horde of gas, food, guns and ammo, hopefully before anarchy takes firm hold. Good luck with the gold.
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Our hero! See how he uses a password to access the operating system! Why, he's restocking the funny money with his BARE HANDS!
This happened to a friend of mine. The ATM at a store spit out photocopied 20s. He didn't leave the ATM but called clerks to report the issue; then the store manager. None of which were very cooperative. I think he called the police directly - if he had left the scene or done anything else he would have been stuck with $200 is worthless paper. If you are the one stuck with counterfeit money its your loss - unless you can pass it off on someone else.
i once got admin access to an ATM that had, for some reason, decided to display an error screen telling users the ATM was down along with an input field for a tech to enter a password. knowing that the default password for BREW was either 000000 or 111111, i followed a hunch and tried the former and was successful on the first attempt. i didn't take any money -- not that i have anything against stealing from insurance companies -- but the camera was on me. so i changed the messaging, using the keypad like you would type a text message on an old flip phone. lots of fun. not sure how to reproduce the error screen, though. unless you have a plan, you may just have to get lucky.
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
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Don't photocopiers employ "currency recognition" (EURion constellation and others) algorithms and will refuse to copy bills?