Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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?
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.
Bitcoin, faked cash in ATMs etc?
Deleted
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
Wrong
1. Join Bank Management
2. Pay yourself a bonus every time the Bank gives a loan
3. Loan out all the banks money, and when that runs out, borrow more from other banks and lend that money out in turn.
4. PROFIT! (Beyond your wildest dreams)
5. When the bank goes bust, ride away into the sunset with a handsome golden parachute.
May the Maths Be with you!
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
Apparently he hit at least 7 ATMs on a US holiday (July 4th, senior staff not monitoring security cameras, in all likelihood). ...
That would be about $30,000 per machine
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
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.
He'd have access to the money box inside the machine, thus bypassing the sensors. Open it up to count the money, slip a few $20s out and replace them with a few fakes; as long as the money count comes out right when the next serviceman comes to check the ATM, nobody would know the difference... and if they eventually found the fakes it'd just look like some bank customer(s) had passed the fake $20s to the machine.
However, if the machine should have been able to detect the forgeries, that might be one thing that led them to suspect a repairman was behind it - bank customers shouldn't be able to feed the machine fake $20s.
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.
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
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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
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
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I plan on building up a horde of gas, food, guns and ammo, hopefully before anarchy takes firm hold. Good luck with the gold.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Don't photocopiers employ "currency recognition" (EURion constellation and others) algorithms and will refuse to copy bills?