Criminals Use 3D-Printed Skimming Devices On Sydney ATMs

AlbanX writes "A gang of suspected Romanian criminals is using 3D printers and computer-aided design (CAD) to manufacture 'sophisticated' ATM skimming devices to fleece Sydney residents. One Romanian national has been charged by NSW Police. The state police found one gang that had allegedly targeted 15 ATMs across metropolitan Sydney, affecting tens of thousands of people and nabbing around $100,000."

Comments

Totally the fault of the USA

[norpy]

It's about time that US banks caught up with the rest of the world and put chips on all their cards, then we can finally get rid of the magstripes.

While chip&pin has it's security flaws it's way better than the 20 year old magnetic stripe system, in Australia and most of Europe the only reason they still put the stripes on cards is because the cards have to work when people travel to the US.
It's been at least a year since I've seen a reader without chip support in Australia and the only time the magstrip is used is when the chip or contactless read fails.

Re:ah my countrymen...

[nurb432]

Many criminals are hard working too.

Why not a Lathe, Drill Press, or Grinder?

[Teancum]

I read stories like this that try to diss the use of "3D Printers" as if somehow banning the use of those devices is somehow going to stop criminals from engaging in acts like this. What utter nonsense.

How many other stories about ATM skimmers emphasized any of the tools used to make the devices used to make their devices? Why such a strong emphasis on the 3D printing technology? It sounds like a cool buzz word, but means absolutely nothing other than an attempt to make something new sound frightening because the reporters and police officers involved don't have a clue about how the technology works.... therefore it must be some kind of dark magic that must be brought before the Inquisition and those involved banished to Hell (or some equivalent).

While I don't mind seeing stories like this on Slashdot as it does talk about emerging technologies and their impact upon society as a whole, it still turns my stomach to see such awful reporting overemphasizing the manufacturing technology (it was the lead paragraph) instead of describing what people were doing first. Had the technology being used been mentioned much further into the article, I think it would have been much more appropriate.

Re:Why not a Lathe, Drill Press, or Grinder?

[VortexCortex]

Yep, same old scare tactics...

"If you electrify homes you will make women and children and vulnerable. Predators will be able to tell if they are home because the light will be on, and you will be able to see them. So electricity is going to make women vulnerable. Oh and children will be visible too and it will be predators, who seem to be lurking everywhere, who will attack."

“Women’s bodies were not designed to go at 50 miles an hour. Our uteruses would fly out of our bodies as they were accelerated to that speed [on trains].”

Automobiles, Telegraphs, Telephones, Recorded Music, Radio, TV, MTV, Video Games, Internet, Cellphones, 3D printers, RFID, NFC, etc... Near any new technology you'll find unfounded fear drummed up around it. There is a primal fear of unknown that the unscrupulous exploit for popularity. Not even old technology is safe from the fear mongering media mavens: "After this break from our sponsors: Find out what's probably lurking under your sink that could kill you."

When faced with what they do not understand the primitive minded are easily frightened, the futurists eagerly excited, and the practical remain predictably skeptical.

It's sad really. Your "greatest" thinkers in science and philosophy alike shun their feelings. Those primal communications your ancestors scream wordlessly within your mind are ridiculously ignored, at great risk. This valuable primitive mode of thought was proved by evolution to be rational in general, yet is deemed "irrational". In so doing they discourage people from thinking with their whole minds, and thus they become more susceptible targets to the biases of the ancient ones.

So, while one ignorant group is too strongly swayed by their emotions, the other group ignores their instincts completely in the name of rationality and is thus just as ignorant, literally. Don't you see that reasoning with only half a head is dangerous?! I cultivate my "irrational" feelings, I use them as a faster but less accurate logic unit. I let my subconscious quickly analyze situations and then converse with my wise but unlearned ancient ancestors about the dangers and desires we have. When reasoning with others I reach back through the millennnia and consider the subtexts as they would appear to language-less apes. I'm thus able to more effectively communicate my meanings at multiple levels.

Do not so quickly discount the power of a message that wields both logical and primitive persuasions. This is a skill infamously used to sway weak minds by politicians and the media for centuries. This is a technique best learned sooner than later at the point of a pitchfork. While "insightful" folks like you scoff at the story and think them fools for pandering to the populous' fear in the name of greed, I credit them for doing so. If you want to scoff, then scoff at those so-called "great" rational minds who can not do the very same in the name of good... disgusting.

To shrug off the subtext and not heed and hone the subconscious murmurs of your mind is to foolishly disrespect every single elder your lineage has ever had.
And you call yourselves evolved?! You're barely even aware. Humans, ugh, how primitive!

Maybe its a blessing for the consumer

[Camael]

As you have pointed out, European 'Chip-and-PIN' Cash-Card Security have already been cracked by criminals.

And fair enough, generally cards with chips are still more secure than their magnetic counterparts.

What I am more disturbed about is, from the point of the consumer, it appears that in Europe at least the supposed security of the chip and pin system have been (ab)used by banks to deny refunds to their defrauded clients.

However, the chip and PIN system came under question in 2010, when researchers found that transactions could be executed without PINs.

In their paper, the Cambridge researchers asserted that, based on their conversations with bankers, "banks systematically suppress information about known vulnerabilities, with the result that fraud victims continue to be denied refunds."

Bond asserted that banks are aware of the problem but routinely “stonewall” customers-turned-victims because their transaction records show that the PIN was used.

From the POV of the consumer, I would not favor the use of this newer, more secure system if it shifts the burden of fraud on me with the excuse that "it's unhackable, you must have given them your PIN".

Re:Geography for dummies

[CRCulver]

Just FYI: whenever you read "Romanian" in the news regarding crime, and it's not related to the country of Romania, it actually means "gypsy"

That would be somewhat more likely if this were a story about petty crime like pickpocketing or car theft (but even there, some amount of ethnic Romanian immigrants are perfectly capable of engaging in petty crime). But when it comes to crime involving computer exploits, they are considerably more likely to be ethnic Romanian and not Roma. For example, this Wired article about online theft involves a number of young people who are not Roma .

Living in Romania myself and seeing it treated like a pariah abroad in spite of the fact that some parts of it are among the best educated and cultured parts of Europe, I am used to the tendency of many to blame the country's ills on the Roma, but good and evil is inside of everyone ethnicity.

This "Romanians = gypsies = criminals" connection is also dangerous one, as it can really mislead people about moving populations in Europe. I spend a lot of time in Finland, and I watched as one community lamented a large Roma tribe that flooded their town each summer, begging, pickpocketing and recycling. They called them "the Romanians" and that formed everyone's opinion about the country. When I tried to start a conversation with one of them in a queue at a supermarket's bottle-return machine, it turned out all of them were from a small town in central Bulgaria. But for some reason, Bulgaria never gets rubbished half as much as Romania.