Al writes "A researcher working for networking company Juniper has been forced to cancel a Black Hat presentation that would have revealed a way to hack into ATMs. The presentation focused on exploiting vulnerabilities in devices running the Windows CE operating system, including some ATMs. The decision to cancel was made to give the vendor concerned time to patch the problem, although the company was notified 8 months ago. The article mentions a growing trend in ATM hacking: In November 2008 thieves stole nearly $9 million from more than 130 cash machines in 49 cities worldwide. And earlier this year, the second biggest maker of ATMs, Diebold, warned customers in an advisory that certain cash machines in Eastern Europe had been loaded with malicious software capable of stealing financial information and the secret PINs from customers performing ATM transactions."
'ATM' has been a pseudo-acronym [wikipedia.org] since people stopped using the phrase 'automated teller machine' except to pretend that saying 'ATM machine' is silly. Bah!
by Anonymous Coward
on Friday July 10, @10:04AM (#28650065)
So they've had 8 months warning, and now suddenly when researchers want to publish they now want time to fix it? Not indicative of a company that gives a flying fuck about security. They don't deserve time.
by Anonymous Coward
on Friday July 10, @10:15AM (#28650249)
No, they don't... but it depends on the hack.
If it gives out free money, only harming the company which didn't seem to care, then no, don't give them any more time.
If the hack gives them access to innocent people's account details, and they'd be out money, and/or time fighting the bogus withdrawals, then yes, give them time to fix it.
Actually, they HAD time to fix it. It still is highly problematic- but the big problem with all this thinking that bars people from disclosing this stuff at the stage it's at right now is the highly flawed thinking that disclosing a vulnerability discloses it to potential attackers which will use it.
It's a bad thing to think the bad guys don't already know what you're showing off and presume that they're not doing it. Depending on the hack, they may be prepping for it or already screwing you over with it and you just don't know it yet. If a white/grey hat found it, I can assure you a black hat either has already found it or will shortly.
You've made the classic mistake of assuming corporations have any motivation to do the right thing, as opposed to the profitable thing. They don't give a rat's ass who is using this hack. All they care about is the price of their shares. If keeping a dangerous vulnerability semi-secret for a few more months will help their share price, they don't really care how many people get screwed over. Think of it this way: if their ATMs were electrocuting people at random, they would do a cost benefit analysis to figure out the likely damages awarded at trials, and compare that to the cost of fixing the problem. If fixing the problem were more expensive, the company would happily go on killing people. You think they care about your freaking finances?
What i think this guy should do is to publish the name of the problematic bank and/or ATM vendor, and give their users a month to withdraw all of their assets from that bank (since they clearly don't care about their customers' finances) and move to another one (of their own choosing). I'm sure as hell they would fix the problem ipso facto. My 2 cents.
The one and only thing that makes them fix it is the near certain knowledge that the vulnerability will be exposed far and wide after a deadline. It is reasonable to give an extension if it's really a hard problem to solve, but they must feel nearly certain that the problem will come out in public.
I do agree that it's not a good idea to assume that only the good guys know about the vulnerability.
There exist numerous product safety laws that could affect the criminal culpability of decision makers in a company who refuse to address serious known safety concerns in their products.
Companies only move upon losses and public fiascos. Politeness should be gone by 8 months. Honestly, "this can slash your profits to 0 or below" doesn't sound like a cause for concern?
I'm sure departments within the company can make that same argument for losses but those are harder to take care of than simple software fixes that people are nice enough to be willing to tell them what the issue is. I mean how much easier can you get than someone else doing the job for you, that you didn't do originally? etc etc.
You got it. The OP was right they don't give a fuck about security, what they give a fuck about is profits and a hullabaloo about folk losing cash as a result of compromised machines WILL effect their bottom line so each and every comment makes a difference. However it doesn't change the system that rewards secrecy over competence.
You're making the assumption that it's a simple software fix. There isn't always someone who knows the software, understands the problem and can figure out how to resolve it in the code.
A lot of companies hire the cheapest people they can to implement ill-defined code which is duct taped together and released as a product. Once the product is released, all of the expensive ($10/hr) programmers are fired and the product is supported by a group of people who have a script to follow and get paid $2/hr. Once
You're right they don't deserve it - but giving information to criminals to make it easier for them to steal - thus hurting society as a whole - is not the answer. Unfortunately the security of ATM's is greater then these researches desire to present their work.
You're right they don't deserve it - but giving information to criminals to make it easier for them to steal - thus hurting society as a whole - is not the answer. Unfortunately the security of ATM's is greater then these researches desire to present their work.
Releasing the hole does not hurt society, however, it does hurt Diebold customers and partners.
Releasing the hole does not hurt society, however, it does hurt Diebold customers and partners.
1) Diebold customers/partners did not cause this issue
2) If you use an ATM you are a diebold customer
3) Diebold will pass the cost to companies which use ATMs and they will pass the cost to you
4) It does hurt society as a whole to enable criminals. Just because you are not directly effected does not make you immune to the effects.
Diebold (or whoever; I don't know that it's Diebold) customers/partners are primarily banks, which are supposed to be in the business of worrying about securing money. It's negligent for a bank to buy a product without verifying its security. So, yes, they did in some sense cause the problem, or at least they bear a chunk of the blame for it.
If I use an ATM, I am a customer of Diebold's (or whoever's) customer, the bank, not a customer of Diebold. And what I'm paying the bank to do is to secure my transactions. I will admit that I've obviously hired an incompetent bank and am perhaps at fault for doing so, but that doesn't excuse the bank's incompetence. And I think my fault is reduced by the unavailability of banks that actually do their jobs, whereas banks would have access to decent ATMs if it they bothered to demand them.
Where do people get this nonsense? Diebold (or whoever) already charges as much for the ATMs as it can get away with. They don't set prices based on their costs; they set prices based on what customers willl pay, subject only to the proviso that if customers won't pay what it costs to make the product, they won't make the product at all. To a first approximation, in a properly functioning market with competition (and there is competition in ATMs), prices fall to approach marginal cost of production (for the most efficient producer). This doesn't increase marginal cost of production for anybody.
Maybe, except that it's NON-disclosure that actually enables the criminals, and that goes beyond this particular bug and beyond the case of ATMs. Not only does non-disclosure enable ATM manufacturers and whoever else to continue to ignore the problem while the criminals continue to exploit it, but, by ecouraging other companies in similar situations to do the same, it guarantees further problems. To prevent companies in general from ignoring problems, there needs to be a credible threat of disclosure if there isn't prompt action on reported problems. 8 months is way, way more than enough time. In order to maintain the credibility of the threat of disclosure, there needs to actually BE disclosure once in a while, so that companies know they actually have to live up to their responsibilities.
Releasing the hole does not hurt society, however, it does hurt Diebold customers and partners.
I'd have to know more details. The manufacturer is not the one who will feel the direct repercussions of this hack - the ATM owners will. It might have been more effective for the researcher to inform some of the larger customers rather than the company. I'd bet that a big bank leaning on Diebold would have been more effective than this researcher disclosing a secret exploit.
Current situation: society as a whole does not know the vulnerability or it's scope, criminals might or might not know the vulnerability and might or might not be actively exploiting it.
Full disclosure:anyone with enough brains and guts can exploit the vulnerability, society at large can take steps to minimize the risk since it is now known what exactly the risk is.
Being as the exploit is already in the fucking wild and being actively exploited, preventing the information from being presented is completely and totally pointless.
Not really. Despite the exploit being out there, there is likely only a few malicious people that know about it. If the hack requires physical access to the machine, this means the number of machines that are exploited is less. As other people have mentioned.... once the exploit is significantly more public, that will increase the number of malicious people that know about it and increases the number of exploited machines.
There's a lot of people who can apply exploits. There aren't as many that can discover them.
I would like to apologize for being an asshole, I did go over the top. The reason I feel concerned is the element of scale. The only difficult part is figuring out the vulnerability once that is done they can out source because the money is there. There may not be a planet of computer elites with the ability to take advantage of this or any exploit for that matter but if the money is there to be made especially in the millions of dollars there is incentive to perfect the process. With that kind of money
I can't believe that people use WinCE for a real world application that requires security and reliability. The morons who built these systems are reaping the reward for their ignorance.
I can't believe that people use WinCE for a real world application that requires security and reliability. The morons who built these systems are reaping the reward for their ignorance.
A lot of ATM's were previously running IBM OS/2 and were pretty stable. Not only are these ATMs now exploitable but they are also much slower than before they were "upgraded" to WinCE.
Upgrades are supposed to improve functionality or improve performance but the text UI actually got about 2X slower to respond.
They are now much easier for the disabled to use. While it was possible for someone who was blind to use an OS/2 ATM, it relied more or less on memorizing what to do. The buttons had braille on them but there wasn't really any feed back other than beeps. So it was a situation of memorize the key presses to do what you want. New ATMs have headphone jacks and can give audio feedback, allowing those with vision problems to use them much easier.
It reads a card, checks your balance and pokes money out a slot.
What increased functionality is there?
(well, yes, it takes in deposits, too, but...)
Really, why aren't these things running the most limited OS possible? Running WinXP on them is just silly. I would have thought WinCE would be more locked down, but apparently not.
The comment about OS/2 machines being more secure is interesting. I'd rather have IBM running my cash machines than Microsoft.
One big reason to update from OS/2 to Windows is that its a lot easier to add new functionality to the Windows version of the ATM software than it is to add new functionality to the older OS/2 ATM software.
Examples of new functionality ATM operators may want or need to add: 1.Advertising (for loans, credit cards etc) whilst the ATM talks to all the computers and you wait for your money to come out 2.Prepaid credit vouchers of various kinds (e.g. for prepaid mobile phones) 3.Changes in the law (this last one ha
The operating system used in the affected system, Windows CE, poses hurdles to a quick fix. Microsoft recommends that Windows CE is used for "low-end cash-dispensing ATMs," while Windows XP Embedded and Windows XP Professional are used on more full-featured ATMs, according to a white paper on kiosk and ATM operating-system platforms issued by the software maker. Windows XP Embedded, the latest version of which is Windows Embedded Standard 2009, and Windows XP Professional are more secure because they are easier to update, the software giant says.
You don't need a conference to publicize a security problem. Post it on the internet, and the vendor will have plenty of incentive to implement a fix immediately.
You don't think these ATMs will stay up if an exploit is published do you?
The sequence of events goes something like this: Bank buys shitty ATMs Exploits are developed People start stealing from ATMs Someone gives the ATM manufacturer the exploit and tells them to fix their problem People continue to steal from ATMs Someone (publicly) threatens to publish ATM company says, "hold on give us a minute to fix it" People continue stealing from ATMs
scenario A ATM company fixes the problem Banks and consumers never know their assets were exposed
scenario b ATM company stalls people continue to steal from ATMs someone publishes a whole lot of money is suddenly stolen in a very short time period Banks shut down all vulnerable ATMs Customers notice their ATMs don't work - maybe ask questions Banks sue ATM manufacturer, become a little more careful about who they do business with in the future
Actually ATM (Ass To Mouth) kinda sums up the capitalist system quite well; you have to be fucked in the ass by the corporations to earn money to put food in your mouth. Only the few at the top do the actual fucking. Perhaps naming the machine that you rely on to give you your reward for being an obedient gimp an ATM is another way of giving them a chuckle. Who cares if the ATM's are hacked? The rules they paid their politicians to introduce will ensure the little guy always pays, and the rich never use ATM
If we estimate that world wide, only 8 million dollars was stolen out of ALL of the ATMs that are out there, I would think that that's actually a success, more than a liability.
I mean, people steal more than that in cars, in what, every few hours?
It is quite unsurprising, really. We see the same thing going on in the SCADA security space. The book, Hacking Scada: Industrial Network Security From the Mind of the Attacker [hackingscada.com] , has been held up for at least a year past it's original planned publication date for similar thinking.
It's unfortunately not too odd to hear that ATMs run Windows (especially with some of the error messages I've seen). But there are even odder devices running Windows.
I work at a somewhat-hated international retailing chain that will go unnamed, and while working there the other night my merchandise scanner, one of the portable hand-held ones used on the floor, froze. Not uncommon, but when I reset it it booted into Windows CE. A normal windows desktop. I tried starting Windows Media Player, but it wouldn't do anything. The funny thing is that when it works properly, it uses minimal ASCII art and no graphics at all.
Why these kind of things need to use Windows is beyond me. Windows, security issues aside, is alright for general purpose machines, but not highly-specialized machines like a scanner or ATM.
Why these kind of things need to use Windows is beyond me. Windows, security issues aside, is alright for general purpose machines, but not highly-specialized machines like a scanner or ATM.
Sir, you are confusing Desktop Windows with Embedded Windows. While the source base is starting to be shared, their targets and goals are substantially different. Windows CE IS meant to be highly-specialized for highly-specialized machines. You don't even have to build in graphical output. I've seen usable CE images take up ~2MB of memory total.
For those of you who aren't aware, the Black Hat tradition for vulnerability presentations which have been similarly blocked due to court orders, etc. is to offer BH a replacement safe/bland presentation and then deliver the banned exploit demonstration regardless. This action typically results in a large lawsuit against the researcher's employer, subsequent termination of the researcher, and a short-lived rock star notoriety for the researcher making the afore mentioned termination totally worth it.
I only read this on another forum so take with a grain of salt.
The hack is based on the assumption that if you make a withdrawal from an ATM and don't take the money you forgot to take it, so the machine takes the money back and refunds the amount to your account.
The thing is that the machine doesn't have a way to count how much bills it takes back, so you can just take the bills from the middle and you will get a full refund.
Supposedly this also works if you take the money right before the ATM pulls back in the money.
If it's an exploit for ATM *Machines*... (Score:5, Funny)
...it must be pretty abstract, since an "automated teller machine machine" is apparently running in emulation anyhow.
Re:If it's an exploit for ATM *Machines*... (Score:5, Funny)
...it must be pretty abstract, since an "automated teller machine machine" is apparently running in emulation anyhow.
No. It has to be an "ATM Machine" to in order to be able to enter a "PIN number".
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
in order to be able to enter a "PIN number".
So what your saying is, I have to enter a PI number... Damn, this is gonna take a while
3.1415....
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I hope the keypad isn't connected to the computer via the USB bus
Re:If it's an exploit for ATM *Machines*... (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, just STFU up.
Parent
Re:If it's an exploit for ATM *Machines*... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:If it's an exploit for ATM *Machines*... (Score:4, Informative)
The 'C' in NIC stands for 'Controller', not 'Card'.
some [techtarget.com] people [wisegeek.com], including 3Com [3com.com] and Cisco [cisco.com], disagree [abdn.ac.uk] with [about.com] you. [computerhope.com]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
So they've had 8 months warning, and now suddenly when researchers want to publish they now want time to fix it? Not indicative of a company that gives a flying fuck about security. They don't deserve time.
Re:Ridiculous (Score:5, Interesting)
No, they don't... but it depends on the hack.
If it gives out free money, only harming the company which didn't seem to care, then no, don't give them any more time.
If the hack gives them access to innocent people's account details, and they'd be out money, and/or time fighting the bogus withdrawals, then yes, give them time to fix it.
Parent
Re:Ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, they HAD time to fix it. It still is highly problematic- but the big problem with all this thinking that bars people from disclosing this stuff at the stage it's at right now is the highly flawed thinking that disclosing a vulnerability discloses it to potential attackers which will use it.
It's a bad thing to think the bad guys don't already know what you're showing off and presume that they're not doing it. Depending on the hack, they may be prepping for it or already screwing you over with it and you just don't know it yet. If a white/grey hat found it, I can assure you a black hat either has already found it or will shortly.
Parent
Re:Ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
You've made the classic mistake of assuming corporations have any motivation to do the right thing, as opposed to the profitable thing. They don't give a rat's ass who is using this hack. All they care about is the price of their shares. If keeping a dangerous vulnerability semi-secret for a few more months will help their share price, they don't really care how many people get screwed over. Think of it this way: if their ATMs were electrocuting people at random, they would do a cost benefit analysis to figure out the likely damages awarded at trials, and compare that to the cost of fixing the problem. If fixing the problem were more expensive, the company would happily go on killing people. You think they care about your freaking finances?
Parent
Re:Ridiculous (Score:4, Insightful)
What i think this guy should do is to publish the name of the problematic bank and/or ATM vendor, and give their users a month to withdraw all of their assets from that bank (since they clearly don't care about their customers' finances) and move to another one (of their own choosing). I'm sure as hell they would fix the problem ipso facto. My 2 cents.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The one and only thing that makes them fix it is the near certain knowledge that the vulnerability will be exposed far and wide after a deadline. It is reasonable to give an extension if it's really a hard problem to solve, but they must feel nearly certain that the problem will come out in public.
I do agree that it's not a good idea to assume that only the good guys know about the vulnerability.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe in some regards, but the electrocuting ATM isn't a great example.
Oh, I dunno, it's not like there hasn't been precedent for companies systematically ignoring lethal electrocution hazards in their work. [go.com]
There exist numerous product safety laws that could affect the criminal culpability of decision makers in a company who refuse to address serious known safety concerns in their products.
As of 2008, with the passing of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 [cpsc.gov], the criminal penalty for "kno
Re:Ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Companies only move upon losses and public fiascos. Politeness should be gone by 8 months. Honestly, "this can slash your profits to 0 or below" doesn't sound like a cause for concern?
I'm sure departments within the company can make that same argument for losses but those are harder to take care of than simple software fixes that people are nice enough to be willing to tell them what the issue is. I mean how much easier can you get than someone else doing the job for you, that you didn't do originally? etc etc.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You're making the assumption that it's a simple software fix. There isn't always someone who knows the software, understands the problem and can figure out how to resolve it in the code.
A lot of companies hire the cheapest people they can to implement ill-defined code which is duct taped together and released as a product. Once the product is released, all of the expensive ($10/hr) programmers are fired and the product is supported by a group of people who have a script to follow and get paid $2/hr. Once
Re: (Score:2)
We're talking Diebold here, why are you surprised?
Re:Ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Ridiculous (Score:4, Insightful)
You're right they don't deserve it - but giving information to criminals to make it easier for them to steal - thus hurting society as a whole - is not the answer. Unfortunately the security of ATM's is greater then these researches desire to present their work.
Releasing the hole does not hurt society, however, it does hurt Diebold customers and partners.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Releasing the hole does not hurt society, however, it does hurt Diebold customers and partners.
1) Diebold customers/partners did not cause this issue
2) If you use an ATM you are a diebold customer
3) Diebold will pass the cost to companies which use ATMs and they will pass the cost to you
4) It does hurt society as a whole to enable criminals. Just because you are not directly effected does not make you immune to the effects.
Re:Ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Releasing the hole does not hurt society, however, it does hurt Diebold customers and partners.
I'd have to know more details. The manufacturer is not the one who will feel the direct repercussions of this hack - the ATM owners will. It might have been more effective for the researcher to inform some of the larger customers rather than the company. I'd bet that a big bank leaning on Diebold would have been more effective than this researcher disclosing a secret exploit.
Re:Ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Current situation: society as a whole does not know the vulnerability or it's scope, criminals might or might not know the vulnerability and might or might not be actively exploiting it.
Full disclosure:anyone with enough brains and guts can exploit the vulnerability, society at large can take steps to minimize the risk since it is now known what exactly the risk is.
Parent
Re:Ridiculous (Score:5, Interesting)
Being as the exploit is already in the fucking wild and being actively exploited, preventing the information from being presented is completely and totally pointless.
Parent
Re:Ridiculous (Score:5, Interesting)
Not really. Despite the exploit being out there, there is likely only a few malicious people that know about it. If the hack requires physical access to the machine, this means the number of machines that are exploited is less. As other people have mentioned.... once the exploit is significantly more public, that will increase the number of malicious people that know about it and increases the number of exploited machines.
There's a lot of people who can apply exploits. There aren't as many that can discover them.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
WinCE when you say that (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:WinCE when you say that (Score:5, Informative)
I can't believe that people use WinCE for a real world application that requires security and reliability. The morons who built these systems are reaping the reward for their ignorance.
A lot of ATM's were previously running IBM OS/2 and were pretty stable. Not only are these ATMs now exploitable but they are also much slower than before they were "upgraded" to WinCE.
Upgrades are supposed to improve functionality or improve performance but the text UI actually got about 2X slower to respond.
Parent
They got the ability to talk though (Score:5, Informative)
They are now much easier for the disabled to use. While it was possible for someone who was blind to use an OS/2 ATM, it relied more or less on memorizing what to do. The buttons had braille on them but there wasn't really any feed back other than beeps. So it was a situation of memorize the key presses to do what you want. New ATMs have headphone jacks and can give audio feedback, allowing those with vision problems to use them much easier.
Parent
Improve functionality? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's an ATM.
It reads a card, checks your balance and pokes money out a slot.
What increased functionality is there?
(well, yes, it takes in deposits, too, but...)
Really, why aren't these things running the most limited OS possible?
Running WinXP on them is just silly. I would have thought WinCE would
be more locked down, but apparently not.
The comment about OS/2 machines being more secure is interesting.
I'd rather have IBM running my cash machines than Microsoft.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
New from microsoft.
Windows 7 ATM edition. now with richer multimedia and features! giveyour customers access to a media center while they wait for their money!
Dont laugh, Somewhere a manager in microsoft though of this and pitched it.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
One big reason to update from OS/2 to Windows is that its a lot easier to add new functionality to the Windows version of the ATM software than it is to add new functionality to the older OS/2 ATM software.
Examples of new functionality ATM operators may want or need to add:
1.Advertising (for loans, credit cards etc) whilst the ATM talks to all the computers and you wait for your money to come out
2.Prepaid credit vouchers of various kinds (e.g. for prepaid mobile phones)
3.Changes in the law (this last one ha
Re: (Score:2)
I agree, they should have kept using OS/2 [wikipedia.org].
MS doesn't recommend WinCE either . . . (Score:3, Informative)
. . . from TFA:
The operating system used in the affected system, Windows CE, poses hurdles to a quick fix. Microsoft recommends that Windows CE is used for "low-end cash-dispensing ATMs," while Windows XP Embedded and Windows XP Professional are used on more full-featured ATMs, according to a white paper on kiosk and ATM operating-system platforms issued by the software maker. Windows XP Embedded, the latest version of which is Windows Embedded Standard 2009, and Windows XP Professional are more secure because they are easier to update, the software giant says.
Release it anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't need a conference to publicize a security problem. Post it on the internet, and the vendor will have plenty of incentive to implement a fix immediately.
Re:Release it anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't think these ATMs will stay up if an exploit is published do you?
The sequence of events goes something like this:
Bank buys shitty ATMs
Exploits are developed
People start stealing from ATMs
Someone gives the ATM manufacturer the exploit and tells them to fix their problem
People continue to steal from ATMs
Someone (publicly) threatens to publish
ATM company says, "hold on give us a minute to fix it"
People continue stealing from ATMs
scenario A
ATM company fixes the problem
Banks and consumers never know their assets were exposed
scenario b
ATM company stalls
people continue to steal from ATMs
someone publishes
a whole lot of money is suddenly stolen in a very short time period
Banks shut down all vulnerable ATMs
Customers notice their ATMs don't work - maybe ask questions
Banks sue ATM manufacturer, become a little more careful about who they do business with in the future
Parent
Too much pr0n (Score:4, Funny)
Everytime I see "ATM" these days I think "Anal to Mouth".
I need to stop surfing the Diabolic site....
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Is this an overstated problem? (Score:2)
If we estimate that world wide, only 8 million dollars was stolen out of ALL of the ATMs that are out there, I would think that that's actually a success, more than a liability.
I mean, people steal more than that in cars, in what, every few hours?
No surprise here... (Score:3, Interesting)
It is quite unsurprising, really. We see the same thing going on in the SCADA security space. The book, Hacking Scada: Industrial Network Security From the Mind of the Attacker [hackingscada.com] , has been held up for at least a year past it's original planned publication date for similar thinking.
Another odd device running Windows CE (Score:3, Insightful)
It's unfortunately not too odd to hear that ATMs run Windows (especially with some of the error messages I've seen). But there are even odder devices running Windows.
I work at a somewhat-hated international retailing chain that will go unnamed, and while working there the other night my merchandise scanner, one of the portable hand-held ones used on the floor, froze. Not uncommon, but when I reset it it booted into Windows CE. A normal windows desktop. I tried starting Windows Media Player, but it wouldn't do anything. The funny thing is that when it works properly, it uses minimal ASCII art and no graphics at all.
Why these kind of things need to use Windows is beyond me. Windows, security issues aside, is alright for general purpose machines, but not highly-specialized machines like a scanner or ATM.
Re:Another odd device running Windows CE (Score:4, Insightful)
Sir, you are confusing Desktop Windows with Embedded Windows. While the source base is starting to be shared, their targets and goals are substantially different. Windows CE IS meant to be highly-specialized for highly-specialized machines. You don't even have to build in graphical output. I've seen usable CE images take up ~2MB of memory total.
Parent
Never fear, BH presentation likely (Score:5, Interesting)
Not forced! (Score:5, Informative)
The article is transparent in saying that he chose to cancel his own presentation on his own volition, because it hadn't been fixed yet.
How it works. (Score:4, Interesting)
The hack is based on the assumption that if you make a withdrawal from an ATM and don't take the money you forgot to take it, so the machine takes the money back and refunds the amount to your account.
The thing is that the machine doesn't have a way to count how much bills it takes back, so you can just take the bills from the middle and you will get a full refund.
Supposedly this also works if you take the money right before the ATM pulls back in the money.
Re:What I don't get (Score:5, Funny)
Is why everyone cares so much about Money. It's just pieces of paper and little bits of metal. What really matters is Love!
Well, with money anyone can get some temporary love! And permanent herpes.
Parent
Re:What I don't get (Score:4, Insightful)
And some more long-term loving aswell. That is, until she has spend all your money.
Parent