

Obama and Romney Campaigns Adopt Square for Funding - nikhilpandit
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/obama-and-romney-campaigns-adopt-square-for-funding/

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ry0ohki
"If the Square rollout is successful, and others follow, campaigns could send
out armies of volunteers brandishing the Square credit card reader and
collecting millions of dollars in micro-payments from political supporters."

Seems like a no-brainer for someone with ill intent to go around doing this
having the Square connected to their own bank account instead of Obama's.

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jcampbell1
That is not a very good scam, as you would have disclose your bank account and
personal information for it to work. Criminals that leave a paper trail aren't
criminals for long.

You would be much better off faking one of those salvation army buckets.

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ry0ohki
Hack a Square to just take the credit card info for use outside of Square?
Half of the battle with scams is building trust, so if people are told to be
on the lookout for guys with Obama pins and a credit card reader...

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Sam_Odio
That shouldn't be hard since old square dongles are unencrypted [1]. Just
create an app that interfaces with the dongle and looks like the obama app.
You're good to go [2].

1\.
[http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/per_visas_orders_square...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/per_visas_orders_square_to_encrypt_its_dongles.php)

2\. Note to the NSA or any other government agency reading my public social
network comments: It's a shame I have to post this disclaimer, but I have no
intention of defrauding supporters of any political campaign (simply
discussing a known security flaw). Also, Hacker News is not a news site for
crackers.

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omfg
You have to say that?

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shrikant
Sadly, yes.

See [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/twitter-
jo...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/twitter-joke-to-
destroy-america-gets-two-brits-deported-from-
us/2012/01/30/gIQAD0tfcQ_blog.html)

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jsight
From the comments, it appears there is some debate about whether those
incidents (twitter deportation) actually occurred.

