On: The hidden lab where bankcards are hacked

[batou]

Well they were pretty crap. There was a metalised bit of plastic for the card and the reader burned certain bits of the plastic to gate the light. If you bought a £5 card you could cut a hole in it, fill it up with epoxy and use a permanent marker to fool it into thinking you had a £20 card :)

Edit: my memory is faulty; they were units, not £. Been a long time :)

[davb → batou]

I remember these! A quick Google yields the following, with an example of the reader mechanism http://www.telephonecardcollector.com/optical-cardphone-payp...

A touch of nostalgia there.

[batou → davb]

That's the ones! Never seen inside one before - thanks for posting!