Black Hat 2009: How to hack a parking meter

At Black Hat this week, security researchers showed how a technically savvy hacker can make a fake payment card that allows unlimited free parking on San Francisco's smart parking meter system

  • 1

    How to hack a San Francisco parking meter

    This is how a San Francisco parking meter shoul

  • 2

    Meter service

    A technician works on San Francisco's smart met

  • 3

    Inside the meter

    Here's a look at the circuitry inside the smart

  • 4

    Check out those chips

    To get a closer look at the chips on the cards,

  • 5

    Figuring out how the transaction works

    The researchers put this shim between the smart

  • 6

    Another look at the shim

    Another view of the custom shim used to read th

  • 7

    Paying for a lot of parking time

    The payoff!

  • 8

    The man with the grand idea

    Joe Grand at Black Hat

How to hack a San Francisco parking meter

This is how a San Francisco parking meter should look; a proper payment card has been inserted to pay for additional parking time. But security researchers at the Black Hat conference have discovered a way to trick the meters into accepting a fake payment card, thereby granting unlimited free parking.

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July 30, 2009

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