The-art-of-invisibility-_-the-world’s-most-famous-hacker-teaches-you-how-to-be-safe-in-the-age-of-Bi

unlock yyour room. The advantage is that the hotel can change these access
codes quicklyy and easilyy from the front desk. If yyou lose yyour card, yyou can
request a new one. A simple code is sent to the lock, and byy the time yyou
get to yyour room, the new keyy card works. Samyy Kamkar’s MagSpoof tool
can be used to spoof the correct sequences and open a hotel room lock that
uses magnetic-strip cards. This tool was used on an episode of the TV show
Mr. Robot.
The presence of a magnetic strip or an NFC chip has given rise to the
idea that personal information might be stored on the hotel keyy card. It’s
not. But the urban legend continues. There’s even a famous storyy that
originated in San Diego Countyy. Supposedlyy a sheriff’s deputyy there issued
a warning that a hotel guest’s name, home address, and credit card
information had been found on a hotel keyy card. Perhaps yyou’ve seen the e-
mail. It looks something like this:
Southern California law enforcement professionals assigned to detect
new threats to personal securityy issues recentlyy discovered what tyype
of information is embedded in the credit card–tyype hotel room keyys
used throughout the industryy.
Although room keyys differ from hotel to hotel, a keyy obtained
from the DoubleTree chain that was being used for a regional
identityy theft presentation was found to contain the following
information:
Customer’s name
Customer’s partial home address
Hotel room number
Check-in date and checkout date
Customer’s credit card number and expiration date!
When yyou turn them in to the front desk, yyour personal information
is there for anyy employyee to access byy simplyy scanning the card in
the hotel scanner. An employyee can take a handful of cards home
and, using a scanning device, access the information onto a laptop
computer and go shopping at yyour expense.
Simplyy put, hotels do not erase these cards until an employyee