[mythtv-users] OT: Cable Modems...

[f-myth-users at media.mit.edu]

    > Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 20:33:49 -0600
    > From: Brian Wood <beww at beww.org>

    > Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
    > > On Tue, Sep 25, 2007 at 08:42:02PM -0500, Meatwad wrote:
    > >>> Does anyone still use T-delivered Frame relay any more (as opposed to a
    > >>> 56K line)?
    > >> You betchya. There's a company in California that still makes Bell 202A 
    > >> plugs to monitor components of oil and gas pipelines/plants.
    > > 
    > > 1200bps modems are actually useful *because they can lock up in about a
    > > second*.
    > > 
    > > They're popular for paging systems, among other things.

    > Wonder what they use on those ATMs (bank machine, not a network
    > protocol) that use dialups? I read somewhere that folks were putting
    > recorders on the lines but I suspect that's apocryphal.

Doing so was exactly the subject of a problem set in a class I took in
the early 80's.  ("...with you in the manhole is an Apple ][.  Now...")
The subject was, of course, replay attacks, nonces, and so forth.
[The crowning glory of the pragmatism of that particular class---
a sort of literature review of computer science, too rare in this
field---was a throwaway, "Of course, all of this stuff won't help
you in practice, because someone will just pop out the acoustic tiles
in your false ceiling, climb over your locked machine room door, and
read all the passwords written down next to the operator's console."]

Before public-key was widely known, too many places that didn't want
to bother with symmetric keys (after all, one key everywhere was really
dangerous, and having to individually key each endpoint was annoying)
just hoped nobody would figure out which phone line was theirs.

I suggest perusing Risks Digest; they've had a zillion stories about
hacking ATMs in all sorts of ways.  (And I suggest that I and everyone
else in this thread drop it, because it -is- way off-topic... :)