From: Flame Remailer <remailer@flame.alias.net>
Date: Sat, 19 Aug 95 09:36:29 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Costs of Credit Card Fraud and Brute-Force Codebreaking
Message-ID: <199508191631.SAA10338@utopia.hacktic.nl>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


fc@all.net wrote:
>I think a lot of people miss the distinction between automated message
>cracking and dumpster diving.  Dumpster diving is not free.  It costs at
>least a dollar each to get credit card slips by dumpster diving.
>
>Consider that in order to use the information, you have to get the slip,
>pull off the numbers, enter them into a computer (or even worse yet,
>create a phoney card or make a phone call) in order to use the
>information.  The break-even point for an automated cracking and usage
>system is more than a dollar per stolen card.  My parallel processor
>is actually more cost effective for crimilar theft via credit card fraud.

Well, a few years ago I partially satisfied my phone-phreaking habit in
the following manner:
I would walk up to a busy intersection in a comercial area and stroll
through the various gas stations located there, collecting receipts
that careless customers had forgotten to take with them after using the
"pay-at-the-pump".  Then I would visit the pay phones at the nearby
mini-malls.  It sure didn't cost me a dollar a number.

The cost/value of a card number depends a lot on what you seek to gain.
If it's free phone calls, your costs are basically nil.  If you want
free gas, it'll cost you $500 or so for the card reader/writer and a
few old cards.  If you have a system for extracting thousands of dollars
from each card, economics of scale would probably justify the $10000
rc4-breaker.  ...or you could just hack netcom, steal the mother lode
and be set for life...  (Hi Kevin!  drop me a line when you get out;
ya gotta love those plea-bargains - 30 year sentence reduced to 8
months! ;-)