PAM with Credit Cards

[Brian Fahrlander]

On Sun, 2005-02-27 at 07:51 -0600, David Hoffman wrote:
> On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 07:37:25 -0600, Brian Fahrlander
> <brian at fahrlander.net> wrote:

> Considering that most MagStripe readers will send input through the
> keyboard port (although there are some that are a direct serial
> connection) you may not have to do much other than be sure that the
> information in the stripe is encoded properly. What I mean is that it
> would be the same as walking up to a machine with a login prompt and
> typing the username, a carriage return, a password, and another
> carriage return.
> 
> However, I would be more concerned about security. If someone loses a
> card, then anyone else who finds it is in the system.
> 
> Any type of physical security device should always be backed up by
> something that the user knows. Even SecureID cards only contain enough
> information to authenticate that the user should be granted access,
> but they are only good if the second piece of the puzzle is there, and
> that would have to be the users's login name or some other
> information. For a better example, you can't just go to your bank with
> someone else's ATM card and get money... you have to know the PIN as
> well. So my suggestion is that while you may use the card for entering
> a user name, it would not be secure to use it for the user name AND
> password.
> 
    Sounds like a good start; given that it's a "keyboard wedge" how
would I approach such a system, via PAM?  I'm not a programmer, but I
understand the environment, mostly...

-- 
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Brian Fahrländer                 Christian, Conservative, and Technomad
Evansville, IN                                http://www.fahrlander.net 
ICQ: 5119262                                          AIM: WheelDweller
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