on Key project is an effort 
to develop a bogus 'Xerox Key' that
will allow  unlimited free use of 
xerox machines at corporate offices,
schools, colleges and libraries.
 
Most xerox/copier machines have a slot 
where a small box about the
size of a pack of cigarettes can be 
plugged in. The box usually has an
electromechanical digit-counter on it 
to keep track of how many copies have
been made with that key. Periodically 
the numbers on the keys are read (like
a gas meter) and the copies are 
charged back to the keyholder or the
keyholder's department. There is also 
a counter inside the xerox machine that
counts the total number of copies made 
on that machine.
 
These electro-mechanical cards have a 
bunch of pins on the back that
interface with the xerox machine, and 
[PAUSE]_ __ __ __ __ __ __ _which cue the xerox machine that a key
is being used and that coins need not 
be inserted to make copies. The keys
seem rather unsophisticated. By 
measuring the resistance between each 
pair of
pins on a 'borrowed' xerox key, it may 
be possible to wire up a circuit made
of resistors to a set of compatible 
pins in order to spoof a xerox machine
into recognizing the device as a 
legitimate xerox key. Another approach 
would
be to take a xerox key apart and see 
what is inside, or to get a copy of a
service manual for the model of xerox 
machine that you have access to and
'reverse engineer' the key circuitry. 
It may be that the pins are connected
so that each machine recognizes a 
specific pattern of grounded, hot or 
open
pins, sort of like a combination lock, 
to prevent the use of unauthorized
[PAUSE]_ __ __ __ __ __ __ _keys. If this is the case, a set of 
thumbwheel or DIP switches could be 
wired
up to allow the hacking of 
combinations for various copiers. 
Different models
of copy machines may use different pin 
configurations or key schemes. It's a
matter for further investigation.
 
Another type of copier (such as those 
in the basement of the UCLA Library)
utilize magnetic stripe cards which 
are purchased through various 
departments
or the student book store for $20. 
Each time a copy is made using the 
card,
10 cents is deducted from the 
magnetically encoded value on the card 
until
the balance goes to zero, and then the 
card becomes useless. Exhausted cards
are returned to the user, and are 
[PAUSE]_ __ __ __ __ __ __ _often found discarded on or near 
copiers or
in nearby trash baskets. The 
mag-stripe cards are very similar to 
those used
by the Bay Area Rapid Transit System 
(BART) in the Berkeley/San Francisco 
Bay
area of Northern California. Heat 
transfer has been used to duplicate 
BART
cards by placing a strip of 
quarter-inch reel-to-reel magnetic 
audio tape
over the mag-stripe on the card and 
running a clothes iron over it.  
Heating
the oxide coating on the tape this way 
exceeds the "curie temperature" and
the oxide becomes susceptible to being 
magnetized by any nearby magnetic
field, in this case the coded 
information on the legitimate card.  
Variations
[PAUSE]_ __ __ __ __ __ __ _of this technique might also work with 
mag-stripe credit cards, or techniques
outlined elswhere for recording and 
duplicating ATM cards may work for this
application as well.
 
If you have any further thoughts or 
technical info about xerox machines,
xerox keys or related matters we would 
be interested in hearing about it.
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another project of...
 
       Outlaw
    Telecommandos                     
12-MAY-90
  :3]33^:3]]33^3]3:
  :3]33^:3]]33^3]3:
  :01-213-376-0111:
 
 
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