I suppose this is some metamorphicly generated checksum. Until someone gets ahold of one of these OMNI cards and takes it apart...
We use SecurID cards, which sound very similar, as a security measure on some of our remote access connections. BTW, you can't take the cards apart. They fry themselves if you try. -- Lefty (lefty@apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:.
BTW, you can't take the cards apart. They fry themselves if you try. Uhh. Well, not exactly. The cards don't fry, but presumably the *key* inside them does. I've seen a SecurID card which had been pried apart; when you put the two halves back together, the LED went on again, apparantly into some "initialization mode". One assumes that the internal key had apparantly been fried; it was, however, apparantly possible to reinitialize the card with a new key. This may not defeat their security, but it may make it possible to recycle their old cards instead of buying new ones.. - Bill
lefty@apple.com might have said:
BTW, you can't take the cards apart. They fry themselves if you try.
sommerfeld@orchard.medford.ma.us might have replied:
I've seen a SecurID card which had been pried apart; when you put the two halves back together, the LED went on again, apparantly into some "initialization mode".
If you looked inside, perhaps you saw where the switches are? I've been told that the SecurId cards have two membrane-style switches on the face (not actually marked though.) The initial key is programmed by keying it in through those switches; the "protocol" ends with a command to "ignore any further input from these switches"... Early ones were hand-keyed, they then went to a robot mechanism, and now apparently there is a device which takes a hopper full of cards and keys them in in parallel batches (something like 20 at a time for the machine I heard about a year ago.) This is all stories I heard (as far as I know, second hand from SecurID people) but it would be interesting to confirm the existance of the switches... _Mark_ <eichin@paycheck.cygnus.com> ... or at least I might be...
There were apparantly more than two switches; more like 10 or so. I think there may be two different models of securid cards, one with and one without switches; the only difference may be in the faceplate and the factory programming. - Bill
participants (3)
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lefty＠apple.com -
Mark W. Eichin -
sommerfeld＠orchard.medford.ma.us