The Cards Aren't Alright - Detecting Counterfeit Gift Cards Using Encoding Jitter

Explore a groundbreaking approach to detecting counterfeit gift cards in this 22-minute IEEE conference talk. Delve into the innovative use of encoding jitter, a phenomenon present in all ISO/IEC-standard magnetic stripe cards, to distinguish legitimate gift cards from counterfeits. Learn how this technique, developed in partnership with Walmart, achieved up to 99.3% accuracy in identifying fake cards. Understand the challenges faced by the gift card industry due to increasing fraud and the inapplicability of EMV standards. Discover how this detection method, utilizing inexpensive commodity card readers, can significantly reduce gift card fraud and increase the difficulty for adversaries to produce undetectable counterfeits.