Swipe-Card Access

G

Guy.Named.Matt

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 23, 2002
Messages
275
As many modders out there know, it is very difficult to come up with an original idea. Most of my ideas for things I have done have come from other people's projects. Over the past while I have been learning (on my own) how to program a line of microcontrollers (Atmel AVR). Quite eager to put my new ability to use I did a bunch of research on how I could create a swipe-card authentication system for my computer.

My order from Digi-Key has arrived and I am ready to begin programming and assembling this system. It will work basically like this: A user must swipe a valid magnetic-strip card through a reader. He/she will then have a limited amount of time to enter a PIN number in a keypad. Providing a valid card is swiped and the correct PIN is entered, the computer will turn on. To make it a little more interesting a 20x4 character LCD and an array of bright LEDs will prompt users and display the system status.

A lot of work is ahead of me, especially programming. Decoding the magnetic stripes is somewhat complicated. The LCD driver should not be a problem.

I'll keep everyone posted as I (likely slowly) progress. I have some pictures of the parts and microcontroller programmer, but don’t have a place to host them yet.
 
ever thought of using one of those rfid things like the speed pass you can use at exxon so you dont need a card swiping thing hanging out of your case you just wave it in front of your case.
 
I had not thought about speedpass before, no. By the sounds of things, however, the working of speedpass systems are not publically available. Other RFID devices do seem quite possible though. There seems to be lots of information on them. That could be a future project for me, but since I already have all the parts I need for the swipe-card idea, and the encoding/decoding process is publically available, I think I'll keep going wiht my origional plan.

Thanks for the image host suggestions MoDsOuRcEdOtNeT, I'll check them out soon.
 
Marklar: now I'm really starting to like that RFID idea. I have decided to make one of those as well. Because I'm still in high-school and exams are comming up over the next couple weeks, I will be qute distracted with other stuff, but the more I look into RFID tags/transceivers, the more they seem appropriet for what I want to make. Perhaps one of the best selling point behind them is that the same company that makes the microcontrollers I work with makes the transceivers. Therefore there is a lot of documentation on interfacing the devices. I wish I had thought of that earlier.
 
i really love these cool ideas, but unless you have some crazy locks on your pc, you can just open it and short out the power jumpers ;)

you may also want to tie your system into the powersupply...

hint, you can get +5 from your psu even when the machine is off from the +5 stby line, and if you put your system between the mobo and psu on the greenwire (PS-ON) you can make it more secure
 
If you can get physical access to the machine then there is no such thing as security.

It might keep the idle curious out of your box at a LAN party though, but then it would probably be turned on anyway. Better have a screensaver w/password or lock it down.
 
I use an RFID key at work to access various areas.

They work quite well, and are insanely easy to use. The RFID key I have is a black thing that is on my keychain. All i have to do in teh morning is spot the little box on teh other side of the window next to the door, and just put my entire hand with keychain in hand up to teh window, and it unlocks the door. I dont even have to swipe the key or anyhting, just hold it in front of the reader.
 
Sounds like the thing in my season pass to Mt. Bachelor. You just put your pass on your shoulder, under clothing or outside, then rub it against the reader at the little turnstile. It'll say 'Have a Nice Day' display the time, and let you through. :) Nifty system.
 
We use speedpass at work. My badge keeps dieing on me, leaving me locked outside in the cold :( I have always heard that speedpass was very reliable, maybe our badges just suck?
 
If you figure out how to broadcast RFID data let me know, that information is very useful to me.
 
Watsisname:

I did a quick look around on the RFID stuff and this is basically what I found. The protocol for information being sent is not publicaly available. The signals comming out of the reciever, however, can be easily manipulated by a microcontroller. The chips I was looking at are made by Atmel, the same company that makes the AVR microcontrollers I use. By the looks of things to create a functional system you need three main components.

1) A base station IC: such as Atmels' U2270B: See here.
2) A transponder (the keychain thing) such as Atmel's TK5551:See here
3) A microcontroller to en/decode the information going between it and the base station. This is the general family of devices i like to use. I will be using the AT90S8535 although almost any chip (providing it has enough Flash memeory) should work.

The base station basically acts as a translator. It is a mystery what goes from it and what it receives. The base station takes this gibberish and turns it into usable information. So if oyu are looking to make something with RFID technology you shuld not be worried about the signals being sent between the transponder and the base station, rather the base station and the microcontroller.

I'm interested in what you have in mind for these devices. Hope this helped.
 
You can buy these types of thing. One of them works via you you hooking it up to the USB port. The users can't login to Windows until they slide their car in and enter their pin number.

We researched them awhile back for the company I work for. They get really high tech as you move up the ladder. The really nice onces don't require a PIN/Card, but rather a fingerprint :)


How about modding one of these?
Click to expand...

Do a search for NT Biometric Scanners or something like that. Forgot what I used to find them. They're already ready made.

It's rather neat on some of them. As some link the fingerprint scanned with the network login of the person that finger belongs to (or used to at least). This can be used to restrict access to certain areas, or with a little tweaking, certain doors. All via the Microsoft Exchange Server software (along side the fingerprint -to- login software, naturally).
 
Originally posted by Spidey329
You can buy these types of thing. One of them works via you you hooking it up to the USB port. The users can't login to Windows until they slide their car in and enter their pin number.
Click to expand...
link?
 
They sell those fingerprint scanners (low end models i'm sure) at a couple of the local computer stores. They USB models that are required to log in to windows for $90CAD! That would take some of the fun out of building something myself. I do not really need a high-tech security system, it just seemed like a good project to work on.

As a side note, I've started microcontroller chip but soon realized I would need more timers. For that reason, I have moved to the AT90L8535... (like anybody actually cares :rolleyes: ). I usually program in C for this type of thing, but I want to make it a bit more of a learning experiance; I have started programming the in Assembly. It is more efficient for the microcontroller's point of view but very messy to write in. We'll see how far I get with it at least. I'm working on the LCD driver right now.
 
Originally posted by Guy.Named.Matt
I had not thought about speedpass before, no. By the sounds of things, however, the working of speedpass systems are not publically available. Other RFID devices do seem quite possible though. There seems to be lots of information on them. That could be a future project for me, but since I already have all the parts I need for the swipe-card idea, and the encoding/decoding process is publically available, I think I'll keep going wiht my origional plan.

Thanks for the image host suggestions MoDsOuRcEdOtNeT, I'll check them out soon.
Click to expand...

If the speedpass works anything like our ID's do at my office, it's pretty ingenious. Basically there's just a very small wafer card inside the card. On this card is a small microchip, and some other leads that are basically just used for antenna. Attached to this wafer card is a loop of copper wire...about as thin as a human hair if not thinner. I imagine there's probably at least 30-40 feet of it in there. The copper loop acts as a power generator when passed through a magnetic field. This in turn generates *just enough* power to turn on the microchip and send the signal. The other device being the reader attached to the door is constantly generating a magnetic field and also constantly listening for a signal.

I believe NASA has been using this type of technology in experiments for years now. Pretty common knowledge anymore that passing a coil of wire through a magnetic field will generate power.

would be a cool mod either way really. Have you thought of the small wafer cards like used in satellite TV, AMEX Blue credit card, some mastercards, etc...???? Those may be a little cheaper depending on the implementation (reader and software wise I mean.)
 
Wafer cards... I don't even have the slightest idea where to start with those. I could probably find out easily enough though. It's sort of funny, since I posted this project on here, I've spent almost as much time researching other technologies that i'm not using than programming. Anyways, as I said before I've already got the parts. The card reader cost me $43 and the LCD cost $35, the rest of the stuff I already owned from other projects (microcontroller and programmer included). That being the case, cost was not really too much of an issue. With university comming up next year, I don't have whole ton of money to spend, so I kinda have to make do with what I have right now.

I stumbled upon this today in case anyone is interested in a slightly more primative method of key-card protection... looks a bit akward to make buy hey: http://www.gideontech.com/guides/electronic_lock/
 
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