Hacking the ATM Machine...
Would it have really been possible to hack an ATM machine (in the early-mid 90's) with an Atari Portfolio hand-held computer?
shareyes
---------
One
Big
A**
Mistake
America
MovieChat Forums > Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) Discussion > Hacking the ATM Machine...
A good friend of mine worked in IT anti fraud for Bank Of America and one of his specialties was ATM fraud and he said it was total bullflop.
_______________
My iMDB profile http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4297325/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1
I had that feeling that it wasn't legit. I think that scene was just to show how badass John was.
shareand john has been a badass til this day
This scene was shown to establish that John knows his way around computers, meaning that later in life, during the future war, he would have adequate hacking skills to be able to reprogram the T-800 to be his young self's protector in the 90's.
shareYes it was. In fact, I have been doing this for over 30 years now
shareYou watched him do it didn't you?
shareShort answer: probably not.
But if you want to make it work for the sake of the movie, this was filmed in 1990, and takes place in 1995. Security and technology on ATM machines was nowhere near what it would become. The movie is trying to make the point that John is already a whiz at hacking into computers, even government ones (notice the bank was call Federal Security Bank). So instead of bogging us down with the details of how he did it (or if it was even possible) the movie asks us to trust that he figured it out.
Probably like MacGyver, they intentionally showed a way to hack it that could NOT be done so no one can say they imitated it.
shareYou could hack ATMs with a USB connection (https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9761-truly_cardless_jackpotting_an_atm_using_auxiliary_devices). I also know of credit card generators in the 2000s which worked for online banking. Also not sure when or how back then CC card blocker in ATMs worked, so if there were not such a thing back then, it would be imo plausible. So I wouldn't be surprised that something like this was possible in the 90s.
What definitely worked in the 90s was telephone card hacking, this was for example the first "business" of Kim Dotcom (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom).
Hollywood can do anything.
shareHard to say. But it looked cool. And almost saved Atari. But not quite.
If only they had had the T-1000 say: “that’s a really nice Atari Portfolio”