In today's digital world everyone owns a debit or credit card.These cards are used for online transactions and are made up of plastic.But did you ever thought how these plastic cards work? What is there mechanism?.In today's blog we will be learning how these cards work.
You might have observed this type cards are not only used for online payments but now a days plastics cards are used in hotel as a room lock,in any organisation to pass by a door and also in schools and colleges also.The first question is how these cards work and how a single strip on the card is used to read and write the data.
source:https://www.google.co.in/search?dcr=0&biw=1440&bih=794&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=ZGKVWvOiJ8vvvATEh5WYCg&q=credit+debit+card&oq=credit%2Fd+card&gs_l=psy-ab.3.0.0i7i30k1l9j0i8i7i30k1.8677.13231.0.14254.6.6.0.0.0.0.189.897.0j6.6.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..0.6.893...0j0i67k1j0i30k1.0.iEBhaCborDI#imgrc=v--FRx3I3VD7MM:
First thing is what kind of data is stored in the card?
Suppose that we are using a debit/credit card,so we require a unique data for every card so that it is used to confirm that the card belongs to the particular user only.In the same way in hotel room cards we save the room number of the hotel so that other room cannot be accessed with the same card.
Now how the data is stored in the card strip?
The concept is not new,it is taken from the old style of how we used to store music in cassettes.There we used to store videos and music in the magnetic strips and the same is applied in credit/debit cards.The magnetic strip is made of such material whose magnetic properties can be changed easily that is we can magnetise the material according to north or south pole according to different alignments.
Once we swipe the card in the machine all the sections are read by the reader machine and some electric pulses are generated which makes it possible to store the data in reader machines.
In the same way the cards used i different organisation which may be hotels,schools,companies,colleges etc have the same concept.
You might observe that cards used in hotels sometime does not response.Even after swiping it correctly it does not work.Why this happens?
This is because the material used to build that magnetic strip.The material comes in different grades and for different purposes.The manufactures choose the grade based on how long the card should be used and what should be its durability.The cards used in hotels keep on changing from one customer to other.So these cards are not of a higher grade.Where as debit/credit cards are used daily and they belong to a single person till he owns it.So the quality of the card is always made of a higher grade.
source:https://www.google.co.in/search?dcr=0&biw=1440&bih=794&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=ZGKVWvOiJ8vvvATEh5WYCg&q=credit+debit+card&oq=credit%2Fd+card&gs_l=psy-ab.3.0.0i7i30k1l9j0i8i7i30k1.8677.13231.0.14254.6.6.0.0.0.0.189.897.0j6.6.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..0.6.893...0j0i67k1j0i30k1.0.iEBhaCborDI#imgrc=LSra7mIRZPvwLM:
Reading this you might be thinking that hotel cards are not secure and its data can be corrupted easily.But the fact is data stored in credit/debit cards is also not secure.Once you swipe the data it gets collect in the reader machine and can be leaked easily.
If you want to know more about how data is leaked and how your credit/debit card can be hacked please upvote it blog and i ll surely bog about CARDING and how you can save your data.