Reading and Writing Barcodes

Earlier today, I had posted the "Hacking Barcodes" talk given by FX in Defcon 16. The talk was so cool, that i decided to try reading and writing barcodes myself. Seems like it was easier than I thought. In this short video, I demo how one can create a barcode and read the same using off the shelf software. In order to be able to cause real damage, all one would need is a printer and a scanner to analyze and replicate any barcode which does not have any security mechanisms in place. Pretty scary!

The barcode reader software is available for download from Softek Software. They even provide an API platform to write your own barcode reading applications. The barcode writer is available from Vsi Software here.

Vivek Ramachandran is a security evangelist and has been working in computer security related fields for the past 7 years. In 2007, Vivek spoke at world renowned conferences Defcon (WEP Cloaking Exposed) and Toorcon (The Caffe Latte Attack). The discovery of the Caffe Latte Attack was covered by CBS5 news, BBC online, Network World etc news agencies.In 2006, Vivek was announced as one of winners of the Microsoft Security Shootout contest held in India among 65,000 participants. He has also been a recipient of a Team Achievement at Cisco Systems for his work on 802.1x and Port Security modules on the Catalyst 6500 switches. Currently he spends all of his time maintaining Security- Freak.Net , SecurityTube.Net and is the co-founder of Axonize. Vivek, is a Bachelor in Electronics and Communications Engineering from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati.You can contact him at vivek[at]securitytube.net