Magstripe Spoofer

As a hobby during undergrad, I developed a system that would allow for the recording and playback of signals used by the school's magnetic stripe ID access system.

In this system, the flux reversal pattern of a known magnetic stripe is encoded as a .wav file and played back through an iPod connected to a thin solenoid inserted into a card reader.  As the .wav file is played, the alternating current passing through the solenoid creates a changing magnetic field similar to the one created by the original card; thus fooling the card reader into registering a valid card swipe.

More information about this project, as well as step-by-step build instructions can be found on the instructable I wrote about it.