Security

Scofflaws could hack the smart cards that access electronic parking meters in large cities around the United States, researchers are finding. The smart cards pay for parking spots, and their programming could be easily changed to obtain unlimited free parking. It took researcher Joe Grand only three days to design an attack on the smart cards. The researchers examined the meters used in San Francisco, California, but the same and similar electronic meters are being installed in cities around the world. "It wasn't technically complicated and the fact that I can do it in three days means that other people are probably already doing it and probably taking advantage of it," said Joe Grand, a designer and hardware hacker and one of the hosts of the Discovery Channel's "Prototype This" show. "It seems like the system wasn't analyzed at all."

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