Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Becoming a Secret Travel Agent [video]
This was a fantastic talk. Both the content and the quality of the talk itself exceeded my expectations. I knew that bar codes on boarding passes are PDF-417 and have lots of info embedded, but the attack vectors they discuss are NUTS.<p>I tried posting this earlier in the week and it didn't get any traction, but user sleavey posted a great summary of the talk in that thread in case you don't have an hour, which is worth reading: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13273314" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13273314</a><p>I'm pretty sure the attack vector they discuss about finding boarding passes and changing the frequent flyer number attached to the itinerary is what the people who sell flights for 20-30% the cost[0] do. I've been wondering who that scam hurts for a while, the common thought is that they're using stolen credit cards but from what I understand the "services" are way too reliable to be based off stolen cards.<p>[0] <a href="http://krebsonsecurity.com/2012/01/flying-the-fraudster-skies/" rel="nofollow">http://krebsonsecurity.com/2012/01/flying-the-fraudster-skie...</a>