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Comment by rdj | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious about the video monitoring on the machines that have been tampered with. What do these security cameras normally see? Do the perps block the camera so it can't see them installing their hardware? If so, couldn't some program be written to determine that the image of a person is abnormal (measure the amount of "whitespace"" around a subject) and trigger some sort of real-time alarm?

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Most recorders only record about 24 hours of video before they recycle. The really robust ones can keep about a week at once, but that's it. They're designed to help the banks out when you call and say that you just got held up--not a month later when police finally realize that a given ATM is ripping someone off. (In fact, early ATMs with cameras took a still photo, and only then while you withdrew cash--totally useless in this scenario.)

I don't think most of the video cameras on ATM machines are actually pointed at the machine; they're designed to capture the user's face.

I would imagine that gluing a piece of plastic onto an ATM can look just like a regular transaction - person walks up, looks at the screen while their hands are doing something below.

It likely would be difficult to do a transaction and modify the ATM at the same time however.

I wonder if the cameras are proactively monitor-able or if they exist for after-the-fact, reactive evidence in the case of a mugging. Obviously, ATM owners could upgrade to better systems though. Perhaps images with suspicious light levels over time could be shown to a human for assessment.

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