This was a pretty common trick to glitch slot machines, they are hardened quite a bit against this sort of trickery. A mobile phone is much more delicate in general construction and doesn't have access to a handy ground wire.
Slot machines are on someone else's premises and (disclaimer: I've never been to a casino myself) are most likely under surveillance, so they'll probably void your winnings and ban you if you start doing something sketchy.
Devices that implement any restrictions against the end user like DRM or MDM, on the other hand, are in possession of the said user. I heard a saying that getting root privileges on a device you physically possess is only a matter of time and effort.
In other words, you can totally take your phone apart as much as your tools and skills allow, but you'll get arrested if you try taking a slot machine apart.
Sure, the owners would not be happy. But slot machines are installed all over the world and not just in casinos.
The idea was not to take the machine apart but to try to glitch it by hitting metal parts that were not properly grounded. This would then allow the voltage spike to make it into the circuitry, either leading to breakage, no effect, or fault injection. The latter could sometimes be converted into a win on a subsequent spin.
This is 80's stuff, I'm pretty sure todays' slot machines are tamper proof to the point that trying this is totally pointless, and even back then hardening against this was common.
> This is 80's stuff, I'm pretty sure todays' slot machines are tamper proof to the point that trying this is totally pointless, and even back then hardening against this was common.
They are. Source: I own a modern-ish computer based slot machine and tried my fair share of tricks against it.
The very first technical standards for slot machines in Nevada are ESD testing to confirm it’s safe for the player and that the integrity of the device is unimpacted by 27kV discharge to any point on the exterior of the machine while it’s being played (and the test labs really go to town finding gaps in panels and really trying to make something bad happen).
Given the absence of mechanical reels and the fact that the components likely to be susceptible to glitching aren’t remotely close to the outside of the machine this isn’t a viable attack method for machines in operation.
Source: NV Tech Standard 1 [1] also have zapped modern slot machines with an ESD gun.
I happened to be in AP Stats back in HS with the son of the owner of the business who certified all electronic casino games for the state of NJ. We took a field trip to the business and his dad gave us all a tour and explained all of the testing they do for this sort of stuff, the code reviews, making sure the machine's odds were actually what they said they were etc. I don't remember many details at this point (it was 12 years ago, which is insane), but I do distinctly remember the scale and just the amount of stuff they did. It's very serious business, because it was in both the casino owners and NJ's interest to make sure the machines were in fact not hackable as much as possible.
Which is why that vulnerability was never tested/allowed to be tested by the creator of the device. Exploits always thrive on the fringes of what is unacceptable to corporate safety policy.
reply