A man in the U.K. was sentenced to 32 months in prison for using MP3 player to capture credit card details from an automatic teller machine.

What he did was to use the MP3 players to capture recordings of modem data traffic from what the Crown Prosecution Service described as a "standalone ATM machine," such as those found in a convenience store or at another location not directly connected with a bank. He then used a computer program to convert the sound files back into text data–including card numbers, and subsequently used that information to re-encode counterfeit or stolen cards.

According to the prosecution, the defendant used the stolen credit cards to spend approximately £200,000 ($400,000). Not a bad payout for a small investment in an MP3 player and a carefully staked out remote ATM. The man was arrested in October 2004, more than two years ago, and we can only hope that banks have taken seriously this threat and have put forward ways to encrypt the information transmitted to and from remote ATMs.