Using a Square Reader with a reel-to-reel (opens in new tab)

Square says (https://squareup.com/reader): "Square is PCI-DSS Level 1 compliant and the Square Card Reader is fully encrypted. Data encryption occurs at the moment of the credit card swipe" and has an image of the reader with 'Security Encryption' pointing to the reader itself (see the page).

On the detail page about security (https://help.squareup.com/customer/portal/articles/7764) it says: "Fully encrypted: Square performs data encryption within the card reader at the moment of swipe."

Yet, the app in this article appears to be simply recording audio from the head.

So, what's going on?

I remember putting together a mag-stripe reader with old tape heads based on schematics/code in Phrack (or maybe 2600...been awhile). At the time, tape decks were found in almost every home, while (to me) a mag-stripe reader was exoctic. Seems we've come full circle. Actually IIRC the older Square reader (which seems to be the one in the video) is literally a tape head wired to a 1/8 jack aligned to read track 2.

A few years ago I built a small circuit with a few low noise opamps attached to the reading head of an old reel-to-reel broken player, which had a few burned tubes. I used it to extract recordings from my family made in the 60's and converted them to wav/mp3/ogg. The result was fairly good, considering the age of the reels and no particular care was taken to preserve them!

EDIT: Sorry, this sounds unduly negative. It isn't meant to!

It's cool and everything, but I can't help thinking that dragging an electrical output from after the real reel-to-reel head would have been better.

Is that just me?

Anyway, now you've done it you can make neat echo / loop effects by splicing tape around some reels.

That is an awesome hack! Kudos to you. It's one of those things that initially sound too hard to believe, but then you think about it and go oh yeah.... why not?

Brilliant! Very well done.

Should have called it reel-to-real.