Hacking NetCash

by Palindrome

Recently in the July 1994 issue of Boardwatch I stumbled across a pretty interesting article about NetCash.

What NetCash is is online 'money' represented in an alphanumeric string, each standing for a certain amount of money, ranging from 25 cents to 100 dollars.

A sample string of NetCash would look like this:

NetCash $1.00 E1234H5678Z

As you can probably see, NetCash is begging to be hacked.  I have not seen many places accepting NetCash at the moment, however it is there, and how could we live with ourselves if we didn't take a crack at it?

Uses of NetCash

Let's say you were selling some program online, and you accepted NetCash as a form of payment.  The buyer would get his NetCash by dialing 1-900-933-CASH with his modem.  Then he will be issued a $10 NetCash string.  After getting the string, he would leave you a message telling you the string and requesting the program.

Now to get your NetCash you must send a request message, asking for the validity of the string, to netbank@agents.com.  In the body of the message, you have to ask them to validate (accept) it, in this format:

From: username@example.com To: netbank@agents.com NetCash $1.00 E1234H5678Z/Accept

Then the system will reply like this (for a valid string):

From: netbank@agents. com To: username@example.com Subject: NetBank Receipt, Accepted: 1, Rejected: 0 Input Transaction(s): Accepted: NetCash $1.00 E1234H5678Z1Accept Total Accepted: $1.00 NetCash $1.00 E54466122A

What has just happened is the system has validated the old string, which someone might have given to you to pay for something, and given you that amount in NetCash, as well as revoking the old string for use anymore.

If the string was not validated, the return message would look like this:

From: netbank@agents.com To: username@example.com Subject: NetBank Receipt, Accepted: 0, Rejected: 1 Input Transaction(s): REJECTED: NetCash $10.00 K52286154A/Accept Total Accepted: $ 0.00

This is just a basic rejection message sent to you.

There is also an option of 'Making Change' in NetCash.  Let's say you want to buy multiple pieces of software, but you only have one $20.00 string in NetCash.  What you do is send another message looking like this:

From: username@example.com To: netbank@agents.com NetCash $20.00 E54466122A/Change 1 Ten 2 Fives

That's all, they will send you a return receipt not differing in format from the others.  They will then issue you one $10.00 NetCash string and two fives:

NetCash $10.00 L73522979A NetCash $ 5.00 J83662917A NetCash $ 5.00 M32299134A

If you bought a software program for $7.00 you would get NetCash change if you gave them a $10.00 string.

Doing all of this electronic money stuff is entertaining at first, but you're soon gonna want some real cash from this, so, you must fill out an e-mail form requesting an account on NetCash.  Then, once issued to you, you deposit your NetCash as so:

NetCash $100.00 E4321J8765WIDeposit 123456

Where 123456 is your account number.

The company takes a twenty percent surcharge due to "costs of keeping up the 900 number."

Conclusion

Well, by now I hope you've gotten a pretty good idea of NetCash and maybe in the near future we'll get our hands on the algorithm for it.  Here is a list of the important info for NetCash:

1-900-933-CASH (2274):  Modem 900 number to get your $10.00 NetCash string.

netbank@agents.com:  The e-mail address for all your transactions.

NetCash String:  An alphanumeric string containing eleven ASCII characters.