How to tell if square reader is encrypted or not

Question

My company purchased an old square reader, the seller claims it is unencrypted. We are trying to develop a web application that uses this reader. The reader is supposed to fire a hard return keypress event after registering a swipe - it has never done that (using javascript event listeners). The only time this reader does anything is using the iOS Square Register app - that app does recognize the reader and the swipe (though it does a terrible job, asking me to 'retry swipe faster' a few dozen times before registering a swipe)

The fact that it only works in the app leads me to believe that this is an encrypted reader. Is there any way to tell if this assumption is correct? Without taking it apart.

Also, any tips on troubleshooting this would also be appreciated.

Thanks

Answer 1

I think you're pretty lucky to even be able to detect anything at all with javascript event listeners as you seem to imply....

Imagine the privacy intrusions we'd have all over (maybe already) if javascript stealthily downloaded from a web site could gain access to your microphone and/or microphone jack as you want to do. It might be possible, but the phone 'ifrastructure' is definitely designed to 'resist' this.

I think you're going to have to write an app that installs with user permissions to access the devices you need - otherwise the mic jack device is unlikely to be available to you.

BTW, credit card stripes are encoded in 7 bit, so if you are getting a string that looks 'encrypted' examine the unaltered string as 7 bit and it'll start making sense.