Note by @fastfinge

🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca

I was cleaning out my desk, and I found a mystery thing. It's a thing that generates numbers, probably as two factor codes. But I have no idea what the codes are for, where I got the thing, who made the thing, or if I can somehow reset the thing or do anything else with it. Based on where I found it, the thing has to be at least four years old, if not older. Being a blind person, I of course recorded the thing. Do you have any advice about what I could do with my mysterious thing other than throwing it out?

Lynette @lynessence@caneandable.social

@fastfinge Middle aged? Pretty sure you're younger than me and I am definitely not middle aged. lol

Sean Randall @cachondo@defcon.social

@fastfinge we have a number of these number gismos for banking.
Never heard one with what sounds like neospeech in it, though? Freaky.

🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca

@cachondo I only have had two bank accounts in my entire life, though, and neither of them use it. I mean it's obviously giving me a code for...some useful purpose. I just have no idea what that purpose was.

Sean Randall @cachondo@defcon.social

@fastfinge it also said end of life of device, didn't it?
That sort of planned obsolescence really annoys me. Lithium batteries if nothing else.

🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca

@cachondo It did! But the batteries are AAA batteries. I can easily change them. So I don't know what makes the device end of life.

Sean Randall @cachondo@defcon.social

@fastfinge oooh, ok, interesting.

🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca

@cachondo This thing is like the size of one of those old talking calculators, too. So it'll make a big chunk of e-waste.

Andrew Hodgson @andrew@hodgson.io

@fastfinge @cachondo Yeah its super frustrating isn't it? My device did something similar and there was no way to reset it other than getting a new one. The devices given out to sighted people were tiny in comparison and had non replaceable batteries. When my device expired in 2019 I got it replaced with a phone token as it was the right thing to do. If I remember correctly the token comes from the factory with a specific shelf life of 5 years.

🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca

@andrew @cachondo Yuck. Straight to the landfill it’ll go and still be there in a hundred years.

Andrew Hodgson @andrew@hodgson.io

@cachondo @fastfinge I used to have a device very similar to this for a job. It was a SecureID token generator from either RSA or SafeNet. The end of life means that the codes are probably useless at the remote end and the only thing you can do is throw the device away. I'm not sure whether its still fashionable to give out these hardware tokens, I haven't had one now since 2019, everything being done on my smartphone.

🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca

@andrew @cachondo Darn, I was hoping I could repurpose it somehow.