MagTek USB MagnePrint Swipe Reader with Encryption - Manual (Page 9)

SECTION 1. FEATURES AND SPECIFICATIONS
The USB (Universal Serial Bus) Swipe Reader is a compact magnetic stripe card reader that
conforms to ISO standards. In addition to reading three tracks of data from a card, this Reader
also includes MagnePrint technology. The MagnePrint data will be included with the track data
on each transaction. In order to maximize card security, this model of the Reader incorporates
data encryption to protect the card contents and MagnePrint information. The Reader is
compatible with any device having a host USB interface. A card is read by sliding it, stripe
down and facing the LED side, through the slot either forward or backward.
An LED (Light Emitting Diode) indicator on the Reader panel provides the operator with
continuous status of the Reader operations.
The reader conforms to the USB HID (Human Interface Device) Class specification Version 1.1.
This allows host applications designed for most versions of Windows to easily communicate to
the device using standard Windows API calls that communicate to the device through the HID
driver that comes with Windows.
The Reader can be operated in two different modes:
• HID (herein referred to as “HID mode”) and
• HID with Keyboard Emulation (herein referred to as “KB mode”)
When operating in the HID mode, this device will not use keyboard emulation. It behaves like a
vendor defined HID device so that a direct communication path can be established between the
host application and the device, without interference from other HID devices.
When configured for the Keyboard Emulation (KB) mode, the Reader emulates a USB HID
United States keyboard or, optionally, any international keyboard using ALT ASCII code keypad
key combinations or customizable key maps. This allows host applications designed to acquire
card data from keyboard input to seamlessly acquire the card data from the USB swipe reader.
Caution
When in Keyboard Emulation mode, if another keyboard is connected to
the same host as this device and a key is pressed on the other keyboard
while this device is transmitting, then the data transmitted by this device
may get corrupted.
When a card is swiped through the Reader, the track data and MagnePrint information will be
TDEA (Triple Data Encryption Algorithm, aka, Triple DES) encrypted using DUKPT (Derived
Unique Key Per Transaction) key management. This method of key management uses a base
derivation key to encrypt a key serial number that produces an initial encryption key which is
injected into the Reader prior to deployment. After each transaction, the encryption key is
modified per the DUKPT algorithm so that each transaction uses a unique key. Thus, the data
will be encrypted with a different encryption key for each transaction.
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