Patent ID: 8251283

Claim:
A method for characterizing a magnetic stripe card based on spatial characteristics of data encoded on a magnetic stripe of the card, the method comprising the steps of: using a magnetic stripe reader to read a waveform of data encoded on the magnetic stripe of the card; parameterizing the waveform of the data encoded on the card to determine spatial features of the waveform; characterizing a subset of the spatial features of the waveform to determine spatial characteristics of the waveform, comprising computing a function of the spatial parameters for a plurality of bits in a segment of the data, wherein computing the function comprises comparing a bit width to other bit widths, comparing a bit width to an average of bit widths, computing a ratio of bit widths, comparing bit averages to other bit averages, comparing median bit widths to average bit widths, or comparing ratios of bit widths to peak widths; and determining a characterization signature of the magnetic stripe card using the spatial characteristics, wherein the characterization signature characterizes the magnetic stripe card.