Arizona Department of Transportation
Motor Vehicle Division
Customer Service Administration office
po box 2100, mail drop 520M
Phoenix, az
85001
or call
Stephen Stammet
(602)712-8901
i was talking to some kids and they say that
at some of the circle k's they run their
drivers license thru the mag strip reader
to find out if your old enough to buy booze.
(probably cuz the government schools didnt
teach them enough math to caculate the kids
age from the DOB).
so i wrote adot and asked for the format of how the data is stored on the magnetic stripe.
they were kind enough to make me this fake drivers license, in addition to the layout of the data on the 3 magnetic stripes on the card. i assume the fake drivers license is so i can test any software i write. its made out to
mac big truck
po box test 4
agua fria, az
85335
for his photo mr mac truck has a picture
of the words TEST 4 and mr mac truck was
born on 8/19/61. unless the guy has some
sorta weird build he is probably overweight.
his height is 5 foot 2, but he weighs in
at 259.
the arizona drivers license has 3 magnetic stripes on it (which i assume are the same as the 3 mag strips on credit cards).
a six bit character set is used to write mag strips 1 and 3. i guessing its the ascii character set with 32 subtracted from each letter because they say a % character has a binary value of 000101 in this six bit character set, and a % character in ascii is 00100101. but i could be wrong! and i have lied to people before.
track 1 on the drivers license has your state/province, city, name, and address on it.
Track number 1
Field
Number Size Element/Defination
1 1 Start Sentinel (000101)
2 2 State or Province (ANSI D-20 standard)
3 13 City (if less truncate fields with ^ (111110)
and NAME field follows immediately)
4 35 Name (if less truncate fields with ^ (111110)
and ADDRESS field follows immediately
$ (000100) delimites name. example
Bill$Klinton$A^)
5 29 Address ($ (000100) delmits multiple address lines.
example
Mail Stop 511$5515 N Mill Ave^)
6 1 End Sentinel (111111)
7 1 LRC
82 Total
its 82 characters long.
and the information is text. (i suspect thats 82
six bit characters).
track three is also text and is 82 characters long. it contains template version, security version, postal code (zip or canada), class, restrictions, endorsements, sex, height, weight, hair color, eye color, id #, and some reserved stuff + a LRC code..
Track number 3
Field
Number Size Element/Defination
1 1 Start Sentinel ( % 000101)
2 1 Template Version # (magnetic stripe version
being used obtain from AAMVA's MVIS Project
Director)
3 1 Security Version # (magnetic security version
used. 00 represents security is not used.
refer to the guidelines)
4 11 Postal Code (American Zip Code or Canadian
Postal Code. left justified spaced filled,
doesnt use hyphens)
5 2 Class (Use ANSI D-20 per CDLIS)
6 10 Restrictions (Per ANSI D-20 standard)
7 4 Endorsements (Per ANSI D-20 standard)
8 1 Sex
9 3 Height (Per ANSI D-20 standard)
10 3 weight (Per ANSI D-20 standard)
11 3 Hair Color (Per ANSI D-20 standard)
12 3 Eye Color (Per ANSI D-20 standard)
13 10 ID # (utilized by each
jurisdiction as needed)
14 16 Reserved Space (utilized by each
jurisdiction as needed)
15 6 Error Correction - not nandatory
16 5 Security (utilized by each
jurisdiction as needed)
17 1 End Sentinel (? 111111)
18 1 LRC
82 total
im guessing that the other american and canadian states may also use this format because it has room for a state/provence on it and allows either candaian or us postal codes.
track two is all numeric and uses 4 bit bcd characters instead of the 6 bit characters used on tracks 1 & 3. if your not a computer geek that means
number bits
0 0000
1 0001
2 0010
3 0011
4 0100
5 0101
6 0110
7 0111
8 1000
9 1001
10 1010
1011 - start sentinel
1100 - ?
1101 - field seperator
1110 - ?
1111 - end sentinel
its 40 characters long. and contains start sentinel, userid, drivers license #, expiration date YYMM, birthdate yyyymmdd, end sentinel, and a lrc
Track number 2
Field
Number Size Element/Defination
1 1 Start Sentinel ; (1011)
2 6 ANSI User ID
3 14 ID/DL Number (Field Separator = (1101) must be used
as last character in the field)
4 4 Expiration Data YYMM
5 8 Birthdate YYYMMDD
6 1 End Sentinel ? (1111)
7 1 LRC
40 Total
im sure my sisters 17 year old kid is going to want to borrow my credit card writer so he can make himself 21, since the clerks at 7/11 never read the age but just swipe the drivers license to see if your old enough to buy booze.
and dont any of you underage computer majors at the u of a who arnt old enought to buy booze get any ideas.
i still have to ask them about whats on that goofy bar code thats on the front of the license.
when i did some work for american express i got a copy of the industry standard which describes the lay out of the data for master cards, visa, and other credit cards along with bank debit cards.
beleive it or not your PIN is written on the card. so if somebody gets your card, and they have a credit card reader they can get your PIN.
their is a byte on the card that gives them the option of encrypting the PIN but nobody in the industry uses it.
in phoenix you can get a credit card magnetic stripe reader at places like tri-tek 9014 n 23rd ave, (602)371-0446 or other electronic shops for $10/$20 that puts out TTL format, add a few more bucks if you want RS-232 format output.
By mail order you can get credit card magnetic stripe writters. but they generally cost $100/$200.