On Jan 11, 11:32 am, JC <jcota...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello Everyone, > > I have a task to create and Android application that reads the Credit > Card information from a CC swiper and process the payment through a > web service in our existing website. The reason for that is so that > our sales people can simply select the product, swipe the card, and > the system does the rest: Charge card, create account, send welcome e- > mail, and return a confirmation or error back to the device as a > response. > > My issue is that I have not been able to find a swiper (hardware) that > exposes and API that I can use to build my own application. All the > swipers I find are tied to a service or gateway. Any suggestions will > be appreciated. > > Thank you, > > JC
No offense, but from far it looks like neither your task sponsor (boss?) or you have a clue what you're up against... Have you heard of PCI? At any rate though, not to discourage or anything, and considering you've got to start somewhere... As you've already found, there's the likes of Intuit, Square and VeriFone out there. Their business is the kind of financial transaction you are tasked with, and they have more (Verifone) or less (Square) solid systems in place. It would seem unlikely you'll see an API that would enable others to compete with them, but they might be open to partnering. Ask them (or have your task sponsor ask them, rather). Unless you have the time and resources to go down the path of developing a CC reader and everything that goes along with it (think PCI certification), partnering with one of these guys would be the only viable option for you, IMHO anyways. If you really really want to soldier on by yourself, you could go for Square's reader for now. These are sold like candy, i.e. without distribution control and sanctions, and have no encryption. Your API in a sense would be based on the audio of the CC swipe coming in through the headphone jack. Demodulate it into a bitstream and then decode that into credit card number and expiration date. This would be a difficult but straightforward exercise, because Square's reader does not encrypt the unencrypted data on the magnetic CC strips. You do risk however getting shut down by regulatory action down the road, because you're building on a security hole that's so big you could fly a jumbo jet through it, so there's a good chance these readers will go away one day, leaving you high and dry. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
