Yes, the news is racing like wildfire around the security community. South Africa has ATM machines equipped with pepper spray, as reported in the Guardian.

The first reports poke fun at the system by pointing out it is already misfiring:

The number of cash machines blown up with explosives has risen from 54 in 2006 to 387 in 2007 and nearly 500 last year.

The technology uses cameras to detect people tampering with the card slots. Another machine then ejects pepper spray to stun the culprit while police response teams race to the scene.

But the mechanism backfired in one incident last week when pepper spray was inadvertently inhaled by three technicians who required treatment from paramedics.

There are four big banks in South Africa: Absa, First National, Nedbank and Standard. While Absa has come forward with these details, others are still mum and say they do not want to tip off the attackers. It makes sense to keep a low profile.

While the cameras are supposed to be able to detect tampering, can they detect tampering by someone with a gas mask? Israeli masks are considered the best and only cost $20. Even just a pair of goggles and a respirator would prevent harm to the attacker, although a discharge would also alert anyone in the area. In fact, the discharge of pepper spray is considered toxic. Not exactly the sort of thing you want in every mall.

The cost of outfitting an ATM with chemical weapons is high, the configuration dangerous, the impact to the environment huge, and the countermeasures seem fairly trivial. Wonder how Absa calculated the risk/reward.