Deutsche Telekom To Launch "MicroMoney"

XMLGuy writes: "Over on heise online there is news that the German Telekom will be launching a prepaid Internet payment card called "MicroMoney" this Fall. The idea is that you buy the card from places like a gas-station, scratch off the covering of the code number, then sniff the card (ok -- so no sniffing). You then use the code number to pay for whatever you happen to want to buy online. Up to now only a couple of merchants are listed -- so it will be interesting to see how this takes off. Oh, and as an add-on you can also use the card in public telephones. The cards will be available in units of 20, 50 or 100 German Marks." The Fish is your friend. These are supposed to soon be available at over 80,000 retail outlets across Germany, with 16-digit PINs. Think "phone card."

Comments

Electronic money is not always evil

[huibuh]

Sorry, you are wrong here. Were talking about prepaid cards you can buy anonymously all across Germany! They are as anonymous as phone cards (btw, they also have a chip for cardphones).

So these prepaid cards are actually a way to stay anonymous, as opposed to credit cards, which can be tracked.

Key generator prevention?

[TalShiar00]

Well there are key generators for little shareware programs up the more expensive software. How long will it take for there to be good ones made so you can buy physical stuff for free? They may have some good random number grnerators but someone can easily try a few thousand combinations in a short time to an online etailer.

Coinless society?

[kelliher]

Aha, but to scratch the card in the first place you need a coin.

Won't Work Well

[absurd_spork]

The Deutsche Telekom has done some piloting experiments that did not turn out entirely bad, but they still haven't been able to entirely solve the key generator problem. They have a system in Germany called the GeldKarte (link in German, of course, since it's a German system) which is basically a phonecard-esque payment card linked to a special type of account at your bank; you can load your card with arbitrary amounts of money and use it for cash. This is basically the same thing, except that it works without putting your card in some slot but by specifying your 16-digit number. The advantage over credit cards is not that evident, except (possibly) that people can't steal over 100 German marks (at present, about $42 or 48) by stealing your number. On the other hand, the high granularity always forces you to keep a large number of cards if you want to order anything online that costs more than these 100 marks. BTW the card is Euro-aware, of course, because the value stays the same, it's just a different currency. So you buy a 100 marks card and when you use it after January 1, 2002, it's an 48 card. Not a problem. After the euro introduction, they'll probably shift to 50 and start selling them throughout Europe.