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Contactless Credit Cards
An anonymous reader writes "According to his article in EETimes, Visa and Philips are teaming up to introduce a so-called "contactless credit card". Basically it'll work like the proximity cards many of us use for access to our places of work or apartments. You won't need to physically swipe it, simply waving it over a reader is good enough."
Let's see. A crowded line at an amusement park... I'm sure I could pick up 100 credit card numbers an hour with my wiz-bang pocket card reader. "Excuse me sir... I didn't mean to bump into you..."
That's how I pay for gas at Mobil, with their Speedpass. It's a small keychain thing that looks like a black magot:
Well, that was how I paid for gas at Mobil. I cut my Speedpass open, took out the glass cylinder, and put it inside my Nextel i90 cell phone, it fit next to the battery. The Speedpass only lasted a few months before dieing. I haven't tried it again yet...
It was cool when it worked though, I just held my cell phone up to the pump to pay for gas.
tbdean
Hell, there's even a simpler problem: If I have more than one credit card which one will it "charge?" Or will it charge both?
When I visited Hong Kong in 2001, I bought a subway pass with this technology.
If you buy more than about $10 US of subway services, you have the option to get a smart card. My whole stay that card left my wallet only once (to return it for a refund). Othere than that when I used the subway, I would just set my wallet on top of the read. It was so conveneient.
Even better, lots of vendors (such as convenience stores) let you pay using your subway credit.
I guess there are more security concerns when using this with a real credit card, but it seems like it should have happened in this country sooner.
http://yetanotherpoliticalrant.blogspot.com
to charge them, it's very much a physical action.
Physical, hardly.
Have you ever purchased anything online?
All I need is your number, name and expiry and I can charge your account all I want.
Credit card accounts are inherently very insecure. Prosecution is the only thing stopping (even more) massive fraud.
Other than the magnetic strip not wearing out, what's the advantage?
When I lived in Hong Kong there was a smart card (not Credit Card) called Octopus. Basically, you buy the smart-card, you add cash funds to it, and then you can use it to ride the train system.
It was incredibly convenient, not to have to buy tickets, and much greater throughput than ticket machines. You just walked through the gate and swiped your wallet over the reader.
Anyways, it wasn't long before they figured out the advantage of converting the vending machines in the station over to Octopus. No cash to collect, just fill it up with product and collect the money from the Octopus administrators, less administrative fee.
I can tell you from experience, it beats the hell out of coins, changing money, messing about with cash, fumbling about with change. Just swipe your card and get your product. Faster, easier and much more effecient.
Best of all, the cards were anonymous, which means the govt couldn't track you via the card. Disadvantage of course is that if the card was lost or stolen, there was no recovery. I guess for that reason the maximum you could put on the card was HK$500.
To me this was the first step towards an anonymous cashless society, which despite the Orwellian protests of the tin-foilers, is IMO, A Good Thing(tm). Money spreads disease, has an administrative cost, is vunerable to forgery. If we can have all the advantages of cash, including anonymity, then I say, let's get rid of cash.
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I am the director, and this is my movie
I used to work for Sears. I did this. One guy comes up, tried to buy something, I think a faucet, and gave me an unsigned credit card. I asked him for ID, he gave it to me, complaining, and I handed back the ID and the card, and asked him to sign it. He refused, started yelling, and walked out.
Mind you, the card quite clearly states 'not valid until signed'. And this wasn't an isolated incident, either.
That is why stores don't check signatures very well. Customers don't want the security it provides.
I'm not shy, I'm stalking my prey