The Universal Card

retro128 writes "Wired News is carrying a story about a new product from Chameleon Network that's supposed to replace all of your credit/debit/customer cards. It can read the information off of the magnetic strips of credit/debit cards, scan the barcode off of customer loyalty cards, and even memorize the RFID signals of devices like the Mobil SpeedPass. All of this information is stored in a device called the Pocket Vault, and is unlocked with the user's fingerprint. If you wish to use a magnetic strip card, you select the card from the touch screen and put a Chameleon card, which looks like and can be run in standard readers like a credit card, in the Pocket Vault. The Chameleon card will then assume the identity of the card you selected, but only for 10 minutes. In this way, if the card is lost or stolen, nobody can use it. In the case of RFID, you just hold the Pocket Vault up to the RFID scanner for a reading. For barcode-based cards, the barcode will appear on the screen and can be scanned by a standard barcode reader. Chameleon Network says this technology will be available in early 2005 and is expected to cost under $200."

Comments

You want me to pay for that?

[ObviousGuy]

200 bucks for you to know everything about me?

How about YOU pay ME.

Re:You want me to pay for that?

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA - It stores all of the information locally. The only one that knows everything about you is you.

My vote: the current system

[DaHat]

This just seems too complicated. I enjoy the simplicity of looking in my wallet, and having only a glance of the card I want, pull it out and use it, no need to select any menus or buttons on it, just pull it out, insert, replace.

Warning: Vaporware Company Detected

[LostCluster]

Any company that has a hyperlink marked "Investor Information" above-the-fold (shown without a need to scroll down on a typical 800x600 setup) is automatically a bit suspect.

I fear that Slashdot's logo is now going to get added to their brag-about-press-coverage page. For the record, the "Boston's WB in the Morning" program they brag about was canceled in 2002.

I'm not suggesting that this company's technology doesn't exist, but their product is pure vaporware and they have lists of good reasons why a merchant, bank, or large company should partner with them, but they can't name any merchant, bank, or large companies who have agreed to partner with them. At least they have a patent appilcation pending.

Re:Warning: Vaporware Company Detected

[C10H14N2]

...it will not be implemented because it would be far to easy to use the little bugger as a swipe-and-steal device. Even if the things were ever actually manufactured and sold, I imagine 99.99999% of vendors would not honor them. I sure as hell wouldn't. Besides, they've been circulating this idea for YEARS and they have yet to get beyond the gee-whiz idea stage.

Great idea....for thieves!

[Damiano]

So I can grab any card I get my hands on for even a second (as a waiter or working at a gas station for example), run it through this toy and it saves the mag strip info to its internal memory. After getting several hundred (or when I max out the devices memory) I and my friends can then go on a HUGE shopping spree using stolen credit cards. Conveniently, as soon as I think the credit card companies might realize the first number is being used by an unauthorized person, I just switch to the next one. Sign me up! *sigh*

Gimmie your wallet!

[mikeophile]

and your thumb!

A card is more than just a magnetic strip...

[LostCluster]

It's not quite clear if Visa or Mastercard will allow its member stores to accept Chameleon Cards in place of real plastic cards. Afterall, that card won't be able to mimic the Visa or MS holigram, the color-printed signature strip with code number on it, or the physical impression of the card numbers.

Accepting non-original cards opens up the risk of accepting any card with a magnetic stripe as being a stand-in for the real credit card. It would effectively turn all in-person credit card transaction to being as insecure as a web transaction. There's a reason why web merchants have to pay more for their credit card services, and it's that insecurity.

So, it's near certian that Visa and Mastercard accepting stores will be ordered by the card networks not to accept Chameleon Cards from customers. Game over for this technology... it works in the lab but won't work in the real world.

Re:A card is more than just a magnetic strip...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am always _very_ surprised to hear, you american people, describe their credit card system.

It sounds like middle-age era to the europeans.

For more than ten years now, we have anbandonned the use of the magnetic tape (not to speak of imprinting...).

Every credit card is equipped with a chip, is protected by a password (a four-digit code) that has to be typed on the card-reader for _anything_ you buy. And if the price is higher than some limit (say $100), the system contacts your bank.
No signature is ever used.
If you want to steal a card, you have to ask for the code (still better than to be asked for your thumb, btw).

It is difficult to copy a card. You cannot simply read it and make a copy. There have been some breach in the past, they have been somewhat fixed afterwards. They have remained small in their extend, and the bank had to cover any subsequent loss themselves (by law). It would be possible to do something even better, but apparently, the costs of upgrading the system are higher than those induced by fraud.

I guess it is the same issue that makes you keep your aging system.

give up one digit or four?

[Daniel Quinlan]

and is unlocked with the user's fingerprint

I don't know about you, but I'd much rather have it use a password. I think most people would happily give a sufficiently threatening criminal their 4 digit PIN number (or any style of password) without too much of a fuss, but I'd rather avoid giving anyone any incentive whatsoever to leave me short one digit. It would be a very small consolation to cancel my credit cards after such an incident.

This just in, new tool for ID Theft just released!

[Tmack]

To me this just screams Identity theft. All a clerk has to do is have one of these in their pockets and swipe customer's cards to get a copy of it. No more need to cash it out on the spot (as with carrying around a second whole credit card scanner), they can use it anywhere they want, and have it report their name on the peice of plastic. And by capturing rfid tags? Doesnt that beat the "security" Speedpass and others like it are supposed to have built in? This thing doesnt seem to check whos card its scanning in, just asks for a finger print. This is essentially a credit-card coppier thats pocket sized. Sure its a little secure against itself being stolen and used by ID theifs, but what about ID thiefs using it against other consumers?

Tm

The Ident-i-Eeze!!

[tylernt]

It wasn't insanely exciting to look at. It was rather dull in fact. It was smaller and a little thicker than a credit card and semi-transparent. If you held it up to the light you could see a lot of holographically encoded information and images buried pseudo-inches deep beneath its surface.

It was an Ident-i-Eeze, and was a very naughty and silly thing for Harl to have lying around in his wallet, though it was perfectly understandable. There were so many different ways in which you were required to provide absolute proof of your identity these days that life could easily become extremely tiresome just from that factor alone, never mind the deeper existential problems of trying to function as a coherent consciousness in an epistemologically ambiguous physical universe. Just look at cash point machines, for instance. Queues of people standing around waiting to have their fingerprints read, their retinas scanned, bits of skin scraped from the nape of the neck and undergoing instant (or nearly instant-a good six or seven seconds in tedious reality) genetic analysis, then having to answer trick questions about members of their family they didn't even remember they had, and about their recorded preferences for tablecloth colours. And that was just to get a bit of spare cash for the weekend. If you were trying to raise a loan for a jetcar, sign a missile treaty or pay an entire restaurant bill things could get really trying.

Hence the Ident-i-Eeze. This encoded every single piece of information about you, your body and your life into one all-purpose machine-readable card that you could then carry around in your wallet, and therefore represented technology's greatest triumph to date over both itself and plain common sense.

Ford pocketed it.

Credit cards are free, why pay $200?

[eddie can read]

Let me list the reasons why

1) Cumbersome

2) Breakable

3) All eggs in one basket

4) A lost/stolen card is replaced by the credit card company. Who replaces that lost/stolen $200 computer?

5) What do you do when the batteries run out

6) What happens when the OS crashes and the information is wiped out?

So many reasons...

Re:Credit cards are free, why pay $200?

[LostCluster]

1) Cumbersome
Picture shows that it fits in a wallet
Picture is clearly photoshopped. The real consumer product has yet to ship.

2) Breakable
You can always use your real credit cards. What if a palm pilot breaks? You write things down on paper. . .
That's nice, but you're still out the $200 device.

3) All eggs in one basket
Agree with this.. would rather not have everything linked in one breakable / trackable / hackable system.
Good, so there's no risk of you wasting $200 on this.

4) A lost/stolen card is replaced by the credit card company. Who replaces that lost/stolen $200 computer?
You spill pasta sauce on your sweater, you buy a new one and are much more careful if it is expensive.
My solution is to not wear $200 shirts very often, and definitely not to eat pasta while doing so. A $200 device had better be durable if it's going to live in my pocket.

5) What do you do when the batteries run out
Considering the plethora or small handheld devices out there, why is this one so much harder to track charge for?
Because having my MP3 player stop playing music isn't as embarassing as not being able to buy what I just took to the checkout.

6) What happens when the OS crashes and the information is wiped out?
Well, you reload the data from either the credit cards again or the backup that was made
You're most likely to discover such a failure while shopping... again, the embarassment situation.

OMG you are a genious.

[Tensor]

This is without a doubt the best thieves's tool!

The only thing that could be done to prevent this is to make it hold only a small number of each type of card. Like only 10 Credit Cards. Still, its pretty much simplyfies the "printing" of stolen cards.

OTOH, i wonder if this will ever work. CC companies must back this up to work, i mean try taking the mag strip off your AmEx (or visa, or ... ) card, and pasting it on a cardboard card, and write your name and number up on the front. And then TRY to use it in any shop. I am sure they'll just ask for some other card.

Re:OMG you are a genious.

[Anonymous Coward]

Having to post anonymously, due to a previous life of crime that my present life must not acknowledge.

The criminal element factor was my first reaction to this. Back in the day, I worked as a bartender in a restaurant. I also knew a few people who were 'connected', as it were. These nefarious people had access to a magnetic card writer. I had access to a great many credit cards. I'm sure you can make the connection.

I was paid a non-trivial sum for every credit card number I delivered to them, and more for American Express Platinum cards. I was also paid another amount for pilfering credit cards from the office safe -- you'd be surprised how many people leave their cards behind at a bar and never reclaim them. We would always get at least 5-10 a night, and there was a stack of 100's that people had never claimed.

These people would then re-encode the pilfered cards with the stolen numbers and go on a spending spree. In the event of a store with a last four numbers check, or if security was a concern, they just used another corrupt employee like me to type in the correct four digits. I even recieved a few of these cards as bonus payments myself.

Luckily for me, I got out of the business before it attracted too much attention on my part. However, to this day, I will not use a debit card in place of a credit card. At least with a credit card, you have protection. A debt card just comes right out of your bank account. I certainly tried to not give the criminals debt card numbers, but I'm sure a few slipped through the cracks, and I know that there were co-workers less scrupulous than me.

However, I also wonder if you'd be able to use this device in any store. With all the security in place today, I wonder who would accept this as a valid credit card. I can't even buy things without having the back signed half the time. Then again, it's not like the self-checkout lines at Wal-Mart ever physically inspect my card.

Fun with Fingerprints: Chamelon Card

[Burstwave]

The Chamelon Card system uses a fingerprint reader to secure the data vault. Fingerprint readers can be defeated using a simple hack involving common household items. I refer interested readers to the following article: http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0205.html.

Re:Did you read the parent post?

[Tensor]

Not only that ... the stolen card database would be encrypted and protected by his own fingerprint should he ever be caught.

Making him decode the cards would be akin to making him testify against himself, hence making it unadmissible in court.

Plus he could always claim (farfetched, yes, but possible) that it was all some kind of equipment glitch or Chamaleon card mixup in a bar or something along these lines

What about replacements?

[sydbarrett74]

What if my Chameleon Card is lost or stolen? With conventional plastic, I can call the issuer, report the card lost/stolen, and have a replacement sent within a couple of days for free (be wary of those companies that would charge you for this service). What is my recourse with Chameleon? Ponying up another $200? Also, what if I destroyed my original cards when transferring their data to the Chameleon device? Is there an online backup somewhere? Or am I shit out of luck?

Start simple -- digital cash

[code_rage]

I think it would be much easier to start with a simpler problem: digital cash. I would love to have a card that can hold up to about $100 that is anonymous and which I could use for bus fare, parking meters, road tolls, or small purchases like meals. This would be a natural for on-line purchases of paid content (iTunes, archived news stories).

By being anonymous, my privacy would be protected (at least in theory). It would also be completely unconnected to my credit cards and bank accounts, so it could never be used to steal more than $100 from me.

This is not a trivial problem -- it has some of the same problems as voting (anonymity & non-repudiation).

I think this is already being done in Europe. If only the US would catch up.

A Lord Of The Rings Moment

[Valen0]

One Card to rule them all, one Card to find them
One Card to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Cameleon Network where the Shadows lie.

Re:Did you read the parent post?

[qqtortqq]

Making him decode the cards has nothing to do with him testifying against himself. If a judge sees probable cause to believe there is evidence stored on the device, he can issue a search warrant requiring the criminal to give access to the device. Its just like taking a breathalyzer or getting a blood test to determine if you have been drinking and driving, you aren't testifying against yourself, but rather being compelled to assist in providing evidence, even if the evidence is being used against you.

Seriously.

[cryptochrome]

That's $200 you're whipping out in front of everyone. So easy to lose, and so tempting to steal (even if they can't get the data in it).

Here's what would make more sense: All credit/debit cards require the reader to verify and register the purchase. Instead you open up a meta-account with a debit card that you register ALL your cards and bank accounts with, and then use just that card, allowing the meta-account to distribute your money for maximum savings or returns. Since interest is compounded daily, paying/investing daily could save/make you a fair chunk of change. Hell, just make it a free government service and make it your driver's license or id, so you don't have to carry anything extra.

Oh, and if you lose it you're not out $200.

Re:Seriously.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Benefit of this thing is essentially that, lacking your fingerprint(the value of biometrics can be discussed elsewhere), it cannot be used

But that's the complete opposite of the truth. It needs the fingerprint of whoever owns the vault, not whoever owns the original credit card. This scheme simply means that if I DO get access to your credit card briefly that I may also have a cheap consumer device, that I don't need to be coy about using, that allows me to easily copy your card. Instead of walking round with a pocket full of stolen cards I have a single vault that nobody else can access.

Any "security" features of the original card are rendered irrelevant because of course I do have a completely valid chameleon card.

Signature confirmation goes completely out because either there is no signature on the chameleon card or, again, it's the signature of whoever owns the chameleon card not whoever owns the original.

To try to spin this as giving added security to owners of genuine cards is absurd.

Re:Seriously.

[Zeinfeld]

But that's the complete opposite of the truth. It needs the fingerprint of whoever owns the vault, not whoever owns the original credit card.

This is the real problem. These guys sound like they have done a great job of protecting the consumer. In the process they have completely ignored the fact that they have created a method of forging credit cards that requires no expertise or special tools.

I think it will not be very long before the card associations tell their merchants that they must not accept these cards.

This will never fly

[Jarnis]

- It's expensive. Too expensive for a trinket that might be lost/damaged in everyday life. Credit card lost? No biggie - you just cancel it, request new one. At worst you pay few bucks fee for replacement card.

- Lose this trinket, and you just gave *every damn card/id thingy ya had* to a thief. Yeah yeah its fingerprint keyed. So what? The data is inside and everything is ultimately hackable.

- It can obiviously be used to swipe magnetic strip data off other people's cards you may be able to handle. As a bonus if it can 'dupe' smartcards, Visa & co wont be happy - they just spent gazillions in moving every (insecure) magnetic card to ones with chip inside. I think their timetable is something like by end of 2005 every Visa card is a smartcard. I'd expect credit card companies to sue the pants off this company for unauthorized reverse engineering of their security features against duplication in the cards. DMCA will be used to pwn these guys. (And if it does *not* dupe smartcards, it will be useless in couple of years when every card becomes one)

- Big credit card companies will just tell to the retailers not to accept anything except Genunie Visa(r) Card(tm) :) - logos and all. And if you expect chameleon cards to be allowed to display those logos, think again. Not to mention that a chameleon card would either have to display gazillion different logos (fishy, wouldn't pass in most stores without tons of education and approval of credit card companies), or you'd need a custom card for every card you have - in which case the whole toy is useless.

- Huge hassles with most clerks refusing the cards 'swiped on' with this trinket even without guidance from credit card companies - "that's not a visa card, are you trying to fool me with some thieves tool with copied card data?". The education required to train every damn minimum wage clerk in the world to identify and accept this thingy in place of a real card would be astronomical - EVEN if the card companies would go along with it.

Dot.com boom coming back? This company is beyond loony to even attempt to develop something this stupid.

Free?

[bryanp]

Hell, just make it a free government service

Free? Free to who? There are no such thing as "free" government services. They cost tax $. My tax $. Maybe I don't want to pay for your personal convenience. Maybe the guy next door doesn't care to pay for it either.

Re:Yes but what about bluetooth?

[tambo]

all your cards are belong to us?

Yeah, that's the obvious problem. Who's to say that the information in the card database is for your credit card? Couldn't it be anyone's credit card?

Credit card companies have taken steps to link the physical card to the bearer - putting your photo on the credit card, printing on the card that merchants should request ID confirmation, etc. This completely sidesteps those mechanisms.

In short,this is the perfect tool for credit card theft. Work at a diner for a month, and scan every customer's credit card into your Chameleon. You can then take a great free vacation to another state and pay for every expense on a different credit card.

It took me about 14 seconds to realize this. And yet, some company spent $beeleeons developing it - probably relying on the old "we can paper over the problem with marketing hype" tactic/fallacy. Any chance the Chameleon is made by Diebold?

- David Stein

Re:Yes but what about bluetooth?

[The Only Druid]

One obvious solution (which admittedly isn't mentioned in the article, and thus shouldn't be assumed to be true) is that the device could/may refuse to hold cards for more than one name.

The average person (i.e. almost everyone) has precisely zero reason to carry someone else's credit card (and if they had them, many stores wouldn't accept one that wasn't yours since they're not supposed to do so). This device may simply make the valid assumption that all of your cards should have the same name (which is stored magnetically in the card, if I'm not mistaken).

This would, at least, prevent stealing more than one person's card.

Re:Small Problem

[ilsa]

Don't forget his new wife: Jane Marie Average-Public, who is still trying to get her Social Security Card re-issued with her married name. Double the fun if she answers to her middle name, triple if people routinely mispell any part of her name (Jayne Mary?)