Casio's Credit Card Watch

Takuryu writes "Casio, working with Japanese credit card company, JCB, has developed a combination credit card wristwatch. Workers at the main JCB office wear the RFID tagged watches and use them for security access at the office, as well as for paying for lunch in the cafeteria. I wonder what percentage of employees they have tagged?"

Comments

Bring on the comments

[Dizzle]

We all know what's going to be said. The watch is easily stolen. Has been for years and years. That's what makes it so appealing to criminals. This isn't going to catch on and for good reason. The security on these devices sounds like nothing at all.

Re:Bring on the comments

[lambent]

And what's the security on your regular plastic credit card? That there's a non-verifiable signature on it that most merchants never check? That sometimes, for an online sale, the merchant asks you to turn over the card and input that 3-4 number code on the back?

If anybody ever gets physical access to your stuff, it's pretty much always game-over. Doesn't matter if it's your wallet, cc-watch, speedpass, or whatever you use.

Re:Bring on the comments

[AlphaPB]

The usual procedure after a theft of one's smart card is to cancel that particular card, just as one would cancel a credit card. However, since most smart cards are debit-based systems, there might not be any theft protection limit like that in regular credit cards (where the cardholder is responsible for $50, then the rest is taken care of by the company).

Since this is a credit card watch, I suppose the credit card company would treat it as regular card. In that case, the only reason that this would be a bad idea is that it most likely won't have the cardholder's signature on it for verification purposes, making it easier for the thief to use the card. Most clerks in America don't bother to check the signature anyway, so I don't see this as much of a problem.

The watch is easily stolen. Has been for years and years. That's what makes it so appealing to criminals.

If you're saying that it's just easy to steal a watch that is in plain view, I'd say that it's mostly expected that people carry around wallets and cell phones, so it doesn't make a thief more likely to rob a person wearing a watch. Unless, of course, they target people wearing fancy-looking watches. In that case, the ugly plastic quartz watch in the article will have the unexpected benefit of deterring thieves.

Security??

[Drooling_Sheep]

Are the watches protected from simply scanning everyones as they walk past and collecting thousands of credit card numbers? Or someone could set up a series of stations throughout a mall that charge small innocuous looking charges to cars from "shell" corporations and do like they did in Office Space.

I can't wait...

[lewko]

[Waving hand at RFID reader adjacent to cash register]

Me: You will give me french fries

Clerk: Yes, I will give you french fries...