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NTT DoCoMo Debuts Credit Card Phone
Scott S. writes "NTT DoCoMo Unveils its new phone allowing a simply wave to pay for items at the supermarket, rent movies, get airplane tickets and more. The i-mode FeliCa serves as a "mobile wallet" that detects weak electronic signals from a reader/writer and can be used when the phone is off. Credit card phones have been an idea in the past and leave it to the Japanese to make one."
well.. the idea is that it cuts down on the seperate things you have to carry..
with eventually you having to carry just one thing(preferably that has the data portions somewhere backed up automagically where they're easily replaceable securely for you if you lose the thing).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I'll answer this.
If you want to become a FeLiCa-enabled vendor, you must lease your reader directly from DoCoMo. All charges are stamped with a vendor-ID and the reader serial#. In order to get both items of information, a hacker would have to steal the reader from a store, crack it open to get the serial#, and replace the reader without causing any damage.
If the reader is missing, the vendor is required by contract (strict!) to contact DoCoMo immediately and have that reader decomissioned. The vendor is then liable for the cost of replacing the missing reader, discouraging them from lax physical security in the first place. If the reader is returned to the store in damaged condition such that the tamper-proof seal is broken (which self-reports to DoCoMo), then the machine is decomissioned and all transactions using that serial# are investigated.
Essentially, you would have to be a DoCoMo employee to pull off something like this successfully.
Also, the charge always requires a button-press acceptance on the user's part to acknowledge the transaction. If someone were to just wave the reader at your phone, it wouldn't do anything unless you accept the charge (in 30 seconds or so before the transaction times out).