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To Pay With Your Credit Card, Please Speak Up
prostoalex writes "It's reasonable easy for a thief to steal the social security number and bank account information (which is printed on a check) as well as an address. The next generation of financial tools are fighting this problem. Business Week talks about voice verification in future debit and credit cards. "Here's how it works: A special sensor on the credit card stores its owner's previously recorded voiceprint in digital form. When the owner receives a new card, he or she speaks a password into the sensor on the card. If the voiceprint matches, the card is activated.""
So you speak to activate it.. and if you get a cold or have an accident and can't talk?
I like muppets.
Where are all those Bill Gate sound files when I need them? :-)
I somehow get the feeling that wives, girlfriends, and daughters the world over will not like this one bit.
** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
where did I put that tape recorder again?
RandomAndInteresting.comdefending the world from stupidity since 1979
Step 1:
Build card reader for voice print
Step 2:
Download voice print to your MP3 player
Step 3:
PROFIT!
It's great until someone hears you speak the password, and they say it a thousand times until the card screws up and thinks it's right.
Zug.com has a funny prank, that was listed on /. the other month, about someone signing his credit card receipts with phony names or pictures.
I tried it, it's no problem, just sign all of your bills "It's Me", no one cares.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
...where you type your PIN into a small box attached to the cash register.
Because, as we all know, typing your PIN into someone elses computer system is by far the best way to keep it confidential.
ATMs are at least owned by the bank and significantly harder to tamper with in a non-obvious way.
Beep beep.
Or pubescent boys with unmonitored internet connections, heh.
***
"My name is Werner Brandis. My voice is my (credit card) passport. Verify me."
Enter Ben Kingsley, Robert Redford, stage left.
No really, I'm am really curious. I admit, I wear a tin-foiled hat with pride, but I've recieved some pretty BS responses from banks when asked this question.
The worst response? "You need it on your account for your protection". Oh really? Until, I don't know, 1 of the 100 forms my SSN is one gets scanned and posted somewhere on the internet.
And for those that think it can't happen, some dipshit made a family tree of all of my family across the country and posted it on the internet... 1 out of 10 (out of ~600 people... this tree goes back pretty far) has a SSN posted and it's now in google's cache.
So I ask again... why is a SSN required for a bank account? What about those people withouth SSNs?
my last sig was too controversial... now, a new and improved useless sig!
Step 1: steal identity and get credit card mailed to oneself, shameless thief.
Step 2: record your voice onto some shmoe's card.
Step 3: PROFIT!
"My voice is my credit card. Pay for me"
Verify me.
Cough syrup sales have plummeted into oblivion.
Seriously what the fuck? Haven't these guys ever heard about fingerprints? Or maybe just NOT printing so much sensitive information on checks in the first place?
Any kids who were given a credit card by their parents at the age of 13 or 14 are screwed once they hit puberty at 15 and 16. They will have to have loose recognition to compensate for their rapid voice fluctuations.
I am the cardowner.
My voice is my passport.
Verify me.
I'm sorry Dave, but you can't afford that $600 video card...
Record the voice, learn to imitate the voice of somebody? Damn, I'm going to start trying to mimc the voice of Bill Gates
:P
And what will happen when you're cold and your voice is not the same? In fact, teenagers would not be able to use it from one year to another
what are the mutes to do?
...like "How much?!".
I'd rather those 'financial tools' be working on fingerprint or some other biometric authentication. I'd hate to have to talk to my card everytime I use it. Oh well, I use cash mostly anyway.
what happens if the card's battery runs out?
Considering that voice recognization is still rather unreliable (particularly when people get excited and such) I would think it's a bad idea until reliablity improves.
It would be rather sad trying to pay for caugh drops with ATM/CC but unable to do so because the sore throat is causing your voice print to shift.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
I sincerly hope you don't have your SSN on your checks! All I have is my name and home address--if someone needs to complain, write me a letter.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
"Hello, my name is Alexander Burke. My voice is my passport. Verify me."
:)
Next stop: the Sony Store!
There was a /. article a few years ago about a biometric password scheme that remembered how you laughed. It became a running joke at work, where we have someone with a very distinctive laugh. We figured a scheme like that would become annoying really fast.
Coworker A: huh huh huh... huh huh huh... it's not letting me in... huh huh huh... oh wait I think I changed it... huhhuhuhhuhuh huhhuhhuhuh... huhhuhuhhhuh... no, that doesn't work either huh huh huh...
Coworker B: Here, I'll log in for you. hahahahah!
Coworker A: Huh huh huh thanks!
For some of us, who live in romote America (USA), and still use old telephone lines, which are on many cases not as clear as the "standard", are doomed if we are to attempt transact business on the telephone. Imagine trying to identify yourself with that crackling sound in the background...What shall we do?
Rather than working to make it harder to use a stolen credit card, companies should work at making it easier to find somebody using a stolen credit card. Maybe start requesting that stores associate a purchase with a time and a checkout lane, which could lead to accessing security camera archives once a purchase is claimed fraudulent by the account holder. I am sure there are more possibilities.
I would prefer that the Visa or Mastercard system sends me a SMS that I reply to in order to authorize the payment.
The credit card industry could eliminate 90% of the fraud that occurs simply by requiring a PIN number for every transaction. Bank cards have required this for years - so the infrastructure is already in place.
The bottom line is that credit card companies don't have any reason to change the status quo - the costs of fraud are usually pushed onto insurance companies and customers. The "bad-debt" numbers that credit card companies publish really do not hurt them as much as you think (until this week, bankruptcy hurt them worse than fraud).
-ted
I guess it just depends on your location and the available infrastructure for delivering verifiable voice communications. What happens when I'm vacationing in Figi and can't get my funds transfered because the bad connection is destroying the biometric signature of my voice?
when your sick.
Leave the daughters out of that. Mine has two degrees, a well paying job and does not need to "borrow" my credit cards.
To much inherent loss of quality in going from digital (the stored file in its perfection) to analog (us attempting to replicate what we said).... so how close would this really work what would the "margins" be?
It's discrimination I tell ya!
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Plus she hooks on the side.
I hate to admit it - because, you know, all the fraudulent things that have happened to people with PayPal and eBay - but I have to say that PayPal is starting to do things well.
Require you to put in your work phone number and then an automated system phones it and asks you to authenticate what is onscreen by touchpad. Atleast with this method of authentication the hackers have to spoof more than one method of communication and would leave a rather sizeable paper trail of changing account data.
Not like reading the extra 3 digits off your card into a computer system so that someone else can steal those digits and reuse 'em.
This post started out with better ambitions. Stupid boob tube, oh how you distract me!
What if you go through puberty and your voice changes?
Of course there'd be a black market in little spray bottles with 100% CERTIFIED GENERIC SPIT THAT WORKS WITH ALL DECODERS!!1! Kinda like cable boxes.
And then there's the question of digitizing that, of course.
Pshhhht. Psshhhht...
For example, it has a module on which I've stored my thumbprint (the module will only verify my print. It won't give out the data). I strobe it and a unique credit card number appears which is only good for that transaction.
Or perhaps I can write my own custom module which requires me to tap out a randomly generated five character sequence that it displays in Morris code accurately in less than 10 seconds - with a lockdown mode if I fail.
Or perhaps it uses my voice and my spouse's voice.
I would just like a smart module on which I can run my own software that makes a "go" / "no go" decision to generate a mechanism to allow one and only one credit card charge.
And, American Express, if you're listening, I'm willing to pay for it.
The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
I guess this could be good news for Rich Little!
Homer no function beer well without.
Passport. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
Once you have the voice print its in your computer.You simply get a reprogramable magnetic card, store the numbers for each card you "procure" along with the voice print in a data base. Then you return the card so as to make the consumer think he is safe. I hope you all can see where the rest of this goes. I'm not typing any more because they are watching me.
Congratulations, you're the exception.
Help a poor college student. Send a couple cents via paypal to chucks86@gmail.com
Still using checks. I like you yankees, I really do (strange for an european these days), but I know that checks are a common way of payment in the US, and I honestly don't understand this. Checks are a horrible throwback from the past and should have never crossed the millennium time barrier.
I am sure there's a logical explanation why you're still doing this - I just don't really see it.
(the other thing I never figured out, is: the US dollar is the most forged currency in the world, and yet, it's also one of the easiest to forge, what with all the banknote denominations being of the same color etc.)
Sigged!
Bruce Schneier discusses identity theft and more in his latest news letter.
Test 1 2 3 4
What good will this do to people that have their credit card information stolen and used online?
Help a poor college student. Send a couple cents via paypal to chucks86@gmail.com
My voice is my passport. Verify me.
Should any of the credit card companies that want to use this type of technology hope to have the cards used by the federal government, they'll need to make sure that the card is 508 compliant http://www.section508.gov/ and that would take into account someone who could not speak.
Bark less. Wag more.
It's been proven over and again that biometrics are a poor form of authentication that can easily be beaten. Not only are you unable to protect it (try not leaving your fingerprints everywhere, or not speaking to someone so they can't get your voice recording, or maybe even not shedding your hair so you don't leave any DNA traces), you're also unable to change it, and it's made doubly dangerous because of the way people seem to think it's effective. So maybe they should stop beating that dead horse around...
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
Start with a picture of the cardholder on the card. Some banks already do that. So unless you have a serious change in how you look, a person can SEE if you are the person on the photo or not.
Unfortunatly that means that the wife will have to have her [SHOCKING] own card. Yes this would mean going to the bank to have your picture taken. It also means it costs money and as long as the cost of theft are below the cost of security, they will gladly pay up to whomever is stealing from them.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
- Identifying people who phone a bank (ie. for phone services or ordering a credit card)
- When people first receive a credit card, they speak to it to activate it
But, here's what this type of biometrics fails to address:From TFA, "Over-the-phone fraud already affects 12% of all banks offering e-payment services." 12%? That's it? Of all the banks offering electronic/phone services, only 12% have ever been affected by over-the-phone fraud, which this new technology is supposed to help prevent? That makes me think that most credit card frauds are being conducted another way.
Point two: This type of biometrics does nothing to protect consumers if their card or card number are stolen after their card is activated. Continuing from my above comment about how most frauds actually happen, I'd wager good money that most credit card frauds do not occur from cards being stolen from the mail before they're activated; rather, I'm guessing that most frauds happen because the little numbers on someone's card are stolen.
They need to rethink their manner of usage if they want this new biometric scheme to be anything more than a headache (I mean, how many different things could go wrong with a voice-recognition chip embedded in a little card?). I mean, a voice-authentication system is definately a better scheme than asking someone what their birthday is, but there has to be a more effective way of using it than this.
Mutes can still produce a series of poping sounds with their mouth that is pretty hard to replicate.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This will not help with online fraud. Most fraud online is the result of 'card not present' fraud where the 16 digit number is typed in by a human.
can't even imagine the gajillion ways this is going to fubar. Just glad I won't be manning any of their helpdesks.
Hmm, won't do anything to stop people with your card details spending online (or through mail order / telephone order).
Also not clear if it will prevent counterfiting, where someone swipes your card through a magnetic stripe reader. Get a blank card, copy the magstripe data onto it, and record your own voice print...
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
Minimum system requirements:
To use our card you must have a sound card, microphone, video camera to see that it is really you sending your voice down the line...
How do I make a forum? I want me and my fellow trolls to have a land of our own, free from the oppressive candy-ass mods of /.
So it's a second factor. It will not stop
man-in-the-middle, and virus writers now
need to remember to record audio along with
the key logger.
But, it raises the bar, so it's a good
thing, overall.
I'm one more exception. My daughter earns 4 times what I earn. Education, man, that's where it's at! You need to make sure your children have a good education, leading to a good job, so they can support you when you get old!
Morse code. Not "Morris" code. It's the "Morris Worm" and "Morse Code."
This was good technology applied in a bad way. As one of more than one way of activating a card this would be a good thing. Thieves are a skittish lot, even if they could sign for card use or use a stolen PIN, the fact they would be expected to voice activate the card first would deter them, not wishing to draw undue attention to themselves.
Even 14 years ago this technology had a extremely low false positive rate misidentifying someone as someone else. Even 25 years ago I seem to remember this technology being not being prone to misidentification, though more finicky and with a much smaller vocabulary (like 10 words).
Letter To Iran
Not all times our voice is the same. We all know we need to go to the pharmacy and get some meds in the middle of the night.
How will it be for people who can't speak into the card when they are sick.
This treads between usability, since I foresee a lot of problems. How about this; use a PIN for ALL credit and Debit transaction. Must be greater than 5 digits. Thats more security, but something we have adapted to use.
I mean...they're doing all these measures to ensure their...oops...your money will be kept safe...but how about danger situations like a kidnapping? one could be easily forced to say the "magical word" and activate the CC for toasting all its credits.... So in fact this system doesn't addresses the real world situations...... tell the burglar you've got a cold and you're dead :D
I don't understand Credit Card companies' reluctance to put photos on their cards. They only need one photo of each person, then anyone can immediately identify if the card is in the hands of the rightful owner. Not good for internet/phone transactions, but far better than a simple signature that is rarely checked these days.
This scheme eliminates theft involving new credit cards ordered when the card owner already has a voice print on file.
It does nothing if the owner's voice print is not on file, which means it protects none of the current card owners. If I steal your bank statement and order a new card, the bank will have to ask for a voice print. If I get there first, I get to activate any future cards in your name, not you.
The sensor on the credit card must be a joke. The card itself is a token representing the account. If you speak to the card and it says 'activated' (or not), what difference does that make? None unless the card can magically contact the bank... current card swipe readers aren't going to be able to determine activated status, and there no place to speak the activated status in a web form.
If the sensor is not a joke, it can only be a technique to make credit cards expensive to produce so banks can have an additional revenue stream, or, a way to increase their security budgets so that when a scam is perpetrated, they will have fresh FUD to say the scam is worth 200% more damage than for cards without the sensor.
eskwayrd = m^2c^4
It's reasonable easy for a thief to steal the social security number...
I can only shake my head and wonder...
Voice recognition is still not there. From stuff I've read rather recently, voice recognition stuff still can't understand southern accents. I'm not talking about deep dixie, or Louisiana, either.
President Clinton's voice is too southern for todays voice recognition software to accurately recognize.
"Open the pod bay doors HAL."
"I'm sorry, Dave, you have reached your credit limit."
But, hey, I've had too much coffee today.
I like my beverages with warning labels!
I somehow get the feeling that wives, girlfriends, and daughters the world over will not like this one bit.
That shouldn't be a problem here.
How long does the power supply last? You do realise this requires a power supply and *you*, the end user, will pay more for this new 'feature'?
How much larger is this going to make the dimensions of the credit card? You do realise that this will add 'mass' to a credit card and *you*, the end user, will pay more for this new 'feature'?
How much will this add to the weight of a credit card? You do realise that this will add weight to a credit card and *you*, the end user, will pay more for this new 'feature'?
When will businesses be upgrading the card reading hardware to adapt to these new cards? You do realise that businesses will charge more for this new 'feature'?
I can't help but wonder if inflation is caused by the 'toys' that make us more lazy and less responsible.
And they'll be smart enough to realise it's not worth it!
and you need to make sure they have it by the age of 10 so they don't pinch your money during their teenage years
Why the heck don't they just enforce the use of the CC PIN, like with debit cards? They already exist so the implementation would be pretty easy. IMO, this would cut down on fruad about 90%. They also use this method in Europe to success. Us Americans are too lazy these days. I have "Please ask me for my ID" on all my credit cards and I'm lucky if only 10% of clerks ask for it. I *do* like how some (most) gas stations ask for the billing ZIP code when using a cc nowadays.
I don't know about you, but I loan out cards on a regular basis to trusted individuals. That is the entire reason for having a signiture line on the back. You do know that the signiture line indicates if you want ID to be required to use your card right?
They need to fix checks not Credit/Debit transactions. On every check is all the information needed to perform check-by-phone transactions. I have been scammed this way twice (both times by credit card companies who wanted to use my account to pay someone elses bill). I have called around and NO bank verifies these transactions at all. Sometimes a signiture file is included by those are not verified either.
When I say not verified I don't just mean there is no manual verification, I mean there is no verification at all, every check-by-phone transaction is automatically accepted. So the next time you are about to write a check, remember that you are giving the individual the ability to take any sum out of your account at any time with no security measures.
So, to provide enhanced security with a picture would cost a lot of money. It's not the cost of putting the picture on the card, it's the cost of verifying that the picture matches who the card says it is.
I'm no expert, but this seems like the insecure way to do it. If you have hardware in the card to activate it, then anyone who steals the card can have as much time as they need to tamper with / hack that hardware to make it work. In fact... why not just bypass the system altogether and make it always active??
However, I do like the idea of using voiceprints as verifications. In fact, other biometric systems would probably work just as well (fingerprints, retina scan, whatever). But DO NOT STORE THIS INFORMATION ON THE CARD! Store it in a central database and associate it with the magnetic ID of the card, then use it similar to the PIN system currently implemented, just requiring the PIN equivalent for every transaction.
There have been comments made that "wives, girlfriends, etc. won't like this very much", so why not add a set of biometrics that are valid for the card. This way you can both have multiple ID's for yourself (if you have a cold and voice isn't working, then use your fingerprints, etc.), as well as biometrics for other people you trust to use this card. In this age of streaming media / Internet / computers all over this can definitely be done.
Just my thoughts.....
If you can't say something nice, make sure you have something heavy to throw.
start requesting that stores associate a purchase with a time and a checkout lane,
As a former retail worker I can tell you that store number, date, time, register, and cashier number have been printed on receipts for several years, if not a decade or two. They may not be in an easily recognized format, but you didn't think all those meaningless numbers at the top and bottom of your reciepts were actually random, did you?
As for tying it into the security cameras & keeping tapes long enough to review days or weeks later....that's another matter.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Well of course the proper infrastructure needs to be put in place. Not like the current system of having a credit card mailed to you so you can sign it (as it is in Australia). A signature / voice / anything needs to be secure when the card is made/signed/etc. A photo could be stored on record and built into the card, unlike signatures etc.
I recently underwent a tonsellectomy and various sinus surgeries. One noticable side effect, at least to my friends and family, is that my voice has changed. Many co-workers who I have called for years on a daily basis have needed several weeks to recognize my voice.
A minor concern, but I guess I would likely need to retrain any voice programs at this point in time. I do know that my cell phone auto dialer is not working anymore, but then again, it was never a very reliable voice dial to begin with...
This is not the sig you are looking for...
This doesn't seem to be any added protection to me. Here's why:
Voices would it seem need to be encoded into digital format to be useful. I.e. you do a match on the numberic voiceprint stored in the card vs that stored in a database.
Oh poo. There's a database involved somewhere--that also means that merchants will want to capture and store those fingerprints to prevent chargebacks.
Double poo. There's a second set of databases involved--ones which are often guarded willy-nilly (if at all).
Maybe I'm missing something, but this seems to me to be a non-starter.
Running 'Nix is like owning a Lightsaber. It's "a more elegant weapon for a more civilized time."
The issue isn't the technology. There is a lot of technology out there that really can secure credit card transactions.
First off, the card issuers (credit card co. and banks) will never spend the per card costs to implement such a "smart card". I mean we still don't have any of the euro style smartcard tech in the US and that's been around for years...
Merchants (and online operators) will never spend the money to implement the types of point of sale terminals and online tech required for such a system.
Chalk this one up to a wishful thinking...
By the way, the current "big deal" at a card technology conference held recently was "Contactless Transactions". Don't even bother taking the card out of your wallet walk up to the cash register, wave your wallet at the sensor and keep walking...
In our "get it now" society, we will never stand patiently in line while a little old lady keeps repeating "my voice is my password" over and over into a microphone. Just think back to paying for your groceries with a check and two forms of ID...
Incidentally, a newer technology that addes a signature verification into the mag stripe is one I personally like...
~The Gadget Geek.
There has already been a case of carjackers cutting off the owner's finger in order to obtain access to a biometrically secured Mercedes.
The whole idea that a "key" that is a part of your body is somehow more secure than a manufactured gadget you carry with you has more emotional than logical appeal.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
... you insensitive clod.
Really, I don't.
Wait until your voice returns to normal, retard.
I'm a MUTE you Insensitive CLOD!
Problems with fingerprint scanners are legendary, especially when your fingerprint is so easy to collect, glasses, ATM's, a handshake. There was a study not long ago on Slashdot that showed that about 90% of fingerprint scanners can be fooled by things like gelatine.
And you think the retailers would want to buy a big expensive foolproof machine for every shop in the world or just something cheap that can read a fingerprint?
It was hard enough moving them over to what we in the UK call Chip-and-PIN where we've done away (or are going to do away) with signatures and use a four digit code. That's been years in the making and still not completely functional. I can still say "Oh, I haven't been sent a number for that card yet" and they let you sign for the transaction, much like previously.
I'm not sure that a voice recognition system would be best. No, I still say the best system for things like credit cards etc. is to have some sort of graphical. When you swipe the card, the owners picture appears for verification (sent direct from the credit card company, maybe chosen from a few random photographs from different angles, clothing etc.) Much more big brother, I know.
If the person in front of you does not look like the owner, you refuse the transaction. Put this on top of things like Chip-and-PIN and signatures and you've got it made. Only an CC company insider could realistically beat it and then they would be accountable (I would hope that every account created had a traceback history for which staff member created it, one that is unwriteable after creation.).
If the retailer tries to run a stolen credit card through to make a few fake transactions, and presses Yes to ID the photo, there's always the Chip-and-PIN to fall back on that he must know. But it means you can't stroll in just any shop with a stolen credit card and take someone else's money.
Yes it would be a pain in the ass. If you don't want it to be, use cash. If biometrics ARE used, don't store information on the card. They should just put a photo on the card and also ask for ID. Combine that with a 7 digit PIN, and you're pretty safe. Not to mention, this can be used in conjunction with other forms of verification, including biometrics. Still, the most secure way to spend money is with cash. The singe most effective way to make sure nobody steals your identity, credit card, or anything of the sort is to be a homeless unemployed bum.
Honesty may be the best policy, but by process of elimination, dishonesty is the second best policy.
How is this inconvenient? I had to go into the branch to open the account anyway, going back a week later to pick up my card wasn't that bad.
Before thinking of expensive new ideas like this people should really sit back and think do people really need this technology?
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything" -- Josef Stalin
it was an electronic keypad, not a card reader
blah... (same time last year!)... http://slashdot.org/articles/04/04/24/1845221.shtm l
--DarkFrog
If the dead rise again, we're going to have some serious population control issues.
If you found you could mic someone from arcoss the street and make $10,000+ would it be worth it?
I'd say a vast majority of credit fraud is committed without actually stealing the card, just the information on the magstrip. So I guess instead of the shady waiter just swiping your card through his personal magstrip reader before charging your order, it becomes standard for people to have to talk to their cards before the shady waiter swipes your card through his personal magstrip reader before charging your order. Advancement+!!!
OOO! Can my Voice print be the same as Picard's??
Picard: Four Seven Alpha Tango.
You are Joe Sucker, 123 Mainstreet, Plain, KS.
Bob Bad has your info. (SSN, Mother's name, etc.) He just opens an account in the name of Joe Sucker to 456 Girlfriend St, Somewhere, NY.
Now he has a card that is in Joe Sucker's credit report, and Joe doesn't even know he has it! The Girlfreind can deny she every got a card, if she even sees Bob Bad anymore, etc.
Trust me, I clean crap out of my credit report all the time.
Now all I have to worry about is Maurice LaMarche.
I think it's a bad idea to consider the word/phrase you speak for the card to ID your voice a 'password' -- or even to limit it to a single word. People are more familiar with the concept of passwords than voice identification, and you're going to wind up with a lot of people that are worried about others listening into their transaction, trying to overhear their password.
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
"Your purchase of cough medicine has been declined."
The more annoying security they add to cards, the less likely I am to use my credit card for things like lunch at Wendy's. Right now I use my card for almost everything I can just because it's convenient and I get cash back. I don't care if someone steals my card, since all I have to do is call the card company and it's cancelled, and all my cards have zero liability anyways. Safer than carrying cash around even without all these new security features.
Reminds me of the old quote by Borusa:
that he ironically used to key a lock with a voice print...
hope you never have to pre-pay at the emergency room with one of those for a severe throat injury.
Most of the time, I do not speak, I use a LightWriter with a DECtalk voice. Personally, I'd rather my financial security didn't involve depending on a widely available device such as a DECtalk synthesizer.
But, so long as it requires the card and the credit card company is responsible for fraud, I don't really care.
I have a low trust of banks.
What about background noise in a busy shopping centre or something?? Hows it going to cope with that. Being in a line at the supermarket I can't even use voice tags on my phone.
.. with a gun at my head I will say anything that will match my voiceprint.
Next "secure" idea, please...
fruition
From Prelude to
Foundation:
"You rich Outworlders have credit
tiles, right? Just hand them over""
No."
"No point in saying no.
We'll just take them."
"You can't take them without killing me or hurting me and
they won't work without my voiceprint. My normal voiceprint."
more and more credit card fraud comes over the internet since no ID is needed, or pin (if debit), all you need is the card and a P.O. Box (or home address if you dare)
The movie "ST: First contact"
Data stopping the self destruction sequence by using the voice of the captain.
Or in nowadays terms: This call may be recorded for fraud purposes
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
.. or any other medication for conditions that alter the sound of your voice.
Yawn. Move along, just another dotcom idea lying on teh floor, nothing to see..
Insert
Man I already have the first victim.
"Hi, my name is Linux Torvalds and I pronounce it Linux!"
Muhaaaa
I only read slash. for the articles...
I've got a new one: how about the new card gets sent to your local bank, you get off your ass, walk down there and show some ID. If anyone else tries to get your card they'll be on CCTV. Seriously these days fucking idiots seem to sit round tables and come up with technological solutions that sound like something an 8 year old say.
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Hello... this is... Linus Torvalds... and... my... password is... Linux
If I get a cold, or feel generally dodgy, then my first impulse is to go out and buy a gadget to make me feel better. Geek comfort shopping. So this is a marvellous idea. Make sure that the voice recognition has no tolerance whatsoever, and then it may force me to to stay in bed and get better. Of course then there's online gadget shopping to fall back on so maybe my idea is flawed. Pah.
Around 6 or 7 years ago, my older brother had a voice-recognition password on his computer; it was neat and funky, and very futuristic. Then I found out that I could pitch my voice lower and get in after a couple of tries. Granted, the software standard at the time probably wasn't up to what we'd be looking at here, but it's still a consideration.
Browsing with +2 to insightful posts and a higher threshold makes the average post seen seem a lot more ingenious
so, once someone has your figure print profile, or your voice profile, what do you do exactly? change them?
Yes, but how much is her credit cards jacked up?
That little weasel would not know a voice activated phone if it bit him in the ass and tried to link him to the Matr. . . oh wait. Said too much. Mr. sigjuice
Am I funny, or am I offtopic? You decide.
Actually, voice activated cards. Let us setup the scenario.
I am at the supermarket at the checkout line.
I have to voice activate my card out loud before I tell the cashier kid with the vacant stare that I'm going to pay debit/credit. So now every drooling meathead within earshot knows my password. Nice security! Unless I can activate my card using sotto voce, or sublingually this card is very useless. Also, this applies even double when making a late night ATM withdrawal with some scumbag trying to scope my PIN number. He already knows my voice password!
I work with verifones.
tranz terminals? 380-s?
pinpads attach with an rj-11 phone jack.
yer telling me- it's totally secure to use that cabled pinpad? because criminal orginizations cannot possibly make a compatible pinpad, that dumps the numbers pressed? or hey, make a damn keystroke logger equivelent for the rj-11 jack-- unplug pinpad, insert dongle, insert rj-11-
start collecting pins.....
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
For thumb-print recognition? Either way, how does this stop someone from using the credit card on a webpage?
click me
Couldn't the next person in line record my voice, and then be able to use that to bypass this?
He said that it wasn't secure because of false pinpads, but the data being sent is the most secure. And he's right- I've worked on Hypercom's ICE series of terminals, and the pinpad is the only really secure piece of data being sent out from the terminal itself.
click me
Remember that there was a time where pictures on credit cards were en vogue? That was a great way to prevent fraud when using a card in person. I was wondering why the credit card companies didn't make it mandatory (they should like it, as it would keep abuse rates down). Turned out they hated it, and making it mandatory was a big no-no. Why? Because it would have complicated to process of sending out preapproved credit card offers, especially if the customer would have been required to send them a photo back.
Likewise, I don't think this idea will take off, for the same reasons. The banks prefer to use heuristics and statistics, and live with a small fraud rate, rather than loosing potential customers.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
First and foremost, the technology required to pull this off is significant - I've yet to see really good voice recognition. What if you are in a loud location?
It can be cracked quite easily. The whole "Warner Brandes" thing (which many have posted).
Mutes have credit cards. Doesn't work for everyone. As soon as you have someone who is a mute needing a card, it means there's a way to avoid the voice print - which means that it's just a question of figuring out how to do this. "Hello Citibank? My wife lost her voice in a car accident...."
The issue of central repository is huge - and all you've done is moved the data that is key. Right now, it's the SSN thats key. If you make this voice based, I'm sure that it'll be digital in nature, which means that the headline five years from now would read '20,000 digital voice prints stolen from...'... Whoops. The only true way to get around this is with a handshake mechanism - data that is stored at the credit card companies but is utterly useless without verification from outside. Here's a better solution: When you submit a credit card application, you tie a home phone number or a cellular phone number to the card. Every time a transaction is made an automated call is placed to your home phone or to your cell phone (i.e. via SMS works too). You have to authorize the charge by either replying to SMS or through the home line by responding. Changing these phone numbers is not allowed without cancelling the previous card and associating a new card to a new number. Any time a phone change occurs, a manual verification should be performed. The card company calls the old number on file (or SMS's the cell or calls the cell) to confirm. This stops theives in their tracks from just rerouting calls. This is your first line of defense towards noticing something is amiss. If you've lost your cell phone and you've changed home numbers, you'll still notice when the card stops working. Yes, theives could call your credit card company and get a new card but that card would be mailed to your existing address and your old card would become inactive immediately - alerting you to trouble. What about vacations where you might not have a cell phone or access to your home phone? Simple - you call the credit card company prior to your trip and inform them of the length and location of your trip. Charges made during that time frame and only from that general location (i.e. "The Cayman Islands") will be allowed. When you return the regular authentication mechanisms apply. What about moving addresses? This becomes tricky -especially if you've changed numbers, states, etc. In this case, I think the best course of action is to simply cancel the existing card and apply for a new card but with one twist - the application must be filled out at a regional bank and cannot be mailed in or completed over the phone or over the internet. Why? A few reasons - It's one thing to know someone's SSN, it's another thing to have falsified SSN documents. It's one thing to know someone's license information, its another to have falsified drivers licenses. It becomes much more difficult to commit a crime in this way - also because now, instead of some random guy behind a computer, this guy has to go to whatever supposed state you are moving to and show up in person, with falsified documents, on a bank camera system. Is this a bit more of a pain for you and I? Yes. But how often do you change or get new credit cards? The final check? And this is one is a tricky one to keep secure but there must be a way. The credit card companies should all cross reference their databases of phone numbers and addresses. For example, if transunion detects that you have different numbers on file for two credit cards, it should be legally required to notify you in writing. I would also propose that you should be able to "lock" a card into a geographic area. For example, say you have three cards - an AMex, a Mastercard and a Visa. You use the Visa when you travel and for online purchases, but you never use the Amex or mastercard. You should be able to lock the amex and mastercard to only accept charges from, say, a 150 mile radius of your primary city. Any charges made to that card outside of that radius will be denied.
Now where did I put that Microsoft Speech API manual?
McF
"Hello, my name is Werner Brandes. My voice is my passport. Verify me."
now everyone's mobile phone can record sound. computers are cheap and powerful, audio editing software is freely available. It might even be easier to record someone's voice than to guess their pin. I suppose biometrics are inevitable, given our fascination with "security" and hollywood's propensity for using biometrics in movies....but for goodness' sake, please keep the pin, and have the biometric stuff supplement it. Seriously.
http://xkcd.com/386/
Is there a digital copy of your voice laying around waiting for hacker to steal just like the way they steal the password/ss#? What make this any better??? voice can be recorded anyway doesn't it?
Classic situations - responding to a business phone call isn't a problem. Initiating a phone call to a business sucks.
I fear that voice fingerprinting, where one has to verify one's identity in a time-limited manner is going to be hell for us.
I'm sure the 1% of humans who stutter (to whatever degree) would prefer retinal scans!!
Annoying Recorded Phone Service Program: "In order to complete your purchase, we have instituted new measures to protect you against fraud. Please state your passphrase. You will be verified in a matter of moments. Thank you. Please state passphrase now..."
"Are you talkin' ta me?"
Phone: "Please re-state your passphrase, the system could not verify your identity. You may try, now..."
"Are YOU talkin' ta me?"
Phone: "We're sorry, the passphrase you entered is invalid for verification purposes. Please restate passphrase, now..."
"Are you talkin' ta ME?"
Phone: "..."
"Are you TALKIN' ta ME?"
Phone: "Thank you, passphrase verified. We are now able to process your order. Thank you for your purchase. Good bye."
This is not a Credit Card authentication system. This is a credit card dis-authentication system. And it will only annoy your real, loyal, existing customers when it locks them out, and it will lock some out. Guaranteed.
Tried voice recognition passwords. Even when they work really well, they don't work that well. In fact, the better they work, the worse they work.
What I mean by that is they can get them to recognize a distinct voice pattern; you can demonstrate it to a bunch of execs in a boardroom and it will work. You could sell them on it.
Where it doesn't work is separating your voice pattern from everything that isn't your voice pattern. As long as the background noise of the boardroom is more-or-less constant and similar, and the demo is brief, your little presentation will go off without a hitch.
Use it in the real world where you actually have an application for the technology, and you get failure. I would bet that if the boardroom demo was in two parts, with recording execs voice just before Christmas (winter, heater noise, outdoor sounds travels faster in dense air, etc) and the first proof of login just before Memorial Day, it would fail miserably.
It's not so much that sounds present when you authenticate will cause a lockout. It's that whatever background existed when you record the first pattern (used for subsequent comparisons) had damn well be there for the life of the system, and any new sounds when you authenticate will cause a failure.
Radio on, truck drive by, jet overhead, daytime vs nightime, winter vs summer, whatever. The all have a distinct but essentially random background. Voice recognition expects all this stuff to be the same. Forever.
The better it gets at pattern recognition, the worse it gets at background rejection. Chasing one problem leads to many others, and that's basically the whole history of VR technology right there.
I don't see it improving, although it might be possible. It's too unpredictable, basically, to invest in as far as I'm concerned. What if there was an easier way by the time you get it solid? What if there were 30 easier ways?
From the looks of things, VRT won't be solid anytime soon, so pencil in a lot of room for competing technology, and keep in mind by the time VR works, stuff that is unheard of now may have matured by then.
Too bad it only works if your name is Werner Brandesson.
My voice is my passport. Verify me.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!