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Privacy Pitfalls in No-Swipe Credit Cards
Nrbelex writes to mention a New York Times article about the privacy pitfalls of 'no-swipe' credit cards. Despite assurances from the card companies, researchers Tom Heydt-Benjamin and Kevin Fu were able to easily retrieve data from the new cards ... data available without encryption and in plain text. From the article: "They could skim and store the information from a card with a device the size of a couple of paperback books, which they cobbled together from readily available computer and radio components for $150. They say they could probably make another one even smaller and cheaper: about the size of a pack of gum for less than $50. And because the cards can be read even through a wallet or an item of clothing, the security of the information, the researchers say, is startlingly weak. 'Would you be comfortable wearing your name, your credit card number and your card expiration date on your T-shirt?' Mr. Heydt-Benjamin, a graduate student, asked."
Let them do this. I think it's time these idiots suffered a really big catastrophe; it'd probably the most (only?) effective way to really set the tone re. RFID.
Meantime, don't carry these cards yourselves, and avoid banks that use them...
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In the old days, you used to actually have to stick your hand into someone's pocket or purse.
In the new days, you apparently only have to sit next to them on the bus.
FINALLY! Us geeks have something to be happy about. For once we can walk confidently sporting our tinfoil wallets and WE'LL be the ones laughing...all teh way to the bank!
I thought they could not get even dumber then not having people sign their credit card slips or have the user swipe it themselves and sign so the cashier does not even look at them. Let who ever chooses this "easier" way to crash and burn
Of course, I found this interesting blog post from several years ago: http://www.spy.org.uk/spyblog/2004/02/foiling_the_ oyster_card.html
I just wish TfL would get the bloody Silverlink / North London Line railways on the system rather than posting stormtrooper rent-a-cops at selected stations on random mornings. I actually do pay my fare, but I'm deeply distressed by the rudeness of some of the non-TfL staff. Treat customers not as potential fare-evaders but customers!
Okay, magnetic swipe cards are better than the old way of making a carbon from the raised info on the little plastic cards, but what is the advantage of an RFID credit card? I still need to get the RFID-thing out of my wallet or out of my pocket to use it. Is saving five seconds such a big deal that I wouldn't spend that five seconds in order to protect my identity?
Upgrades for the sake of the "wow-factor" are stupid.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
...then you have nothing to hide, right? So why are you bothering hiding your credit card from the other law abiding citizens, are you a terrorist?
Lead-lined sleeves for credit cards, driver's licences, passports, and airport visitor tags. In an assortment of new colors for our autumn lineup!
...swipe cards aren't secure? Hell, I'm still waiting for CREDIT cards to become secure.
I've been waiting for 2 years for cashiers and salespeople to check my signature whenever I buy something with my credit card. Sometimes I'll sign "Mickey Mouse" or "Donald Trump", or even write a phrase like "Yankees suck!", and I still have yet to be asked even once. With the lack of security on older cards, it doesn't surprise me that these newer ones are no less safe.
When did we get too lazy to swipe credit cards?
If you're too lazy to have any security, you won't have any.
As a former employee of one of the credit card companies, I'd like to explain a little bit of how they think. Banks and credit card companies take fraud for granted. They have departments which analyze potential and reported fraud. They set certain thresholds which they consider acceptable. Since they know it's going to happen they study it and figure out the best way to flag accounts. To the credit card companies it makes the most financial sense to not bother with the technological blocks and catch the fraud on the tail end. For example, with smaller purchases no longer requiring a signiture, card use for small purchases has gone up. If a few percent of those purchases are fraud the banks and credit card companies don't care because in the end they're making more money. People who notice fraudulent transactions on their statements will make calls and the banks will eat the cost of the purchases. Banks who suspect fraud has taken place simply block the accounts until the card holder calls. It all works out to the benefit of the banks and credit card companies.
So even though the credit card companies should do more to protect the information from a logical and PR perspective, they've already decided that the small potential increase in the cost of fraud is outweighed by the increased use of these cards that some people consider more convenient.
Developers: We can use your help.
I probably sound like a paranoid nut, but banks are pushing this 'touchless' card technology because we buy more when we use it. By 'we' I mean consumers. And we buy more when using plastic than when using cash. In this USAToday article - http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/credit/2006-10 -09-credit-cards-usat_x.htm - a great quote sums it up:
Merchants, too, benefit from faster no-signature transactions, credit card companies say, because the stores can serve more customers -- resulting in higher overall sales. And "people will spend more if they come in with a card vs. cash," says Gareth Forsey of MasterCard Worldwide (MA).
"People will spend more".
So, if people already spend more by putting a card in a reader, it stands to reason that they'll spend even more when they don't even have to get the card out of the wallet - just wave it around in front of the reader. The speedpass technology is pretty much doing this already, and McDonald's adopted it a few years back. Obviously it was a pretty big expense for them to put the machines in, refit their networks to accomodate it, etc. Why would they do it unless it meant people were buying more? In fact, Visa's own website (http://merchants.visa.com/solutions/qsr.jsp) states that
A recent Visa study of 100,000 QSR transactions showed that customers using payment cards spent an average of 30 percent more than those who paid with cash. Other industry studies suggest that the average spread may be even higher.
So for everyone saying "when did we get so lazy?" and similar notions, it's not that we're lazy. We simply spend more the less psychologically painful it is to do so. If I lay down 5 $20s to do my grocery shopping, it's more painful than swiping a card, because it's not as real at that moment. When I get view my statement later, yes, it all tallies up, but there's no difference between using plastic for groceries, clothes, the movies, or anything else, even if all the prices are wildly different.
creation science book
For years I had a Mobil speedpass. I found it incredibly convenient. Take out the keys, pass them near the pump, and go. For those rushed commutes when I wanted to get back to the road and back to my audiobook, getting out of the gas station was a priority and I thought it was great. And even when it was clear the system was hackable http://www.marketingshift.com/2005/1/exxon-mobile- speedpass-hack-via-rfid.cfm I still used it. WTF? You get cheated, you call the credit card company and take care of it. How many websites already have my credit card information? How many bills do I pay online? There is a huge amount of trust that I put in these institutions. But I've decided that my time and convenience in the long run are more important than worrying about a few hundred dollars.
These 'old days' you talk about ended long, long ago. These 'new days' you predict started decades ago. I'm far more worried about the minimum wage employee handling my credit card info or someone digging through improperly discarded credit card receipts than I am of a technophile taking the time and effort to build a mobile card reader. A stolen credit card is a stolen credit card, regardless how it's done - and we already have measures to counter this. I fail to see how this 'new world' is any different than today's status quo.
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Everyone keeps saying, "Who cares, I'm not liable if someone takes my card and uses it", and that "The banks eat it".
No, they don't. The merchants do. And the customers end up covering it in the end.
I own an online retail business. If someone disputes a purchase and we lose the dispute, the credit card processor simply takes the money back from *us*. We're out the money. Nobody else.
We go to great lengths to try and prevent this (AVS, CVV, etc), but you will get one every once in a while no matter what you do.
So fraud rates are built into retail *pricing*. When we get a new product, we have a formula to decide our selling price. It's based on our business costs. Fraud is one of those costs - we know how much we incur per year, so we build it into the profit margin. Every business does this in one way or another.
If fraud goes up, so do our prices. Therefore, it goes full-circle back to the consumer.
Brian Roach