BBC's iPlayer Chief Pushes Tiered Charging For ISPs

rs232 writes with a link to a story at The Register which begins: "The executive in charge of the BBC iPlayer has suggested that internet users could be charged £10 per month extra on their broadband bill for higher quality streaming." The article suggests (perhaps optimistically) that "after years of selling consumers pipes, not what they carry, [tiered, site-specific pricing] would be tough to pull off."

Comments

Credit card numbers

[neapolitan]

I sincerely hope you were joking:

All VISA cards start with 4.

All Mastercards start with 51, 52, 53, 54, or 55.

Don't believe me? Take a look in your wallet. :)

Thus, iCONICA, if you just shared the last 12 digits of your Mastercard, you now have cut down the search space of your password to 500 numbers. Moreover, credit card digits have to conform to a checksum (double every other digit + add them all up, must be 0 mod 10.) Thus, I'd estimate we could guess your card within 10 unique numbers, around 100 if VISA. There are ways of getting around the "security digits" and expiration date...

Short story is, don't share your credit card number. Even as a joke.