Coca-Cola Reserves a Massive Range of MAC Addresses

An anonymous reader writes "GNU MacChanger's developer has found by chance that The Coca-Cola company got a range of MAC addresses allocated at the OUI, the IEEE Registration Authority in charge of managing the MAC addresses spectrum. What would Coca-Cola want around 16 million MAC addresses reserved? What are they planning to use them for? Could this part of a strategy around the Internet-of-things concept?"

Comments

Not cans

[Shatrat]

Vertically integrated vending machines?

Re:Not cans

[gstoddart]

Or, security/privacy problems waiting to as the vending machines are integrated with a ridiculous amount of things (and with zero consideration for security).

Think social media campaigns and other things which want you to "check-in" with your phone at the soda machine.

And I'm sure the ones I'm seeing with credit-card readers are all super secure too.

Re:Not cans

[rogueippacket]

This, and most likely on numerous private cellular APN's from different carriers.
And for God's sake, stop using that stupid Internet-of-things buzzword.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

The first thing I thought of was these things I've seen cropping up the past few years: http://www.coca-colafreestyle.com/

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably yeah.

16 million is far too few to be cans, but would probably about right for internet connected vending machines.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Then put your dollar bills into the machine and never worry. Banks pay for credit card breaches, not consumers. You may argue that we do so indirectly with higher fees, but not really. Fraud is a few billion dollars, but the fees they collect cover that without hassle. And since the swipe fees are money they collect at no actual cost--there's no product to produce, no actual expenses per transaction (merely a distribution of the fixed costs of maintaining the network)--they just don't worry about fraud. When you make money from air, losses aren't terribly bad.

I've had my credit card number stolen a couple times. As long as the thieves only get your number and not your actual identity (and the card info is all they will get from breach at a POS), it's merely inconvenient. The biggest hassles are setting up all the automatic payments again and learning a new number. I have a couple cards and if I'm somewhere I worry about the system's integrity, I use the card that doesn't have any autopayments associated with it. Then if it does get stolen, there's absolutely no hassle outside of a two phone calls to the issuer: one to report it, and one to activate the new card.

The bank doesn't care about losses, so I'm not terribly worried about it either. Of course, users of debit cards have a LOT more hassle, but that is their choice to use that financial product. If they learn to trust themselves use credit cards responsibly and pay off the bill each month, then they can enjoy these same benefits.

Re:Not cans

[asliarun]

On a slightly related note, there is a very nice Microsoft Research paper on password theft and bank fraud, and who actually gets affected.
I will admit that most of what I actually thought of this subject was quite wrong.

Linkage: http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/161829/EverythingWeKnow.pdf

Re:Not cans

[nobuddy]

Prepaid credit cards are great for such things. main debit card is in the pocket, prepaid/gift Visa is loaded with a small amount for things like this. Pre-loaded ahead of time for large purchases.

AmEx had(has?) a system where you could be issued a single use card number for a specific transation. That was handy until I ditched my AmEx a few years ago.

Re:Not cans

[CohibaVancouver]

Then put your dollar bills into the machine and never worry.

[rant]

For Christ's sake USA, get rid of the dollar bill already. There's nothing more freaking frustrating that trying to feed *paper* money into a vending machine - Especially crumbled torn and dirty American singles. I don't know what on earth you print your nearly-monochrome money onto but man it sure doesn't survive well... Get some $1 and $2 coins into circulation and make your smallest paper bill a five.

[/rant]

Re:Not cans

[Bengie]

Where do you put $1 coins when at the strip club?

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

We actually did make a lot of dollar coins. People aren't using them, though; nearly half of them apparently wound up back with the Fed. It's kind of aggravating.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

In the coin slut?

Re:Not cans

[mrbluejello]

Make it hail!

Re:Not cans

[ZombieBraintrust]

They tried. They minted a bunch of $1 coins and no one wants them. There is about 1 to 2 billion dollars worth of unused dollar coins at the federal reserve.

Re:Not cans

[SJHillman]

I haven't had a problem with paper bills in modern vending machines. Maybe you're just bad at figuring at which way is up?

As for coins, they're a pain in the ass to carry around more than two or three. We've had dollar coins for many years, and there's a reason they never caught on. I'd much rather skip the vending machine and not carry any singles than have to carry around coins.

Re:Not cans

[dunezone]

The United States has tried to replace the $1 bill on several occasions. The problem is that replacing the dollar doesn't solve any problem to the individual. Its not like people grab a bunch of dollar bills from their pockets and say, "Oh geez, I wish these were coins!".

Re:Not cans

[CTU]

But I can't keep dollar coins in my wallet and hate loose coins in my pocket

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do you put $1 coins when at the strip club?

In the slot?

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

The strip clubs where the performers accept $1 denominations are on my list of places that I'd probably rather not set foot in.

Re:Not cans

[sl4shd0rk]

Get some $1 and $2 coins into circulation

You must jingle a lot when you pull your pants up.

Re:Not cans

[Tokolosh]

Actually, they will be replaced by bitcoins.

Re:Not cans

[Rob Bos]

Never been to a strip club, but I did a quick google search and found a couple of threads on the subject.

Two answers stood out - 1, some clubs issue coupons that you can use in place of money; the strippers just redeem them at the end of the shift. 2, use $5s, you goddamn cheapskate. :)

Re:Not cans

[Rob Bos]

They need to pull the $1 bills from circulation. It's not enough just to circulate $1 coins.

Re:Not cans

[couchslug]

"Where do you put $1 coins when at the strip club?"

In the Phillipines during the Cold War (I can't vouch for later) there were various establishments where the entertainers would lower themselves onto a beer bottle and engulf coins set upon the top.

Alas I only saw photos belonging to other Airmen as Mount Pinatubo rudely erupted ensuring I could not visit on TDY.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of giving them 15 $1 bills, you give them 3 $5 bills. It's not that hard to calculate, really.

Re:Not cans

[Rob Bos]

I have $30 in coins in my pocket right now, you get used to it really fast. I visit the US occasionally (much less than I used to; do something about your border guards, they're really getting to be assholes) and your currency is ridiculously annoying to deal with. Monochromatic, and the $1 bills are a pain to constantly shuffle through. And what the fuck is up with pennies?

Re:Not cans

[phantomfive]

Bills are great because then I only need one money-handling strategy (I give the smaller coins to homeless people). If they have dollar coins, I'll need to deal with paper and coins. That's annoying.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

The coin slot.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

They tried. They minted a bunch of $1 coins and no one wants them. There is about 1 to 2 billion dollars worth of unused dollar coins at the federal reserve.

And yet, in canada, we're up to $2 coins... and some countries (iceland) are mostly electronic with their currency.
 
Americans have strange ideas about physical money - it's not better or worse than electronic. Just different.

Re:Not cans

[Rob Bos]

Not really. I have in my pocket 10 toonies, 5 loonies, some quarters, and that's quite a lot of change for me. Eliminating pennies reduced change quite a bit, too. I like it a lot more than having a sheaf of $1s; the coins are much easier to sort through than the bills, and they last much longer.

Canada also has polymer currency now, which has been a bit more controversial than the coins, but it's settling down as people get used to it.

Re:Not cans

[Rob Bos]

When I visit the States, I definitely wish they were coins. Your currency is ridiculously annoying.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Businesses pay for credit card breaches. It's newegg's responsibility to vett the card that was provided to them, as was your waitress's responsibility to check your ID to make sure you were the card holder.

Banks lose nothing when criminals use stolen cards or stolen credit card numbers.

Re:Not cans

[Bugler412]

Yeah they made a bunch of dollar coins that were so similar in shape and size to the existing quarters that everyone hated them, difficult to identify by touch alone like in your pocket. The shape and size done largely at the behest of the vending machine business so they wouldn't have to re-engineer everything to accept a different sized coin. A dollar coin done right, not like this, would likely succeed. But they poisoned the water with their last two attempts in the pas thirty years at doing it.

Re:Not cans

[Penguinisto]

Banks pay for credit card breaches, not consumers

Like any other business, you, the consumer, eventually do pay for them - in higher (and newer, more devious) fees, lower savings/CD interest rates, and higher loan interest rates.

Don't fool yourself into thinking that you;re getting a free ride.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps they're going to sell VIMto?

Re:Not cans

[nurb432]

Paper money stores far better than coin. I can easily put 500$ in bills in my wallet. Lets see you do that with coin?

If you remove the 1$ bill, then you will automatically cause prices to rise.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do you put $1 coins when at the strip club?

They call it a "coin slot" for a reason...

Re:Not cans

[umafuckit]

Bills are printed on a mix of cotton and linen. The stuff is actually pretty resilient, the problem is that the average bill circulates for 5 years or so. If they were pulled from circulation and recycled earlier then our bill stock would be in better condition. In the UK, the 5 pound note is only kept in circulation for an average of 2 years. As a result they're generally in better condition than $1 and $5 US bills.

Re:Not cans

[Bob the Super Hamste]

I have several buddies who were or are still in the military who have confirmed that the practice still exists.

Re:Not cans

[sandertje]

In many places in the world a debit card is the only viable card option available for a sizeable fraction of the population. I know US citizens get credit cards super easy, but most of Europe's bank only give credit cards to middle income and higher income people. That, therefore, excludes most students and teens. The bank will only give them a debit card without a sizeable stable income. Credit card acceptance itself is generally quite low anyway. Ever tried to buy a Dutch train ticket with a credit card? Not possible. Cash is neither. Only debit cards are accepted.
That said, nowhere on the continent have I seen vending machines where one has to pay with a debit card directly. Rather, it's usually some kind of electronic wallet system (ChipKnip in the Netherlands, GeldKarte in Germany) that's used for vending machines. As these usually contain less than €50, there's not much to worry about when something goes wrong. Besides that, systems that no longer use the magnetic bar, but use the on-card chip instead (as is now mandatory in the Netherlands), are much harder to break.

Re:Not cans

[dwillden]

Our cash hasn't been monochromatic for a few years now. It may not look like Monopoly money like much of the world likes but every denomination has a specific color tint.

Coins for small denominations are annoying as hell. I'd rather replace the larger bills that we carry less commonly with coins than the $1 bill. You have $30 in coins in your pocket? I have $85 in cash in my pocket and it weighs far less than your $30, It won't scratch the screen on my smart phone should I absentmindedly shove a few dollars into the pocket I carry it in.

No arguments on the penny. It's time is done and it needs to be retired. We have and have had $1 coins for decades. We simply don't like them. The first ones were way to big, then they made them too similar in size to the quarter, now they're still about the size of a quarter but plated in gold colored metal (that contains no actual gold.) More likely is that we are simply going to retain the money that we have, and just gradually diminish the use of any form of cash. Going to using cards or e-wallets. Many vending machines have had credit card and isis/gwallet NFC readers added to them, eliminating even that need for cash or coins.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

They minted a bunch of $1 coins and no one wants them.

Because Americans are a bit daft, and refuse to believe a $1 coin exists. It's really not worth the trouble to go through the trouble of explaining that - why yes, such things do exist, and are in fact legal tender - nearly every time you try to use one.

Re:Not cans

[Pascoea]

No one wants them? I'd happily take those 1-2 billion coins off their hands, with an agreement that I slowly put them in to circulation.

Re:Not cans

[operagost]

Do you normally walk around with a dozen big, heavy coins in your pocket?

Re:Not cans

[fnj]

I realize utterly brainless is a necessary qualification for serving in government, but it passes belief how stupid the guys in charge of currency are. Make a HELL OF A LOT more than a few billion dollar coins and simultaneously STOP MAKING NEW GODDAM DOLLAR BILLS. The old bills will rapidly turn to garbage and fade out of circulation. If some bird brains want to horde a few, fine; they won't evaporate in storage; but soon it will be good luck finding a vending machine that will take them, or a clerk dumb enough to accept the nasty, smelly, germ laden suckers.

This is not rocket science.

Re:Not cans

[davester666]

Must not change anything unless you have the perfect solution that everybody wants. It's the American Way!

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I was in Iceland, a couple of months ago, I saw more cash being used than cards. Didn't look like it was all tourists, particularly at Kringlan.

Re:Not cans

[fnj]

I can easily put 500$ in bills in my wallet

Sigh. In ones and twos? I thought not. Complete red herring.

Re:Not cans

[operagost]

So you're OK with big, heavy coins, but not tiny little pennies?

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

The dancers usually use an empty beer pitcher for various games. She holds it somewhere (usually between the legs, facing forward or back), and you lob coins in. Once, I saw a dancer give away a "free" private dance (read: lap dance) by placing her pitcher in the middle of the stage and telling everyone that when the song ended, the last coin in would win. It then began torain money.

Alternatively, a little bit of moisture on a coin (she licks it) and a little bit of moisture on a cheek (or breast, stomach, etc) is practically a substitute for superglue - trying to knock that coin off a gyrating ass by throwing your own coins at it is extremely difficult (which is why the girls like it). Some of them will stick multiple coins to themselves, or use combinations of coins and pitchers for multiple targets.

Another popular game is to roll up a poster into a funnel (usually held between the legs) and use that as a target - get one in and you win the poster! If you're "lucky", one corner will even be wrinkled from moisture and have a funny smell. (Guys seem to like that)

Note that most girls don't actually like having coins thrown directly at their vaginas because it hurts (also, money is dirty as hell and infections are no fun), and there's always the risk of some asshole heating a coin up with a lighter before throwing it and burning the girl (this is a good way to have the staff help you remove loose teeth, or in the event that you really didn't want the use of your limbs for several months)

So don't worry - as long as women will expose themselves to men for money, the whole "how do I pay them?" issue will solve itself through necessity.

Signed,
- A Slashdotter who's actually been to many many strip clubs and was friends with a dancer (really).

Re:Not cans

[dryeo]

You can put 500 ones in your wallet? If I have 5 bills in my wallet, I have between $25 and $500 in there. If you have 5 bills in there you might only have $5. Same with coins, 5 coins=25 cents to $10 while you might only have a nickel.
Why the fuck would having $1 coins cause prices to rise?

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

I want them! They stopped the program of sending them out with free shipping since too many idiots abused it, and the bank tellers think you're crazy if you try to ask for them. I used to get them as change back out of the postal stamp vending machine, but I just don't buy that many stamps any more. Watch this

Re:Not cans

[Amtrak]

I'd take this assuming there were not stipulations on what is mean by "Slowly". :D Daddy needs a new Ferrari.

Re:Not cans

[NatasRevol]

Every time I travel.

ATM only gives out $20. Some ticket/food/item only costs $2-3, I get 17 $1 coins jingling around in my pocket.

You get rather paranoid if you're out walking around.

Re:Not cans

[NatasRevol]

Because nobody in America wants 20 largish coins in their pants/wallet/purse.

They're heavier than paper, larger than paper, noisier than paper.

WHY would you want coins?

Re:Not cans

[Aranykai]

Some people might be able to. http://i1-news.softpedia-static.com/images/news2/George-Costanza-s-Notorious-Wallet-Advertises-Google-Wallet-Video-2.jpg

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

As an American, I enjoy very much so only having a few coins to sift through instead of enough to make my pockets wrestle with my belt.

Re:Not cans

[mikael]

I've seen one or two vending machines that accepts payment in the form of a SMS message - the cost of sending the message pays for the drink. A few seconds later, the machine acknowledges the message, and you get to make your choice. Though there is only one number to call and each machine has a unique letter code.

Re:Not cans

[akinliat]

The strip clubs where the performers accept $1 denominations are on my list of places that I'd probably rather not set foot in.

Well, that's your problem right there. You don't go to put your foot in.

(Sorry ... couldn't resist)

Re:Not cans

[stdarg]

Whatever lobby group is against dollar coins should make a video of someone walking around with $30 of coins in their pockets.

Re:Not cans

[mikael]

They were those Susan B Anthony dollars. The problem was that so many things like newspapers were sold using mechanical spring type vending machines that only accepted quarters, nickels and dimes, and not one dollar coins. Not even laundrette washing machines or electronic vending machines accepted them. So you could get rid of the spare change by buying a newspaper or a snack but not those coins. Not even supermarkets would want to exchange them. They needed the quarters to give customers change.

Re:Not cans

[ewibble]

Although the article covers clearing an account, this is obvious and would be detected by the customer immediately, it would result in the bank investigating and the password being changed. There is actually no need clear anybody's account. If it was me I would set a program that examines the customers past transactions and transfers a relatively small amount of money each month. This would likely not even be noticed by the customer I wouldn't. It may look like a normal bank transaction on the other end too. Maybe having an account with thousands of different payments going in may raise flags, but I am sure lots of business have that happen. Since you need thousands of victims someone is likely to spot it, but would the bank investigate every transaction into that account, or simply ignore them until each customer complains? It is not their problem until then.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

I use them at renaissance fairs. Makes me feel like I'm paying with gold.

Re:Not cans

[CohibaVancouver]

Some ticket/food/item only costs $2-3, I get 17 $1 coins jingling around in my pocket.

This seems unlikely. No vendor would give away all their change like that. They'd give you a ten, a five, then coins.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Whiner. Smooth the bill out on the corner of the machine and you'll be fine.

That not working? Keep the note in better condition. Like, you know, a wallet? Don't crumple it up? .....goddamn moron.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple, make a $100 coin the size of a dime?

Re:Not cans

[csnydermvpsoft]

Because nobody in America wants 20 largish coins in their pants/wallet/purse.

Then carry a single twenty, two tens, or four fives. You should never have more than four singles at a time - if you do, it means that you neglected an opportunity to get closer to exact change.

I don't want 20 paper bills in my wallet either - it would barely fold.

Re:Not cans

[csnydermvpsoft]

Never going to happen. Do you really think that average people will be able to manage their own bitcoin wallets with adequate levels of security and reliability?

A bank-managed payment system (i.e. debit/credit cards) will be the ultimate winner.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually both Visa and Mastercard have rules against checking ID. A lot of places still do it and get away with it because few people know their rights, but it's definitely against the rules.

If you get your ID checked, call up Visa or Mastercard and lodge a complaint against the merchant.

Re:Not cans

[gbjbaanb]

yes I do, but then we have £1 and £2 coins as well as the usual shrapnel.

I've never found it to be a problem unless I have accumulated so many I need to change them for a couple of notes. Some people even carry around little magazines that you can slot the coins into (in a stack formation), something like that is no more hassle than the USB pendrive I have on my keyring.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

For Christ's sake Canada, get rid of cash already. Sure it exists in Finland as well, but I go literally months without carrying any. And I don't possess a credit card, either. And nobody in this part of the world has seen a personal check for, like, 40 years.

Re:Not cans

[gbjbaanb]

as always in good old America, lobbying stopped the production of the dollar bills in 2011. God knows why, but American vested interests seem to have a habit of promoting the most gormless values.

No more will be made even though, as every other country knows, replacing dollar bills with dollar coins would save the government a load of money (between $5.5 billion and $58 billion over the next 30 years - it depends who you talk to and what their position is on the idea of changing to coins) as coins are much cheaper to produce than paper money.

Apparently the cost of making a dollar coin is 8 cents, compared to a bill which costs 4 cents. However, the coin lasts 30 years v the paper which typically lasts 18 months.

Re:Not cans

[rvw]

Do you normally walk around with a dozen big, heavy coins in your pocket?

We have the Euro here, and we have 1 euro coins. No problem. Why would I want to have 12 of those things in my pocket? I don't, and that's why we have 2 euro coins as well! ;-)

Re:Not cans

[icebike]

Then put your dollar bills into the machine and never worry.

[rant]

For Christ's sake USA, get rid of the dollar bill already. There's nothing more freaking frustrating that trying to feed *paper* money into a vending machine - Especially crumbled torn and dirty American singles. I don't know what on earth you print your nearly-monochrome money onto but man it sure doesn't survive well... Get some $1 and $2 coins into circulation and make your smallest paper bill a five.
  [/rant]

Nobody wants dollar coins. Its been tried and died a dozen times in the US.

Seems even Canadians, once fooled, are twice shy about converting paper to coins:

In 2005, the Canadian government polled its citizens on the idea of retiring the five-dollar note, replacing it with a five-dollar coin. The money saved in making the coin would then fund the Canadian Olympic team. Canadians resoundingly rejected and ridiculed the idea of a five-dollar coin.

Paper folds. Its in a wallet without jingling and bulging.

And vending machines are very good at accepting even the filthiest of bills, because the vending companies have learned that accepting anything close is better than getting people in the habit of avoiding the machine. Especially when selling a product that costs less than the bottle it is sold in.

Re:Not cans

[KingOfBLASH]

In europe, you stick 2 EUR coins on the girls boobs :)

Re: Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow you have never been to a Canadian strip club I guess? Not only do they actually strip naked, but they have invented a whole new class of games for giving loonies/twonies to the ladies in... creative ways ;-)

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

I built websites for a porn company in the late 90s as a wide-eyed 18-year-old (one of the authentic amateur ones, with girls recruited from local strip clubs, Hooters, etc. and all content produced in-house). At one of the first decent-sized parties I attended, all of us regular employees were given a stack of "coupons" that looked like oversized American money with the boss's face printed in the middle, and these were to be given to the hired performers in exchange for lap dances or, ahem, anything else that came to mind. At the end of the night, the performers were supposed to take all the coupons to the boss and he would pay them out.

It turns out, this is why we can't have nice things - a couple of the regular employees worked out deals where they would just give the coupons to the performers in exchange for a portion of the real money, defeating the purpose of the whole charade. Oh well.

Re:Not cans

[MachineShedFred]

I had a coworker that got a roll of dollar coins every pay period, and used them for tips at lunch. Or, as a sap if he got in a fist fight.

Re:Not cans

[jhumkey]

(I've heard of it happening to others, but never thought it could happen to me . . .
It finally happened . . . I see something worth moderating up, but I have no points . . .)

"I have a couple cards and if I'm somewhere I worry about the system's integrity, I use the card that doesn't have any autopayments associated with it. Then if it does get stolen, there's absolutely no hassle outside of a two phone calls to the issuer: one to report it, and one to activate the new card."

You have no idea how simple, powerful, and non-obvious that statement was . . . and yet I've never seen it suggested before.

Tomorrow I will be busy rearranging my financial life.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Each dollar bill has a unique serial number that can be recorded when you are given the bill, and when you give it to someone else, especially a corporation.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do you put $1 coins when at the strip club?

In the slot. Where else?

Re:Not cans

[Dogtanian]

Banks pay for credit card breaches, not consumers

Like any other business, you, the consumer, eventually do pay for them - in higher (and newer, more devious) fees, lower savings/CD interest rates, and higher loan interest rates.

Don't fool yourself into thinking that you;re getting a free ride.

And don't believe that old fallacy that it's the banks that pick up the tab either- as pointed out here, it's the retailer that almost always has to pick up the tab in such cases.

The banks simply yank back any fraudulent transactions and leave the business out of pocket- not them. This is why banks- in the UK at least- do not give a fuck about individual instances of credit card theft and fraud. They're not the ones having to pay for it.

If you're a retailer who knows with near-certainty that a credit card has been stolen and is being used fraudulently, it's virtually impossible to get the information passed on to the legitimate owner of the card. Generally speaking, nothing will be done at this stage, and nothing will happen until the legitimate owner notices fraudulent transactions on their statement, and contacts the credit card company.

Of course, that is usually *long* after the attempted fraud has taken place, along with later (possibly successful) attempts that could have been stopped, but weren't. The fraudsters are long gone, and it's the businesses that are left out of pocket.

The banks will bleat that there are too many cases of credit card theft and fraud to keep track of all these reports, even if the information is handed to them on a plate. Of course, you can bet that they'd manage to do so very quickly (by employing more dedicated staff) if they were having to foot the bill for the fraud themselves- but of course, they're not.

It's also worth noting that (again, in the UK), it's *very* difficult to get the police to do anything about even bleeding obvious cases of mail order credit card fraud, i.e. ones where the fraudulent delivery address has to be openly given. Even when details including the exact address- typically in London- are passed on to the police, nothing well be done. Same excuse, and same outcome- by the time anything happens, the fraudsters are long gone and not worth chasing up. Makes it quite easy to commit fraud; simply rent an address for a relatively short period, have the goods openly and directly delivered there safe in the knowledge that, even though the police will likely be notified, they'll be long gone before anything is done.

The customers mostly still believe- as shown here- that the banks cover the cost, so probably aren't upset as (if they think about it at all) they believe that the banks are having to foot the bill for their own incompetence. Not the case.

Personally, I'm in favour of publicising cases like this one and pointing out that the banks' nonchalance regarding people's credit cards (and by extension, personal details and- to some extent- identity theft) could have serious repercussions for them beyond the money that customers will have refunded. And pointing out that- regardless of their hypocritical (and often nickel-and-diming) identity protection schemes, it's the banks- with their self-serving laziness and disregard for credit card misuse- who are to blame for putting them at risk like this.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't live in the US. Are you saying there's no american bills between $20, and $1? Most other countries would make change by one $10 bill, one $5 bill, and three $1 coins.

Re: Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't go to Canada

Re:Not cans

[SpectreBlofeld]

I went on a vacation to the UK a few months ago. After two weeks I was real tired of always having a pound of coins (pound as in weight, not pounds sterling) sloshing around loudly in my left pocket.

Coins everywhere. There's a one pound coin, a two pound coin, a fifty pence, a twenty pence, a ten pence, a five pence, a two pence, and a penny. Whenever I'd buy anything I'd thrust my hand into my pocket and pull out a massive fistful of coins, and it was a pain in the ass to try to sort out the best combination among the 8 coins available to hit the total (I'd always try to get rid of as many coins as possible in one transaction).

I'd MUCH rather stick with our (US) paper and 4 coins.

Re:Not cans

[CohibaVancouver]

Paper money stores far better than coin. I can easily put 500$ in bills in my wallet.

Jesus. How big is your wallet? You can put $500 worth of ones and twos in there?

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

If your bills are crumbled, you're clenching them too hard.

Take a Valium and ease back on the amphetamines.

Re:Not cans

[GumphMaster]

The problem is that replacing the dollar doesn't solve any problem to the individual.

I am not aware of any other country replacing its smaller notes with coins for the good of individuals, their central banks/mints did it simply because the cost of keeping high turnover paper money in circulation (by replacing damaged notes) was far higher than maintaining the same volume in coins (usable life measured in decades). Other places typically have a note/coin $2 equivalent that helps reduce the number of coins in a pocket, while the US eschews its own $2 note. Inflation and production costs also doomed the 1 and 2 cent coin equivalents in many places. As an aside, polymer notes, used in some places, last about four times as long as their paper cousins.

BTW: Why is that United States continues to think of it self at 300+ million individuals flying in close formation while the rest of the world lives in societies?

Re:Not cans

[kaatochacha]

What is gormless? Seriously, I have no idea.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Understanding your constituents is not rocket science either, Cashhopper. The fact that the dollar coins are sitting in storage is a good indication that the general public doesn't want to use them. Every time I get a dollar coin at the post office, the next thing I buy is paid for with the dollar coin so I don't have to haul it around. But their similarity in size to a quarter, low acceptance in vending machines, and lack of familiarity (see 2-dollar bill) make them a difficult sell at this time. Canadians seem to have adapted well, but we're not Canadians, for good or bad. And I think the dollar coin is a good idea in general.

So rant all you like, but for most people you can take their dollar bills when you pry them from their cold, dead hands.

Besides, if you think I'm putting 5 dollar bills in birthday cards to my nieces and nephews, you're crazy.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, if it cost $3, you'd end up with 3x $5 notes and 1x $2 coin if the currency system was half decent.

Re:Not cans

[Em Adespoton]

The United States has tried to replace the $1 bill on several occasions. The problem is that replacing the dollar doesn't solve any problem to the individual. Its not like people grab a bunch of dollar bills from their pockets and say, "Oh geez, I wish these were coins!".

Canada replaced the bill a long time ago, and then the $2 bill. The process went like this: banks had a window of time to submit their bills to the Mint in exchange for coins. I believe after this point, they were charged a processing fee for returning bills. As such, it was in their best interest to exchange all their bills during the free window, because bills wear out, and banks don't want to be caught holding the bag.

End result? Sure, I've still got the odd $1 and $2 bill hanging around, but anything you get from a bank or out of a till will be a coin.

If the US tried to do this, the same thing would happen. In reality, the US tried to complement the $1 bill with a coin, and let people choose. People chose to hang on to what they were familiar with.

Re:Not cans

[Em Adespoton]

This makes me wonder -- if a bill costs 4 cents and a coin costs 8 cents, why not start making polymer COINS? Sure, people wouldn't like them at first, but they could get the cost down to about 1/4 cent per coin likely, and the things would still last 20 years or so. For people arguing that you could burn them etc... there's nothing that could destroy a polymer coin that couldn't do much worse to a cloth bill.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Prototypes of connected vending machines and other interactive self-help shopping, data collecting experiences have been shown at the usual trade fairs recent times. The Coca Cola page about such things: http://www.cokesolutions.com/Vending/Pages/Site%20Pages/DetailedPage.aspx?ArticleURL=/Vending/Pages/Articles/Vending%20News/DigitalTechnologyDrivesVendingInnovation.aspx&smallImage=yes&L2=Vending%20News

Re:Not cans

[Em Adespoton]

They were those Susan B Anthony dollars. The problem was that so many things like newspapers were sold using mechanical spring type vending machines that only accepted quarters, nickels and dimes, and not one dollar coins. Not even laundrette washing machines or electronic vending machines accepted them. So you could get rid of the spare change by buying a newspaper or a snack but not those coins. Not even supermarkets would want to exchange them. They needed the quarters to give customers change.

They were those Susan B Anthony dollars. The problem was that so many things like newspapers were sold using mechanical spring type vending machines that only accepted quarters, nickels and dimes, and not one dollar coins. Not even laundrette washing machines or electronic vending machines accepted them. So you could get rid of the spare change by buying a newspaper or a snack but not those coins. Not even supermarkets would want to exchange them. They needed the quarters to give customers change.

This is a false argument -- those same vending machines are sold in Canada with different software to recognize the $1 and $2 coins. I've personally played with the coin acceptors used in USA Today boxes, and they have no problem with accepting slightly larger and different coins -- and they haven't had a problem for years. There are only a few companies out there manufacturing coin acceptors, and they all widened the slot to handle larger coins years ago, and have easily reprogrammable embedded software to recognize the coin formats.

Laundry machines have for the most part skipped over this hurdle completely, going from the push acceptors to card-based payment. Vending machines have accepted larger coins for almost as many years as newspaper boxes. Supermarkets would not have a choice; they give the bank bills, they get coins back (the banks having incentive to return the bills to the FED).

But yes; the argument with the Susan B Anthony dollars as trotted out by the pundits was exactly as you said.

Re:Not cans

[sce7mjm]

>> Banks pay for credit card breaches, not consumers.

Not true, you know that thing called interest you pay on your credit card balance, this covers the losses.
So yes, if your bank/credit card gets ripped off, the users pay.
It's just like insurance.

Just cos a government protects the consumers individually with a statute or two, it does not mean that we do not pay for it in a distributive sense.

A problem shared is a problem.....still.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Because nobody in America wants 20 largish coins in their pants/wallet/purse.

Then carry a single twenty, two tens, or four fives. You should never have more than four singles at a time - if you do, it means that you neglected an opportunity to get closer to exact change.

I don't want 20 paper bills in my wallet either - it would barely fold.

And here you hit the nail on the head... in most countries, people can make proper change in their head, so nobody's carrying around large amounts of anything. Middle Schools in the US need to improve their unit on making correct change, so that all the minimum wage employees can do it correctly ;)

Re:Not cans

[stud9920]

The biggest hassles are [...] and learning a new number.

Which is why they print it on a card...

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Vending machines are your argument? Seriously? I'd rather carry twenty paper $1 bills and have the occasional issue with a feed slot than have a jingling, heavy pocket full of dollar coins.

Re: Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Pennies have been deprecated in Canada for a while now. We use Swedish rounding so there is no need for tiny, essentially valueless coins to be in circulation. Electronic transactions are still exact.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time I travel.

ATM only gives out $20. Some ticket/food/item only costs $2-3, I get 17 $1 coins jingling around in my pocket.

You get rather paranoid if you're out walking around.

I find it difficult to believe that any establishment would give you 17 coins in change, and not a ten, a five, and two coins.

Re:Not cans

[kumanopuusan]

It's shocking that you entered that industry and ended up working with disreputable and dishonest people!

Re:Not cans

[dfsmith]

The mint also charged more to ship them to the banks. Did they not forsee a problem with this?

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

1, some clubs issue coupons that you can use in place of money; the strippers just redeem them at the end of the shift.

A fiat currency??? We don't support those things around here!

(No, seriously, that's usually a way that the clubs hold economic power just because they can... they take a cut of the money coming in and going out.)

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

They did the first part... the second part... you know how it's great that we can vote people out and how the people have the final say?

Re:Not cans

[gbjbaanb]

there's this thing called the internet, it has more than porn and slashdot on it :-)

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/gormless

gormÂless (gÃrmls)
adj. Chiefly British
Lacking intelligence and vitality; dull.
[From dialectal gawm, sense, from Middle English gome, notice, from Old Norse gaumr.]

Re:Not cans

[Idarubicin]

They tried.

Well, not in any meaningful sense of the word 'tried'.

They minted a bunch of $1 coins and no one wants them.

How do coins and small denomination banknotes enter circulation? Hint--it's generally not through random members of the public wandering into their local bank and saying "Please, good sir, I'd like to withdraw fifty ones and a half dozen rolls of dimes!" It's predominantly through businesses which carry out cash transactions. Individual members of the public get twenties from the ATM, and exchange them for goods and services...and smaller denomination notes and coins at retailers.

So the form of currency in circulation isn't actually determined by what "everyone" wants; it's down to what retail businesses want, in their short- to mid-term planning horizon. Now, if you gave those businesses a firm choice of "Keep the current paper banknotes" versus "Switch to dollar coins", a lot of them would probably be on board. Their handling costs are a little bit lower for coins than for notes (coins are slightly faster, easier, and cheaper to count, in addition to being more durable) and coins are generally more resistant to counterfeiting (not a big issue for dollar notes, but still).

The problem is, the choice that America was offered wasn't quite that choice. It was "Keep the current paper banknotes" versus "Keep the current paper banknotes, and add a second form factor for the same denomination, forever and ever, because we're going to keep minting paper notes too". Even then, there was some adoption from organizations and businesses that did a high volume of low-cost and automated transactions where the reduced handling costs would still make a difference: vending machines, laundromats, parking facilities, public transit systems, etc.

The biggest beneficiary of a switch - the entire U.S. population, through reduced minting costs generated by not replacing worn-out dollar notes every few months - didn't get to directly make the choice; it was made for them by retailers who didn't want to deal with a temporary inconvenience.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

I would highly suggest listening to the 99% Invisible episode "The Colour of Money" ( http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-54-the-colour-of-money/ )

There's actually a reason why US currency hasn't changed significantly in a very long time. US currency is fiat, and since the USA has been a superpower for quite a while the currency has become recognized all around the world (Ecuador even uses physical US dollars as its national currency). If the design of US currency suddenly changes the USA will face the potential shattering of the illusion of the "almighty dollar".

I'll grant that it's a weak argument, but since the potential harm is great and the potential gains are probably small it's convincing.

Check out Australia's currency; it's awesome. Australia's currency is so good that several nations outsource the manufacturing of their currency to Australia*.

*I imagine this makes negotiations between the nations a bit, hmmmm, different. Someone could *really* mess with your economy if they can literally print more of your money.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, we rejected the $5 coin - but I don't know anyone that is particularly unhappy with the loonie and toonies.

By your logic, the USA should have paper quarters, dimes and nickels.

Re:Not cans

[icebike]

Except that nobody wants paper quarters.

People end up getting the paper currency they want. There are a few trial-balloon types of coin/paper currencies they don't want, and a few novelty paper currencies like $2 bills just because.

But lots of people seek to avoid unpopular denominations in coin or paper simply because the inconvenience factor. We have dollar coins, and $2 bills, but nobody likes them, cashiers in stores give you grief (no slot in the till for them). So they end up as novelties.

Re:Not cans

[ApplePy]

When I visit the States, I definitely wish they were coins.

You are welcome to holiday in any of the other 200+ countries.

Meanwhile, the very dumbest of the bottom of the barrel of humanity here (inner-city youths, illegal immigrants, etc) manages to visually separate Benjamins from singles, and they can't even post on Slashdot. Pretty much everyone knows that 100 > 50 > 20 > 10, etc.; those being the numbers that are clearly marked multiple times on every bill.

So... WTF is your malfunction?

And, just for good measure --

Your currency is ridiculously annoying.

Your beer sucks.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Vending machines don't give bills as change.

Re:Not cans

[Iceykitsune]

mechanical spring type vending machines

Re:Not cans

[radarskiy]

"Nobody wants dollar coins."

El Salvador uses the US dollar as its currency, and they have no problems with dollar coins.

Re: Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if the vending industry did not insist on a quarter sized dollar we may have.
The 1 and 2 dollar euro coins are a nicer size.

Re:Not cans

[Rob Bos]

Canada has paper, and 5 coins. Toonie, loonie, quarter, dime, nickel. And they have much higher value. If anything, I have fewer coins at home then when I'm in the States, because they're so much higher value and easier to spend. When I'm in the US, I end up with a pocketful of bloody nickels and pennies that I have to count out to bloody spend, so I just end up throwing them in a jar instead of using them. :P

Re:Not cans

[Karem Lore]

Maybe different now, but when I went to University in the UK, the banks were falling over themselves trying to give me a 1000GBP credit card...They would even pay me 250GBP or a free Apple iPod just to open a line of credit. And I had only just moved back to my home country from 6 years in Europe...

While a number of German, French and US persons/companies were responsible for the on-card chip, the first mass use was as a telephone card in France for pay-phones. And now are everywhere, including many mobile/smart phones.

Oh, and they do identify you to whatever you push them into...whether it be a vending machine or your local grocery store. You think tracking phones is bad...

Re:Not cans

[thePowersGang]

The largest argument for coins against bills, is that even though the're about twice as expensive to produce, they last nearly ten times as long (for context, I have in my pocket a AU$2 coin from 1988 (change from my lunch), I'd like to see a US bill last that long.

Re:Not cans

[EngnrFrmrlyKnownAsAC]

Nobody wants dollar coins.

I do.

And vending machines are very good at accepting even the filthiest of bills

Pfft. Every vending machine I've ran across rudely refused to accept any bill with the slightest tear, wrinkle or folded corner. As a whole, vending machines certainly don't deserve a "very good" rating.

And frankly, if you're so chincy as to get twisted over carrying dollars in your pocket versus wallet versus just losing them in the sofa, then you should really appreciate how much money (your tax money) could be saved by the switch.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

To me it boils down to having a pocket full of change and realizing i'm rich versus whipping out a fat wallet and realizing i have 15 singles.

Downside, jingly pants.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

The only place you can - right down the front. Been there, done that, almost thirty years ago. You do have to deliver it carefully, but none of the girls ever minded. And I got to touch them in ways guys with bills never could!

Re:Not cans

[DarwinSurvivor]

Your beer sucks.

Try our water, it should taste more familiar.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

BZZZZT!!! And thank you for playing. Seen 'em - actually can give change using $5 bills, then coins.

Re:Not cans

[AmiMoJo]

Just get rid of hard currency for most small transactions. In Japan we have these anonymous stored value cards. You can buy them with cash and load them with cash. Vending machines and shops accept them.

Okay, they are not quite as anonymous as cash because they keep a transaction history and are obviously easy to track across the network. However, they don't get your name or details because you only ever use cash to buy out load it.

For most transactions it is much easier. No getting the right change, just touch. No need even for a receipt due to the transaction history, not that you want one on that 100 yen soda.

Re:Not cans

[mendax]

Well, there is that Coke machine at CMU, allegedly the only Coke machine on the Internet that would give you information the temperature and count of its inventory so you didn't have to run downstairs to to learn that the root beer you were craving is out of stock or is warm. In the old days you "fingered" its account on a Unix machine to learn its status. I think the status was in the .plan file.

Re:Not cans

[sjames]

Actually, they very carefully spread the costs much wider. Most of the time the merchant who actually had no way to know the card was stolen get stuck holding the bag. Since that might otherwise result in credit surcharges that let people see the real cost of the fraud, most merchant account agreements forbid it (which is why you see attempts to work the loopholes like 'cash discounts').

Re:Not cans

[znrt]

Americans have strange ideas about physical money - it's not better or worse than electronic. Just different.

electronic money is automatically traceable. since there's so much people liking to build and collect profiles on other people nowadays, and there is such poor control on what they can do with that, notes and coins are not just better but the only way to go. where, when and how i spend my cash is simply nobody else's business. last time i was in scandinavia i was amazed of the widespread use of credit cards for absolutely everything, and you could get some strange looks when paying with physical money. creepy. i thought it would be a funny place to live since i don't use credit cards. ever.

Re:Not cans

[Antonovich]

Since arriving in France 10 years ago, I've had a chip-based debit card that runs on Visa's network. Probably most French have their debit cards running through Visa or Mastercard, though it's possible to run it through the France-only system, Carte Bleue. Electron and the others might be possible too, I haven't checked recently. Sure, we pay handsomely for it but it does come with comprehensive insurance. Changing it when it gets lost (happened once in 10 yrs) or stolen (never) is a pretty major hassle (possible moreso than changing banks if the truth be told) but you get used to administrative nightmares as a part of life here, so one's pain tolerance is already pretty high.

Re:Not cans

[rastos1]

I can't keep dollar coins in my wallet

Get a new wallet.
1 2 3

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because it's possible to tell the difference, it doesn't follow that the design isn't utterly retarded. Next you'll be defending month/day/year, and then we'll all know how much of a moron you are :)

Re:Not cans

[FireFury03]

A bank-managed payment system (i.e. debit/credit cards) will be the ultimate winner.

Actually, here in the UK, over the past few years I've noticed an increasing number of businesses have stopped taking card payments. I can only assume the banks have increased charges and small businesses have decided it just isn't worth their while.

Re:Not cans

[FireFury03]

Banks pay for credit card breaches, not consumers

Like any other business, you, the consumer, eventually do pay for them - in higher (and newer, more devious) fees, lower savings/CD interest rates, and higher loan interest rates.

Don't fool yourself into thinking that you;re getting a free ride.

Well, that depends on the market... Vendors set prices based on what the market will bear, which is not necessarily directly related to the cost of providing the product. In a free market with lots of competition, prices will trend downwards until they track the cost of providing the product reasonably closely, so in that case if the cost to most of the vendors increases (e.g. through fraud) the price will indeed go up as the vendor passes those extra costs on to the customer. However, if there isn't much competition, what the market will bear (which is about the price the vendor will charge) won't track the cost of providing the product especially closely, so any increases to the costs will need to be absorbed by the vendor rather than being passed on to the customer.

TL;DR - if they could raise the prices without losing too much business, they would've done so already, irrespective of whether there were any additional costs to pass on to the customer.

Re:Not cans

[Eunuchswear]

Signed,
- A Slashdotter who's actually been to many many strip clubs and was friends with a dancer (really).

Hi Edward. How's Moscow?

Re:Not cans

[fnj]

the general public doesn't want to use them

So what? Every four years the public votes for an asshole for President. They will use the coins and like it, if that's all they have. Seriously, do you really believe this? The only way you can get dollar coins is if you go to the bank and specifically ask for a roll or two. And you are 100% of the time stuck with the filthy bills in change. Nobody ever has a chance to use them.

Re:Not cans

[NatasRevol]

Atlanta metro trains. Only give coins, including $1 coins, for change.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

I had to pay $22 for parking at a machine in the USA once. I only had $20s, so I put in two $20s and got back the change as $1 coins. I was leaving the country, so I wanted to spend them. I ended up buying gas.

Re:Not cans

[cthulhu11]

Are there still states without the 4 foot rule?

Re:Not cans

[coolsnowmen]

That's different. A vendor has a cash drawer and sorts on insert. A machine has the benefit of scale, where someone comes by and takes ALL the money to the bank, and then puts in RACKS of 1$ coins. Also, sometimes governments has used this system to push new coinage.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Then put your dollar bills into the machine and never worry. Banks pay for credit card breaches, not consumers. You may argue that we do so indirectly with higher fees, but not really. Fraud is a few billion dollars, but the fees they collect cover that without hassle. And since the swipe fees are money they collect at no actual cost--there's no product to produce, no actual expenses per transaction (merely a distribution of the fixed costs of maintaining the network)--they just don't worry about fraud. When you make money from air, losses aren't terribly bad.

I've had my credit card number stolen a couple times. As long as the thieves only get your number and not your actual identity (and the card info is all they will get from breach at a POS), it's merely inconvenient. The biggest hassles are setting up all the automatic payments again and learning a new number. I have a couple cards and if I'm somewhere I worry about the system's integrity, I use the card that doesn't have any autopayments associated with it. Then if it does get stolen, there's absolutely no hassle outside of a two phone calls to the issuer: one to report it, and one to activate the new card.

The bank doesn't care about losses, so I'm not terribly worried about it either. Of course, users of debit cards have a LOT more hassle, but that is their choice to use that financial product. If they learn to trust themselves use credit cards responsibly and pay off the bill each month, then they can enjoy these same benefits.

tl;dr I enjoy benefits that depend on some portion of my fellow men being oppressed. And you can too!

Re:Not cans

[dl_sledding]

If they'd make the dollar coins SIGNIFICANTLY DIFFERENT than a quarter, enough so that you could recognize them in a pocket by feel, maybe the public would accept them. The US Mint has screwed that up both times (Anthony and Sakakawea).

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

score

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

wrong, credit card companies assume the risks, and pass it on to vendors as part of the service and transaction fees, and consumers as card fees.vendors also pass their fees on to the customers as part of their markup, so in the end, the consumer pays for breaches, whether they pay cash or credit.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never actually drank piss before, so I doubt it would.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

> "Your beer sucks."

Pabst Blue Ribbon tastes like Fosters filtered through an indigenous Australian's' kidneys!

Re:Not cans

[petermgreen]

Unfortunately the cost of credit card fraud is pushed largely onto the retailers (who can't really do much about it) and those retailers are depending on jurisdiction either forbidden or strongly discouraged from charging extra for credit card use.

So in the end everyone pays for them (and for the month or so of interest free credit that credit card users get), whether they use credit cards or not.

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

Automated machines for ticket purchasing in Boston do exactly this, and plenty of other vending machines as well. He didn't say he purchased the stuff from a live person.

Re: Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

As always, being British means you can't answer a fucking question without being a dick about it.

Re:Not cans

[Zynder]

Okinawa, Japan, Kadena AFB, Gate 2 street. Go see the banana show. I dunno why they call it the banana show though, that may have been the most tame part! That mama-san could squat on an unknown amount of coinage and then count it out to you like one of those change-makers the Sonic girls carry around. She'd say something along the lines of "how much", you'd stick your hand under there, and she would pop them out one at a time into your hand. One time to be a smart ass, we told her some high amount we didn't think would be in that particular stack, like $7.25, and she started counting that shit out, click, click, click, click, but then she swayed away from my hand, shot one out off to the side, said "That was a yen", and then continued counting up to precisely $7.25. I have never been that amazed at anything in my whole life. I don't think I'll ever be that amazed at anything until I die. Ya, I'm easily amused!

Re:Not cans

[Anonymous Coward]

And every time I wander by this post, it keeps eating my ass. Why do Brits have to be sooooo goddamned rude about everything?

Re:Not cans

[RockDoctor]

Are there still states without the 4 foot rule?

1. (1) What the fuck is the "4 foot rule"?
2. (2) do you mean the "1.219214826 metre" rule?
3. (3) or the "bipedal and hexapedal animals only" rule
4. (4) given 3, what about the starfish? will nobody think of the strip-club-attending starfish?
5. (5) given any and all of the above, I think the answer is "yes". Regardless of whether "state" refers to a trivial local administration level, or a sovereign nation with it's own languages, army, borders and diplomatic recognition.

Re:Not cans

[Kalriath]

Unless you're in Australia or New Zealand. I swear, our machines intentionally give you as many coins as possible in change (they'll give you dollars worth of 10c coins just to screw with you).

Re:Not cans

[Kalriath]

Australians don't drink Foster's.

Does Coca Cola own their own vending machines?

[barlevg]

If you figure there's one Coke vending machine per 100 people, that's 3 million Coke machines in the US alone. So certainly the scale (if we extend to worldwide) is about right.

Re:Does Coca Cola own their own vending machines?

[barlevg]

Back-of-the-hand estimation. Just looking for an order of magnitude figure here.

Re:Does Coca Cola own their own vending machines?

[Anonymous Coward]

The 16 million number is because that's what you get when you want MAC addresses from IEEE. The other option is something like 4096 addresses and that's just dumb.

Re:Does Coca Cola own their own vending machines?

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect you mean 'back of the envelope calculation.' You're mixing your metaphors.

Re:Does Coca Cola own their own vending machines?

[barlevg]

Yes. Yes I am.

Re:Does Coca Cola own their own vending machines?

[MightyYar]

Don't piss him off, or he'll show you the back of his right envelope.

Re:Does Coca Cola own their own vending machines?

[Andy Dodd]

Don't forget that a MAC address is 48 bits. The vendor ID portion is 24 bits - leaving 24 bits (approx. 16 million addresses) as the smallest range of addresses you can obtain if you obtain a single VID.

Re:Does Coca Cola own their own vending machines?

[JustOK]

and 288 is too gross.

Re:Does Coca Cola own their own vending machines?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense. The 288 GTO is the most beautiful automobile Ferrari built in the last 30 years.

Re:Does Coca Cola own their own vending machines?

[Anonymous Psychopath]

If you figure there's one Coke vending machine per 100 people, that's 3 million Coke machines in the US alone. So certainly the scale (if we extend to worldwide) is about right.

Or it could be fountain kegs instead of vending machines. I can see an application for keg connectivity to monitor syrup level, temperature, and gas PSI. Coke has end-to-end control of bottled/canned products, excepting temperature, but not fountain drinks.

Re:Does Coca Cola own their own vending machines?

[Anonymous Coward]

4096 is useful for some businesses. The IEEE just started selling blocks of a million (2^20) OUIs (Organizationally Unique Identifier). You can now buy:
4096 MACs for $625
1048576 MACs for $1500
16777216 MACs for $2500

Re:Does Coca Cola own their own vending machines?

[jones_supa]

I assume he would be pushing the envelope.

Re:Does Coca Cola own their own vending machines?

[houghi]

That is indeed if you start with one and each one is added a new number.

However I suppose they will have different ranges for different purposes. e.g. Per type of machine. Per country. Per city. Per manufacturing date. Per whatever.
And that not even in OR/OR but in AND/AND. e.g. last range could be the country. There are say 200 countries in the world. That means 50+ unused numbers in one segment or already 20% less used. Obviously they could divide it differently and look per region e.g. US states is one, but Benelux is 1 and not three.

Still I am sure they will waste some as it is nice to have some 'in case of'. Not every range will be used.

Also if they have so many, they do not have to be careful about how they use them. They can 'waste' a lot.

Re:Does Coca Cola own their own vending machines?

[omnichad]

Back of the envelope might be a common metaphor. But back of the hand would be an uncommon (but correct) one. And it also might be the literal writing surface used. I know I've written on the back of my hand (gel ink only, ordinary ball-point hurt too much).

Re:Does Coca Cola own their own vending machines?

[Anonymous Coward]

Coke uses a similar business model to a franchise restaurant chain with vending machines. They own some but they franchise most of it to small businesses. When my dad was unemployed back in the early 90's recession he ran a handful of vending machines to try and make some money; he made a bit but to make a living at it you needed (then) about 40-50 machines for an ok annual income. One of the primary drawbacks to vending machines as a small business is the stocking and maintenance - you need to drive out every so often and carry large flats of every soda you have in your machines, not knowing what actually was sold, so you may end up driving back home with a half-full truck, or not bringing enough of what's really selling. Maybe you go to a location and nothing is sold, so your time is wasted. An internet connected vending machine could report inventory via a simple interface directly to the franchisee, so he knows exactly how much is in each machine and when, so when they go out they carry just as much as they need and they only go to the places that need restocking. As many of the franchisee's are small businesses, making a change to this kind of technology would stretch the resources of a franchisee, but Coke has the size and resources to provide this as part of their franchise program.

So I suspect this is part of a broader move to help out their franchisee's a bit, by moving to a more inter-connected inventory management (and possibly credit card sales) model for their vending machines. Better inventory reporting means your franchisees spend less money on the restocking, which makes them more profitable or gives them more room to lower prices at the machines, increasing sales for Coke. That or maybe it would make it easier for a small individual to franchise a few machines; if it takes only say 30 machines to earn an ok income instead of 40 or 50, it opens the playing field to more franchisee people.

Re:Does Coca Cola own their own vending machines?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoosh. 288 is 2 gross. A gross being 144.

Re:Does Coca Cola own their own vending machines?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's probably more like one coke vending machine per 1,000 people, if that.

They sell Drinks in Cans. What do you think?

[Anonymous Coward]

IP Connected Vending Machines, obviously

Vending machines?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe vending machines. Also, vending machines.

Re:Vending machines?

[Anonymous Coward]

vending machines....there's got to be a use for the unsold ARM processors that were intended for last year's tablets.

Re:Vending machines?

[Sponge Bath]

Chekov would call it a nuclear wending machine.

Inventory and Maintenance.

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Coca-Cola owns a lot of vending machines and their new computerized cola fountain is pretty cool too. I see this as a natural progression towards automatically sending in refill and service requests.

Re:Inventory and Maintenance.

[Anonymous Coward]

Coca-Cola owns a lot of vending machines and their new computerized cola fountain is pretty cool too. I see this as a natural progression towards automatically sending in refill and service requests.

Yes, but Coca-Cola doesn't actually own a lot of that stuff.

Coca-Cola is typically produced not by the main company, but a local distributor/bottler who has a license from the main company.

Re:Inventory and Maintenance.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you carried your logic just one more step further you would came to the conclusion that Coca-Cola leases their equipment to their affiliated distributor/bottler.

Re:Inventory and Maintenance.

[wiredlogic]

The Coke freestyle machines are already internet connected and allow centralized management of syrup use based on demand.

Re:Inventory and Maintenance.

[slew]

Coca-Cola is typically produced not by the main company, but a local distributor/bottler who has a license from the main company.

FWIW: I think fountains (including the new "freestyle" machine) are leased directly from the Coca-Cola company (as opposed to the stuff in cans and bottles in vending machines which are produced and sold by distributors).

Re:Inventory and Maintenance.

[Kalriath]

Not always. In the Oceanic region for example, pretty much every machine is owned by a company called CC Amatil (who actually do have internet connected vending machines eeeeeeeeeverywhere).

Vending or Inventory Controls

[HighOrbit]

As another commenter noted, vending machines are probably part of it. I was also thinking maybe they have plans for a store-shelf inventory control system to help their distributors know when the local supermarket or convience store needs a delivery.

Coke builds own NIC in machines...

[mythosaz]

Coke builds own NIC in machines. Full stop.

Re:Coke builds own NIC in machines...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they suspect that vendor supplied NICs are backdoored so the NSA can get free coke?

Re:Coke builds own NIC in machines...

[DigiShaman]

That's not what happens. MAC addresses are assigned to vendors that implement products with network hardware, not just the development and manufacture. For example: I can look up any MAC address and see it belonging to Dell, Apple, Linksys, DLink, Netgear, and so on. The first two don't design and fab their own NICs. They use Broadcom, Intel, Marvell, and Realtek chips.

Re:Coke builds own NIC in machines...

[Nkwe]

Because they suspect that vendor supplied NICs are backdoored so the NSA can get free coke?

I don't think Coca Cola supplies the kind of coke that the NSA wants. But then they are the NSA, so maybe they know more then I do.

Re:Coke builds own NIC in machines...

[CastrTroy]

I can understand why they would want to put a NIC in a vending machine. However, I can't understand for the life of me why they would want to build their own NICs. That's something that would ideally be outsourced to another company. Even if you're talking millions of vending machines, it doesn't sense for a cola company to start making their own NICs. They'll probably still outsource the actual NIC construction and just get the manufacturer to use their MAC addresses. Still don't see a point though. Sure, if they own them, they can ensure that all their machines have similar NICs, and are identifiable as such, but the MAC address doesn't get past the first hop anyway, so it's not like you could identify them remotely in most circumstances. E

Re:Coke builds own NIC in machines...

[Anonymous Coward]

I too can't see any reason for them to be getting custom NICs.

Only thing I can think of is that perhaps they are building some big virtualised infrastructure and don't want the MACs to clash with any used in the usual Xen/VMWare/Hyper-V/etc ranges - integrating disparate systems, SDN, and all that.

But "massive range of MAC addresses" is just nonsense. This really isn't news.

Re:Coke builds own NIC in machines...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention VMWare et al.

Re:Coke builds own NIC in machines...

[Anonymous Coward]

they then flash the unique MAC when they load the firmware.

Re:Coke builds own NIC in machines...

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't.

When you build network cards, you need an EUI48 number for each card. This number is usually stored in a 24LC16 or similar serial eeprom (in some designs, the device-unique main firmware rom), that is read during the driver initialisation of the NIC. The companies that make NIC ICs don't provide these numbers, except when they are selling the device as a complete pcb with eeprom. The most likely thing is that the ethernet and wireless devices are integrated into the vending machine PCB, rather than being a standalone OEM module.

EUI-48 numbers have two portions, a 24-bit VID, and a 24-bit DID, and are available in three forms: ranges of 4096, with an IEEE VID, and vendor ranges, with a unique VID, in blocks of 16.7M (the DID part), and thirdly, in an adminstratively configured range (2**47), which can't be used by device manufacturers, only by network operators. Since 4096 is obviously too few for Coca-Cola, and issuing large numbers of IEEE ranges is not permitted, their only option is to get an assigned VID. This doesn't imply that they are going to make anywhere near this many devices, only that they are making more than 64k devices.

Re:Coke builds own NIC in machines...

[Anonymous Coward]

They use Broadcom, Intel, Marvell, and Realtek chips.

They use those chips to implement their own on-board NICs.

Re:Coke builds own NIC in machines...

[Agripa]

I have run across embedded hardware before where the ethernet ports were *not* assigned MAC addresses and it was the responsibility of the OS to set the MAC address before the ports could be used.

Re:Coke builds own NIC in machines...

[DigiShaman]

Sure. As someone else pointed out, VMWare also has it's own MAC addresses that it assigns to virtual adapters. I can also clone or assign MAC address manually in Windows XP and 7. So while the firmware of a NIC may include a MAC, it's certainly not required.

bought a tech company?

[kithchung]

Perhaps they acquired a tech company and now the MAC OUI is now listed in their name?

Re:bought a tech company?

[tchdab1]

Google bough Boston Dynamics, otherwise a four-legged vending machine might be a possibility
In any case, does this make you feel we (global "we") are paying way too much for our carmelized-sugar water?

Re:bought a tech company?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google bough Boston Dynamics, otherwise a four-legged vending machine might be a possibility

I can't wait! Once the vending machines can walk to my desk, I'll be down to only one reason to ever get out of my coding chair...

Re:bought a tech company?

[pr0fessor]

When I was kid it was 15 cents for a soda and 5 cents for an extra squirt of syrup so... Dr. Pepper with Double Cherry 25 cents, I really miss that and I'm not talking about the price. I have thought about putting nice soda fountain in my rec-room but I don't drink enough soda to make it worth it.

Re:bought a tech company?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google bough Boston Dynamics, otherwise a four-legged vending machine might be a possibility

I can't wait! Once the vending machines can walk to my desk, I'll be down to only one reason to ever get out of my coding chair...

Once your employer installs the plumbing at your desk and changes out the chair, then they have you where they want you. You can expect the final touch to be a jail cell door to which you don't have a key, but since you will be inside that cell (and you should be slaving away at your desk) then you don't need a key. Problem solved.

Not unusual

[nyet]

From the start, OUIs were 3 out of 6 bytes long.

yep vending machines

[globaljustin]

It's for wireless enabled purchases at vending machines.

I did an RFP for this in grad school. In our scenario the beverage company was working with AT&T to enable the wireless internet connection.

They'll probably "partner" with other vendors of consumer goods...whatever the marketing people come up with.

Re:yep vending machines

[gstoddart]

They'll probably "partner" with other vendors of consumer goods

And probably with the tracking/big data companies to make sure they've got extensive personal information on everybody who ever uses a Coke machine.

It will probably upload pictures of you to a central database, I'm sure.

Re:yep vending machines

[ahabswhale]

I believe it's for more than just vending machines. The new computerized soda fountains that have been popping up in various fast food restaurants all report back to the mother ship as well.

Re:yep vending machines

[jovius]

I bought bottles of coke from Coca-Cola vending machines with SMS more than 10 years ago already (in Finland). In the last couple of years they've been rolling out special apps to be used with vending machines; or at least for random snack kind of setups. The phone-home -functionality has most likely existed as long... Sounds like they are about to modernize things globally.

Re:yep vending machines

[JWSmythe]

Ya, I was thinking vending machines, fountain dispensers, company owned coolers in retail establishments, and even store shelves. They can (and do) have a lot of hardware out there that can't be monitored remotely. It would be very advantageous if they could know that a machine is or isn't working, what the stock is like, and know immediately what the sales are like.

Right now, they lose a lot of money from vending machines that aren't fully stocked. I'm sure just about everyone has gone to a store and they were out of a product. They know they lose out, where either the person decides not to buy, or worse buys the competition's comparable product.

Retail establishments don't care quite as much. Ok, so you don't buy a Coke, you buy a Pepsi instead. The retail establishment still made money on the sale.

Re:yep vending machines

[bws111]

Fountains are a good bet. For instance, a certain large, well-known company that owns theme parks and resorts has recently added RFID chips to the soda cups they sell. When you go to a self-service fountain, the fountain checks if the cup is allowed to be filled. They check to see if the cup is from this location, if it is within an allowed 'free refill' time, and if it is being used too often (you must wait a few minutes before it can be refilled). No more buying a single cup and walking around all day getting 'free refills'. No more buying a single cup then giving all 8 kids a soda by pouring from the purchased cup into your own cup over and over.

Not particularly massive...

[nadamucho]

They were allocated a single 3-byte OUI, or prefix. When you realize that 16 million OUIs were originally available, it's like making a big deal that a company was granted a /24 IP range.

Re:Not particularly massive...

[Andy Dodd]

Also, to my knowledge there is no provision for subdividing within an OUI - a 24 bit address range is the smallest you can get.

Re:Not particularly massive...

[fisted]

It's more like a /8, but yeah. Nothing to see here

Re:Not particularly massive...

[fisted]

Well actually it's more like a /16 since the ipv4 address space is just smaller. whatever.

Re:Not particularly massive...

[nadamucho]

So all three are right. I posted looking at it as them using one out of sixteen million available. /8 is looking at it as having 16 million unique addresses. /16 is looking at it as half of the bits available.

Re:Not particularly massive...

[unixisc]

They are getting MAC addresses, not IPv4. So once they're set up, it will be connected to switches, and assigned private Class A addresses, so that there is the right amount of addresses for all the machines. Each would be mapped to the corresponding Coke MAC address. Only 1 IPv4 address will be needed, since it will be behind NAT.

Re:Not particularly massive...

[fisted]

They are getting MAC addresses, not IPv4.

Oh, really. Perhaps try reading GGGP

Re:Not particularly massive...

[Workaphobia]

No, there are 2^8 = 256 many /8s (fewer in practice, but whatever). Someone acquiring a /8 could be a big deal. There are the same number of /24s as OUIs.

The size of the prefix relative to the rest of the address is not the relevant factor. It's the scarcity of the prefixes that determines whether or not we care. By comparison, a 32-bit prefix out of a 128-bit address would not be news.

Re:Not particularly massive...

[omnichad]

I somehow don't think they'll want to centralize their vending machines like you describe.

Re:Not particularly massive...

[Megane]

Actually there are only 4 million OUIs available, because one bit is for multicast and another bit is for "local administration" addresses. But yeah, there are still a lot. In no way does it mean that they are about to flood the world with Ethernet devices. Most likely it means that they wanted to make soda machines with Ethernet interfaces. If you add a chip to your own board (as opposed to, say, a PCI card), you do not get a MAC address from the chip manufacturer. The important thing is that 16 million addresses is the standard allocation size. You can't even get a second one until you can prove that you've used up at least 95% of those 16 million addresses in actual Ethernet devices.

And as someone else has pointed out, this was registered at least three years ago. So OMGWTFBBQBLOGSPAM. All we have here is a clueless blogger who apparently doesn't understand OUI allocations.

Evil plan to TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!

[Overzeetop]

Or, you know, it could be the blatantly obvious answer of "vending machines." But where's the headline in that?

Re:Evil plan to TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!

[JudgeFurious]

Careful. You might get a cease and desist letter from Disney. I'm sure they own "Evil plan to TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!" and probably have for quite some time.

Accident.

[Anonymous Coward]

They thought they were purchasing big macs to give to their employees as a bonus for the holidays.

Internet-of-things concept

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you mean, "concept of connecting things to the Internet?" as in, what we have all been doing for decades?

Re:Internet-of-things concept

[unixisc]

No, it's the concept of things previously not controllable through the internet now being controllable online. Like toasters, home security systems & so on. Whether that's a good or bad thing is something anyone can argue.

I'm not sure if 16 million qualifies as "massive"

[essbase_nerd]

Vending machines aren't already online?

Freestyle fountain machines

[necro81]

Coke is rolling out their Freestyle fountain dispensing machines worldwide. Each one has the ability to phone home about inventory levels, maintenance logs, and what drinks are trending where. Coke doesn't do anything small - everything they do is done on a global scale. There are 100,000 - 200,000 fast food restaurants in the United States alone. It doesn't take much imagination to see how that could scale up to 16 million machines worldwide over the product life cycle.

Re:Freestyle fountain machines

[Anonymous Coward]

> ability to phone home

If that claim was true, then why are so many of them out of order? I haven't seen one in over six months that actually worked. I love vanilla coke so I'm always disappointed by Coke's complete lack of ability to keep their piece of shit machines running. They obviously do not track inventory levels, or they would start filling the machines. Instead, they just toss them out the back of the truck and leave them not setup and not working. I watched them do that at a Taco Time location near my house. About eight months later, the machine still doesn't work. Coke has long been controlled by Republicans so they do not care about quality or service.

Re:Freestyle fountain machines

[Anonymous Coward]

You act like you've only looked at the one and extrapolated from that. I travel a lot for business and see a different one at least 3-4 times a week, and have yet to see one that didn't work or broken. Your issue might be more with Taco Time than Coke.

Re:Freestyle fountain machines

[Anonymous Coward]

> ability to phone home

If that claim was true, then why are so many of them out of order? I haven't seen one in over six months that actually worked. I love vanilla coke so I'm always disappointed by Coke's complete lack of ability to keep their piece of shit machines running. They obviously do not track inventory levels, or they would start filling the machines. Instead, they just toss them out the back of the truck and leave them not setup and not working. I watched them do that at a Taco Time location near my house. About eight months later, the machine still doesn't work. Coke has long been controlled by Republicans so they do not care about quality or service.

Really? I would have guessed it was controlled by Democrats based on your description: they replaced something that worked with an overly complex system that was sold with hyperbolic claims of improved functionality, yet in the end it turns out that you just got screwed (I'm presuming you are a paying customer, rather than a freeloader).

Re:Freestyle fountain machines

[Anonymous Coward]

And there simply are not enough physical NICs in the world to fit into all of these machines! Won't somebody think of the NICs!

Sheesh.

Re:Freestyle fountain machines

[omnichad]

They see incompetence as a job for free enterprise, not the government. Ergo, Republican.

Re:Freestyle fountain machines

[kaatochacha]

"Coke has long been controlled by Republicans so they do not care about quality or service."
WTF?
So Pepsi is decidedly Democrat?
Are you really suggesting the soda wars are partisan?

or...

[Tom]

...maybe they just have an engineer who convinced them to be early this time. If you had got a class A network back when they were basically given to anyone who so much as asked, you know?

"Massive range"?

[sootman]

"The original IEEE 802 MAC address comes from the original Xerox Ethernet addressing scheme. This 48-bit address space contains potentially 2^48 or 281,474,976,710,656 possible MAC addresses."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address

2^48 / 2^24 = 2^24 so OMG NOES they're getting one-sixteen-millionth of the available space!

If 16 million other companies do this we're TOTALLY SCREWED!

(Unless I did my math wrong or there are other things I'm unaware of, which is totally possible. I'm sure someone who actually knows about networking will either correct me, or confirm that this is a total non-story. If they wanted 16M IPv4 addresses this would be a little different.)

Re:"Massive range"?

[Andy Dodd]

Another way of looking at it: This is the smallest possible address range you can obtain, since OUIs are 3 bytes.

Re:"Massive range"?

[gnasher719]

If 16 million other companies do this we're TOTALLY SCREWED!

If 16 million other companies do this, then we still have enough for 777,000 more companies. And these should really be for some kind of manufacturers. Like Apple or HP or Dell might have gone through a few dozen of these, but not much more unless they were careless.

Re:"Massive range"?

[Shimbo]

There is the local/global bit and the multicast bit, so it's more like 4 million other companies. However, you are essentially correct.

Re:"Massive range"?

[omnichad]

If 16 million other companies do this we're TOTALLY SCREWED!

When you get close to that, you reserve a large portion of the remaining 3-byte OUI's and switch to 4-byte OUI's in that range. Only 65K addresses for each one, but would keep it going for a while longer.

Re:"Massive range"?

[allcoolnameswheretak]

Fortunately we don't have nearly as many companies the size of Coca Cola, so I think we're safe.

One block is not a massive range

[Shimbo]

So, Coca-Cola went and spent $665 dollars for a single block. This is not news.

Re:One block is not a massive range

[fisted]

$665 dollars

cool square-dollars there, bro

Re:One block is not a massive range

[Anonymous Coward]

But it is cheap advertising.

Re:One block is not a massive range

[Mirar]

I thought the news was that a *drink company* bought network-property space.

If the company was H&M or IKEA I'm sure it would have hit the same news-level.

Amazon or Google, not so much.

Currency speculation

[Jeremi]

MAC addresses are the new BitCoins. Buy 'em up while they're cheap!

Re:Currency speculation

[unixisc]

IPv4 public addresses are more valuable

Re:Currency speculation

[Anonymous Coward]

MAN, if only I got in when they were cheap!

Who knew this would have happened?!

Missing words

[holophrastic]

with
be

MAC address space is 2^48 (16 million is peanuts)

[Anonymous Coward]

Note that MAC address space is 2^48 in that regard, the 16 million is not great deals.

I can see it now...

[Anonymous Coward]

You need wireless for your device on the go? Try new coca-cola wireless!
  Just stop by any vending machine and buy a can today and get a FREE 15 minutes of wi-fi!

I'm Confused

[Lazere]

The question that nobody else seems to be asking is, why are they buying their own MAC block? I realize 16 million isn't exactly a huge amount, but unless their building their own NICs for their vending machines, they shouldn't need to be buying their own addresses. That's what vendors are for, right?

Re:I'm Confused

[SydShamino]

If you buy a network interface card then you have to include a connector for that card on your motherboard, and have the necessary chips to talk whatever protocol is used on that bus. Which also means you have to buy or design a motherboard - and designing one probably makes sense when costs and form factor matter and you have sufficient economies of scale.

If you're designing a motherboard, you might as well just buy the ethernet chip and put it on yourself. The chip doesn't come with a built-in MAC address; that's provided from flash (or some other nonvolatile storage device on board). Whoever programs the flash (or pays the CM to program the flash) provides it with a MAC address, not the vendor of the ethernet chip itself.

My employer designs products with built-in ethernet and we have our own MAC address range(s).

Re:I'm Confused

[randomErr]

Actually someone answered that question in the comments of the original article:

ka1axy: Assuming they're using something with a built-in NIC (like an ARM processor -- Freescale Kinetis for example) as a system (vending machine) controller, they wouldn't get a MAC address with the device, but would need one if they intended to use the E'net interface.

Although, that wouldn't match the diagram shown in your posting -- these devices would be all over the place, not bunched on a single private network.

08-00-1B -- still have it memorized after 25 years...I developed some of Data General's first LAN cards.

Re:I'm Confused

[omnichad]

This is only maybe the second post to explain this among so many who get it wrong. Linksys does not make ethernet chips and they have an OUI. Really anyone making significant numbers of custom hardware would.

Re:I'm Confused

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. Vendors can supply without MAC adress. Also 16M is basically the 'minimum' amount you can buy. The only other option is to pay a ridiculously high amount for a tiny 4096 addresses. No company in their right mind will chose to buy 4k instead of 16M to save only about $300. This whole article is just complete ignorance by the submitter and the slashdot admin who accepted it. You can only buy MACs in 4K or 16M lotments for about $300 and $600 respectively. Only little guys with zero chance of big expansion by the 4K peices.

simple explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

They need them for porn.

Re:simple explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

Not porn, Coke's new "Internet over Sugar Diabetes" or IOSD for short.

Ain't nothin like the real thing

How much does it cost?

[hawguy]

How much does it cost to reserve a block of MAC's? If they needed a thousand MAC addresses for some small project (maybe a new corporate standard Coke machine), and there's little to no incremental cost to get a block of 16 million, then there's no reason to think that they have some big plans to sell millions of devices.

Besides, 16 million is not many MAC addresses if they really did expect to release any public product.

Re:How much does it cost?

[silas_moeckel]

16 million is only one 16 millionth of macs (24 bits of 48) not that much it's also the minimum they can reserve.

Re:How much does it cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

One 4 millionth of the MACs.

There is an adminstratively configured bit, marking 1/2 the MACs as locally configured (never programmed in EPROM).

There is a multicast bit, marking 1/2 of the addresses in both sets as multicast destinations (never used as a device address).

that leaves only 4 Million valid OUI numbers for device global addresses.

Re:How much does it cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't actually get a block smaller than ~16 million. MAC addresses are 48 bits, 24 are for the vendor OUI. They bought 1 OUI, the smallest amount you can buy. This means they got the full 24-bit address space of that OUI, which is about 16 million addresses.

Agree

[mrflash818]

Agree, vending machines that act as a kiosk and/or take debit/credit cards as well as cash.

Why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone is being clueless- it's not a massive range, it's the smallest range you can reserve.

If you're a large enough corp and it doesn't cost much, you might as well reserve a block for yourself.

I don't see mac addresses going away anytime soon, and since they are given out in blocks of 16 million and there are "only" 16 million blocks one day coca cola's block of 16 million might become handy even if they don't use it now.

^agree

[globaljustin]

And probably with the tracking/big data companies to make sure they've got extensive personal information on everybody who ever uses a Coke machine.

yep, and actually in our RFP (which was allegedly a real-world RFP with company names changed that an alum gave us) it wasn't just for people who purchased something...the wireless machines were collecting data from any device that was in proximity

not that this is really a surprise to anyone here, but if Coke can do this on all their machines it would yield an astounding ammount of data

Re:^agree

[gstoddart]

it wasn't just for people who purchased something...the wireless machines were collecting data from any device that was in proximity

And that's scary, but completely unsurprising.

Marketing people continue to be assholes, film at 11.

Re:^agree

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I probably saw the original RFP you were using... I can't recall if it was Coke or Pepsi, but the proposal was originally with a cellular company that was bought out by AT&T. They actually did a number of trials across the US as well. This was over 5 years ago.

Kinda obvious

[randomErr]

Coke is most likely planning promotion similar to the MagiCans promotion. For you kids out there random Coke cans would have pop-out cash or a coupon for free swag. I think the new version will to create a social network of bottle caps. Each cap has low cost WiFi chip similar to TI's SimpleLink module. You put it on a Skylanders-like pad and it powers the chip and acts a unique id. Arcades and stores will have these pads you earn points for each visit.

My next guess is an shipment tracking on scale that only Walmart has tried. They'll use WiFi chips instead RFID because of range and a little more security. A reason they may stay away from something like XBee maybe cost and a less common standard. That my two cents.

Re:Kinda obvious

[hawguy]

Coke is most likely planning promotion similar to the MagiCans promotion. For you kids out there random Coke cans would have pop-out cash or a coupon for free swag. I think the new version will to create a social network of bottle caps. Each cap has low cost WiFi chip similar to TI's SimpleLink module. You put it on a Skylanders-like pad and it powers the chip and acts a unique id. Arcades and stores will have these pads you earn points for each visit.

My next guess is an shipment tracking on scale that only Walmart has tried. They'll use WiFi chips instead RFID because of range and a little more security. A reason they may stay away from something like XBee maybe cost and a less common standard. That my two cents.

If the user has to put it on a special pad to read the code, I don't see why they'd use Wifi instead of RFID or even some contact type reader like an iButton. It seems like instant connection would be important, and the seconds it would take to wait for a Wifi chipset to power up and associate with the wifi network would be too long to make someone wait every time they enter a store -- especially when several people enter the store at once and they have to wait in line to scan their can.

I don't see why a Wifi network with a 100m range would be more secure than an RFID reader with a 2cm range, any Coke can module that's smart enough to use some sort of public key/certificate based authentication over Wifi could do the same with RFID, but do it faster, since it only has to do a quick key exchange and it's done, no need to figure out which frequency the Wifi network is on and then associate.

FFS, Slashdot.

[ledow]

What I read: "One of the world's largest companies has need of an allocation unique identifiers for network hardware".

Fuck, they sell 1.7 BILLION coke products every single day (their 2010 annual report, on their website FAQ too).

That means they sell over 1000 products a day for every MAC address they just reserved. They could use them to control the various parts of the fucking production lines via Ethernet and it still wouldn't be enough for their normal, everyday usage of such things. It's certainly no "Internet of things" heap-of-crap headline.

How the hell did this make it onto Slashdot?

Re:FFS, Slashdot.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Mac addresses are stuff that matters.

Re:FFS, Slashdot.

[Anonymous Coward]

Controlling production lines on the open internet is not how Coca-Cola does things... Thank goodness.

Re:FFS, Slashdot.

[Demonantis]

Most networked PLC setups use the MAC addresses in the coding. The comment made sense if they are releasing a custom piece of hardware to their manufacturing line.

Re:FFS, Slashdot.

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet it's for the next generation vending machine.

Coke Net Appliance

[SINternet]

Instead of your present day Coke Machine. They will take a picture of those who buy and push Commercials to be played on their Machines. SIN

Re:Coke Net Appliance

[Z00L00K]

You mean facial recognition and play a commercial depending on gender and skin color?

Isn't physical security everything?

[DroneWhatever]

The first thought was this sounds ripe for abuse. These coke machines, in my mind, could easily have the software modified to capture your payment details.

Simplyfying inventory management

[unixisc]

I think it allows a central inventory management office to track the inventory in each vending machine, and setting automatic alerts when certain vending machines need to be refilled. The vending machine having its own IP helps in that it is uniquely addressable and all the inventory data it has, as well as any cash/payments made to it could be tracked, and more effective planning made possible.

16M addresses? This is particularly these types of uses that justify IPv6. With IPv6, Coke could get itself a single /48 block and have everything it needs. And this model is easily scalable: need to service vending machines in Europe? Latin America? Asia? Just get a few more blocks, and manage things that way.

Re:Simplyfying inventory management

[Bigbutt]

MAC addresses, not IPs. They may actually be going to use IPv6. That's not part of the article.

[John]

Re:Simplyfying inventory management

[JaiWing]

these are MAC addresses. Hardware ids, not ip addresses.

Re:Simplyfying inventory management

[Anonymous Coward]

MAC addresses.. not IP addresses.

Re:Simplyfying inventory management

[unixisc]

Yeah, to all 3 posters above, I got that they are MAC addresses. But if they went IPv6, they wouldn't need all that - they could statically or dynamically configure each vending machine w/ an IPv6 address on a central DHCP6 server, and they'd be done

Re:Simplyfying inventory management

[harrkev]

AFAIK, the MAC address is still needed no matter which IP version you are using. The MAC address is NOT an "IP" thing. It is a fundamental part of Ethernet.

Re:Simplyfying inventory management

[Chris Mattern]

But if they went IPv6, they wouldn't need all that - they could statically or dynamically configure each vending machine w/ an IPv6 address on a central DHCP6 server, and they'd be done

MAC addresses aren't part of IPv4 or IPv6 (IPv6 does have a standard for automatically generating IPv6 addresses from MAC addresses, but, as you point out, you can hand addresses out centrally from a DHCP server instead). They're part of Ethernet. TCP/IP (4 or 6) needs a data link layer to actually move the bits for it. These days, that'll be Ethernet nine times out of ten. And if you're doing Ethernet, you gotta have MAC addresses.

Re:Simplyfying inventory management

[Workaphobia]

And how do you intend to communicate over ethernet or wireless ethernet without a MAC address?

(Don't say IPv6.)

Re:Simplyfying inventory management

[unixisc]

My point was that they don't need a block of MAC addresses for Coke - they can use whatever MAC addresses they get, irrespective of vendor. The block of IP addresses is what they could use, and the mapping between the IPv6 & MAC addresses can be done from a DHCP server. If they get a range of IP addresses, the MAC addresses can be anything - they don't need a block or a range.

Re:Simplyfying inventory management

[unixisc]

True, but as I replied to Workaphobia below, the MAC addresses don't need to be reserved or belong to a single range - they can be anything, as long as the IP block belongs to the company. A DHCP server would map each IP address to the MAC address, and the vending machine would be good to go!

Re:Simplyfying inventory management

[Chris Mattern]

the MAC addresses don't need to be reserved or belong to a single range

True--but if you're planning on integrating your equipment with a lot of third party NICs, having a reserved range for your equipment can be the simplest way to avoid collisions, if you're big enough to make it worthwhile.

Re:Simplyfying inventory management

[Rich0]

With IPv6, Coke could get itself a single /48 block and have everything it needs.

Setting aside that this is about MAC, how on earth would you route packets if you have a single /48 with one node on each of 40 bazillion networks? You'd basically need to publish routes that have at most 1-2 IPs in them. That's why IPs are generally assigned by the network, and not to the individual device. IPv6 has enough address space that you could assign everything a unique address, but that doesn't mean that any particular device will persistently use the same address.

Re: Simplyfying inventory management

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac addresses are 48 bits. The first 24 bits are traditionally the vendor ID; so they are ways handed out in chunks of 2^24 addresses.

There chunking is an administrative convenience; unlike IP it doesn't matter if the Mac addresses don't have any bits in common. They just have to be unique within a switching domain.

Re:Simplyfying inventory management

[GoogleShill]

IP to MAC mapping is done through the layer-3 ARP protocol, not DHCP, although DHCP tends to use the MAC address as the client ID in the chaddr field.

That said, I agree with your post. They don't need an OUI block unless they are manufacturing PHY chips or doing some sort of virtual tunneling.

Re:Simplyfying inventory management

[Em Adespoton]

Sorry; you've got it backwards. Coke owns the hardware where the MAC ID resides, so MAC is the right thing to reserve. The devices themselves can then be on a multitude of networks, using multiple DHCP servers, which would likely be owned by the distributors, not by Coke. A range of IP addresses would be a routing nightmare in a real-world scenario.

Re:Simplyfying inventory management

[Alioth]

You may still need MAC addresses. You can buy a PHY from some random vendor but you won't necessarily get a MAC address with that.

Re:Simplyfying inventory management

[radarskiy]

"as long as the IP block belongs to the company. "
The MAC addresses also have to be unique for the network. If you don't control the network then you need a reserved range to prevent collisions. The set of machines on Coca-Cola's own network is trivially small.

Re:Simplyfying inventory management

[nyet]

They still need a *globally* unique MAC per device. Yes, technically, it only needs to be unique per subnet, but NOBODY depends on that.

Re:Simplyfying inventory management

[Anonymous Coward]

Any reason fixed DHCP wouldn't be infinitely simpler if the last 64 bits WERE the MAC address?

First 64 = Vending Machine IPv6 range
2nd 64 = MAC

= Entire fixed DHCP problem solved.

Re:Simplyfying inventory management

[unixisc]

Even if 48 of the 64 were MAC addresses, they'd be fine. Just use the remaining 16 for something else. Or even use the EUI-64 system to map them out.

Re:Simplyfying inventory management

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless they are partnering with a wireless provider to create a VPN between their 16M devices, in which case a contiguous IP block would be useful.

Re:Simplyfying inventory management

[Rich0]

Sure, that makes sense. My employer owns a class A network and it certainly makes everything easier. In fact, after a merger they had routing established between the networks in no time simply because there were no collisions. I don't know if they ever migrated the other half of the company out of 10/8 land - we certainly have enough subnets to do it. Maybe they're banking on migrating the other way and selling the class A to some desperate ISP.

Re:Simplyfying inventory management

[petermgreen]

Ethernet controller chips don't generally contain MAC addresses. The MAC address is usually loaded on startup from an EEPROM or other configuration store. So generally* if you are designing your own boards and having them made you need to supply the MAC address.

Some vendors do offer EEPROMs pre-programmed with MAC addresses but afaict it's fairly unusual.

P.S. As the name suggests the MAC address is used by the MAC, not by the PHY

Re:Simplyfying inventory management

[Kalriath]

That's assuming that the machines don't work by temporarily establishing an ad-hoc wifi connection to the device that is attempting to purchase something from them, which is something that I actually suspect they may do since the app on the phone is actually very quick to notice when the machine doesn't want to play ball (plus it saves on data costs for the machine vendor. Win/win). In which case Coca-Cola's machine (or in Australia/NZ, CC Amatil's machine) actually isn't in control of the network, and there is the very real risk of potential collision.

The real question here...

[MiniMike]

It's an obvious guess that these are for NIC cards to be used in some type of vending and/or dispensing machine. What I'm wondering is why is Coca-Cola designing their own cards? Do they really have a use for these that commodity cards can't accommodate?

Re:The real question here...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all about the NSA. They need cards that send purchase habits directly to the government(s) since terrorists are known to be big soda drinkers. "Diet Coke with Lime button pressed for 1.287423 seconds with fingerprint matching our database entry. Agents dispatched."

Re:The real question here...

[RabidReindeer]

It's an obvious guess that these are for NIC cards to be used in some type of vending and/or dispensing machine. What I'm wondering is why is Coca-Cola designing their own cards? Do they really have a use for these that commodity cards can't accommodate?

The MAC on commodity cards can be overlaid. I worked at a shop that did this using internal asset numbers as MAC IDs. It helped them maintain DHCP on the LAN from a central location while unrelated divisions were doing hardware maintenance. More recently, the Xen VM networking system routinely gives me fits when the virtual networking alters the MAC address.

I still don't see the benefit of owning specific MAC addresses for devices in the field, but then again, I don't know all the details.

Re:The real question here...

[fnj]

NIC cards

Network Interface Card cards? Are those like Automated Teller Machine machines and Personal Identification Number numbers?

Re:The real question here...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an obvious guess that these are for NIC cards to be used in some type of vending and/or dispensing machine. What I'm wondering is why is Coca-Cola designing their own cards? Do they really have a use for these that commodity cards can't accommodate?

Think about the cost. If you were to enable some sort of communications from a vending machine on a very wide scale, you would want to do it as cheeply as possible. Sometimes being cheep means having all the bits built on a single circuit board. Also think about tsome of the environments where these machines might be located. Any sort of commodity card that has to be plugged in has edge contacts that can "go bad" over time due to any number of reasons. So you keep the cost down by building everything into a single circuit board. Then the sensors, the antennae, and the power connectors inside the machine plug into that board. Perhaps for environmental (don't "think green" here) or security reasons, a vendor might "pot" that board in hard plastic "goop" to prevent (or limit) the effects of humidity, protect "intellectual property", etc.

It all comes down to deploying something on a very wide basis while making every effort to minimize the cost to maintain that installed base.

captcha: hemlock !!

Re:The real question here...

[verifine]

You forgot Liquid Crystal Display displays

I could make reference to LEDs, but my favorites are NEDs (Noise Emitting Diodes). The noise is usually accompanied by a minor puff of smoke, and as anyone familiar with the smoke theory of electronics knows, once the smoke has leaked out, they'll never work again.

Re:The real question here...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can do whatever you want for the MAC address in your own private network where you control all the equipments.
When you are connecting to the internet that you don't control, you don't know if the MAC you made up won't actually be the same as another machine out there.

Re:The real question here...

[doublebackslash]

On your own network that is under your complete and absoloute control there isn't an overwhelming need to have a globally unique MAC address. Sure, it is nice to be able to plug any device into your network without having to assign the MAC address to guarantee uniqueness, but that is just convenience.

If you don't control every single aspect of your network or don't wish to (or are incapable of) managing everything to the level of the MAC address (which needs to exist under the current protocols. It need not exist in an absolute sense, but with what we use today it is required and works rather well) then having a central authority issuing unique blocks to all takers is a good strategy.

So I guess there isn't an advantage to “owning” a block. The advantage is that everyone knows that their MAC addresses are globally unique and, therefore, can plug and play on any network.

As to Xen throwing a fit, I'd say it was a misguided security feature of some sort, but that is just speculation.

Re:The real question here...

[RabidReindeer]

As to Xen throwing a fit, I'd say it was a misguided security feature of some sort, but that is just speculation.

Nah. It's a sloppy network virtualization thing. It's supposed to be synthesizing MAC addresses for VMs and ends up stomping on the physical MAC address. Then you get a rash of "address refers to itself" errors thereafter until you manually change it.

Re:The real question here...

[MachineShedFred]

Probably some misguided attempt at a MAC address ACL - because MAC addresses can never be spoofed, ever. Not even once.

Re:The real question here...

[MachineShedFred]

When you put your PIN number in the ATM machine, it uses the NIC card to transmit the data to the bank. It all makes perfect sense!

Minimum Mac allocation

[mbone]

It's a 48 bit address space. They have lots of addresses. This is the minimum allocation IEEE hands out. Lot's of companies have a /24 of Mac addresses.

Re:Minimum Mac allocation

[Anubis IV]

Buying 16M Macs is no small feat, nor is addressing every single one of them. I mean, I like to use various names from the Myst franchise when addressing my various electronics, but there are only so many you can use. If I had to address 16M Macs, that would be pretty difficult.

Unless you meant MAC, but I'm sure I wouldn't have to point out that difference to anyone on Slashdot. ;)
</pedant>

FFS, all I wanted was some delicious sugar water

[paiute]

GREETINGS, COCA-COLA CUSTOMER! PLEASE INSERT YOUR CREDIT OR DEBIT CARD TO GET STARTED WITH YOUR PURCHASE OF A DELICIOUS COCA-COLA PRODUCT.
Uh - can't I just put in some quarters?
I AM AN INTELLIGENT INTERNET-CONNECTED VENDING WORKSTATION. I DISPENSE DELICIOUS COCA-COLA PRODUCTS, CHANGE YOUR FACEBOOK STATUS TO 'CURRENTLY ENJOYING A FINE COCA-COLA OR OTHER DELICIOUS COCA-COLA PRODUCT', LIKE THE COCA-COLA COMPANY, TWEET 'CURRENTLY ENJOYING A FINE COCA-COLA OR OTHER DELICIOUS COCA-COLA PRODUCT', SEND A PHOTO OF YOU OPENING YOUR COCA-COLA OR OTHER DELICIOUS COCA-COLA PRODUCT TO SNAPCHAT -
Okay, okay! Here's my Visa card.
THE VISA CARD ISSUER IS REPLYING THAT THERE IS SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY ON THIS CARD. IT WAS USED TO MAKE A PURCHASE IN THE AMOUNT OF FORTY-FIVE DOLLARS AND ZERO FIVE CENTS IN SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, FAR FROM THE ZIPCODE ON YOUR BILLING ADDRESS.
Yeah, I bought something off of Amazon - Oh, nevermind... here's another card.
WHAT IS THE PIN FOR THIS CARD?
7734
THAT PIN IS NOT RECOGNIZED FOR THIS DEBIT CARD.
It's not a debit card. It's an ATM card.
I CANNOT ACCEPT ATM CARDS DUE TO FEDERAL BANKING REGULATIONS. PLEASE INSERT A DEBIT CARD.
I don't use a debit card. They don't protect my account. It could be stolen and all the money in my account - Oh, nevermind. Do you take dollar bills?
I AM AN INTELLIGENT INTERNET-CONNECTED VENDING WORKSTATION. I DISPENSE DELICIOUS COCA-COLA PRODUCTS, CHANGE YOUR FACEBOOK STATUS TO 'CURRENTLY ENJOYING A FINE COCA-COLA OR OTHER DELICIOUS COCA-COLA PRODUCT', LIKE THE COCA-COLA COMPANY, TWEET 'CURRENTLY ENJOYING A FINE COCA-COLA OR OTHER DELICIOUS COCA-COLA PRODUCT', SEND A PHOTO OF YOU-
I know! I know! You already said that! You don't accept any cash at all?
DO YOU HAVE A PAYPAL ACCOUNT?
Yes, unfortunately I do.
PLEASE ENTER YOUR NAME AND BILLING ADDRESS ON YOUR PAYPAL ACCOUNT. PRESS THE GREEN 'I ACCEPT AND AGREE' BUTTON ON THE TOUCHSCREEN AND YOUR FINE COCA-COLA OR OTHER DELICIOUS COCA-COLA PRODUCT WILL BE BILLED TO YOUR PAYPAL ACCOUNT.
Okay...I guess...
THANK YOU FOR SELECTING COCA-COLA. YOUR BEVERAGE WILL BE DISPENSED SHORTLY...WAITING FOR GOOGLE ANALYTICS....LOADING...CONNECTING TO FACEBOOK.API....WAITING...LOADING...
Forget it. I should be dieting anyway.
YOU HAVE PUSHED THE RED 'CANCEL TRANSACTION' BUTTON. ARE YOU SURE?
Yes, I don't want a Coke anymore. Besides, I can't figure out a way to buy one even if I still did.
DO YOU HAVE A BITCOIN WALLET?
Look - it's starting to snow. I am going to go over and scrape some together and let it melt in my mouth. Do you want some?
WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO TAKE A SHORT FIVE MINUTE SURVEY REGARDING OUR INTERACTION TODAY? YOU WILL BE ENTERED IN A DRAWING TO WIN FIFTY DOLLARS WORTH OF COCA-COLA OR OTHER DELICIOUS COCA-COLA PRODUCT...

Marketing thing

[n1c0]

The internet of things is about the last thing I'm interested in as of Snowden's revelations. Coca-Cola probably just wants to brand, network capable devices with an own prefix.

Hm ...

[garry_g]

... wondering, how many of the posters here do not understand that specific MAC addresses are not relevant as far as TCP/IP is concerned? So as long as no duplicate MACs are used in a L2 broadcast domain, it doesn't matter what MAC you use ...

New Ad Campaign

[cayenne8]

This is for a new ad campaign, and I can hear the new jingle now:

"I'd like to teach the world to ping...in perfect harmony...."

Re:New Ad Campaign

[_Sharp'r_]

This is so the new vending machines can accept CokeCoin transfers.... and mine more coins when they aren't busy.

I'm kidding, of course, everyone knows a rapper will create the first branded Bitcoin copycat currency!

Exactly how old news is this?

[kasperd]

The oldest version of oui.txt I could find is dated 2010. And the allocation was made before that. Which means it has been more than three years since this was news. Anybody know how to look up more precisely, when it was allocated?

Re:Exactly how old news is this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your search skillz must suck. Updated daily: http://standards.ieee.org/develop/regauth/oui/public.html

Re:Exactly how old news is this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your search skillz must suck. Updated daily: http://standards.ieee.org/develop/regauth/oui/public.html

Your reading skillz must suck. That page contains no information related to the question being asked.

Re:Exactly how old news is this?

[kasperd]

Anybody know how to look up more precisely, when it was allocated?

Turns out the URL has changed over time. Knowing what the URL used to be allows looking up earlier versions.

• http://standards.ieee.org/db/oui/oui.txt
• http://standards.ieee.org/regauth/oui/oui.txt
• http://standards.ieee.org/develop/regauth/oui/oui.txt

The allocation was made between 2010 Aug 08 and 2010 Nov 24.

Isn't it obvious?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a trademark thing. They just wanted MAC addresses starting with C0:CA:C0:1A.

Vending Machines + Apps

[Orne]

If you extrapolate, plus look at the hints Coke has been dropping...

Coke must be working on a phone app that allows you to configure your "preferred" drink at their multi-selection syrup dispensers. Yes, you can accomplish it with RFID, but If each individual machine is internet-aware, then it can geo-fence to know who is near the machine, report syrup levels for restocking, as well as more accurately track a customer rewards program. We can't rely on phones to have NFC/RFID, so they need to come up with some other way of communicating. If you can get the machine on the LAN of the restaurant, you can do all sorts of stuff... promotions, push notifications, preferences, etc.

Actually, just found that all Freestyle machines are already RFID enabled, since 2009.
http://www.rfidjournal.com/articles/view?4967

shouldn't that be 625 square dollars? (676?)

[Anonymous Coward]

he got them from the ATM machine after entering his PIN number

iCoke.ca going bye bye

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that their iCoke.ca rewards is going away, Coke can buy a lot of MAC address.

As of noon (12:00 p.m. ET) on April 1st, 2014, the iCoke rewards program will no longer be available.
You can continue to redeem points until that time.
PIN Codes from specially marked Coca-Cola® products can be entered until midnight (12:00 a.m. ET) April 1st, 2014.
View our current rewards, contests and offers frequently to ensure you get the most out of your points before the program wraps up.

Re:FFS, all I wanted was some delicious sugar wate

[Tokolosh]

All I wanted was a cup of tea.

Logistics

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about secure (signed) reporting, and delivery scheduling to every Coke tap in every gin joint in the world. Not to mention monitoring employee use, etc.

Mac addresses

[Boawk]

Apple must be giddy. Coca-Cola almost went with PC addresses.

A Long History

[Anonymous Coward]

Coke has a long history of spying for the CIA. Draw your own conclusions.

16 Mil

[nurb432]

Really isn't that much in the retail world.

MAC Address for NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

the NSA geeks want way to scan their coke dispenser to report usage and dispensing coke

Re:MAC Address for NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

the NSA geeks want way to scan everyone's coke dispenser to report usage and dispensing coke

FTFY

Drone in a can

[Anonymous Coward]

Drone coke cans that deliver themselves, and fly away when finished?

Cantennas?

[pmontra]

Are they starting to sell cans with a PCI bus or USB plug? Let me guess... Coca Cola Air Card!

vending machines

[Anonymous Coward]

http://mobile.businessweek.com/articles/2013-08-29/vending-machines-get-smart-to-accommodate-the-cashless

For their new project...

[grub]

DiabetesNet

So deal with it?

[dutchwhizzman]

Really, if you can't be arsed to actually deal with coins, you obviously don't need the money that much. If those coins would be valuable enough to warrant carrying around, you wouldn't mind the strategy at all. Why doesn't the USA adapt coins for anything up to 20 dollar? You wouldn't need to carry paper money around anymore, just coins and plastic. Still the same strategy and it would save a lot of printing and recycling cost.

Re:So deal with it?

[stdarg]

Do you use a coin purse or do you keep high value coins jumbling about your pocket? I just don't see any advantage to coins except some theoretical savings over constantly reprinting paper money. But that is a pretty negligible cost, and burdening the entire population with coins doesn't seem worth it.

Re:So deal with it?

[allcoolnameswheretak]

Yes, I always have coins in my pocket. In the EU, coins have different sizes and rim patterns, so they are easy to differentiate by touch alone. This is great for blind people, but for me as well. Whenever I need 1€, 2€, 50 cents, etc, I put my hand in my pocket, feel for it, and quickly have the currency at my disposal without having to take out and open my wallet. Its a fast and convenient way to pay for small things. If you live in a bad neighborhood, I suppose that this technique also lowers the chances of someone running away with your wallet. No see, no take.

Re:So deal with it?

[phantomfive]

I'll keep using paper money. I like it, so do other people; go whine to someone who cares.

Re:So deal with it?

[AthanasiusKircher]

Do you use a coin purse or do you keep high value coins jumbling about your pocket?

A lot of pants already have a solution to this problem. Most jeans have a small pocket on the right side, and good quality dress pants also have an extra small pocket inside the big pocket on the right side. In the past, apparently some used these for watches (among other things), but pocket watches are rather rare these days... so why not actually put these pockets to use? When I have just a few coins, that's where I tend to put them. I'd do the same if the U.S. had higher value coins.

In any case, no "jumbling around" necessary.

I just don't see any advantage to coins except some theoretical savings over constantly reprinting paper money. But that is a pretty negligible cost

Well, the official government estimates for the savings are always well over $100 million per year. Yes, that's not a huge amount within the overall federal budget, but still -- I'd hardly call savings of hundreds of millions of dollars per year "negligible."

My view

[tuxrulz]

Probably they are going to either automatize the vending machines, or the commerce distribution (or both) so they will not need to rely on external distributors for that. In other words, more control and revenue for them.

considering nic makers use this many in a month...

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering network interface card manufacturers use this many mac addresses in a month, Coca Cola reserving 16 million in a one-time allocation (likely for vending machines) is not surprising. ....Bbbbut 16 million, won't we run out soon....!?!?! No sparky, relax. When Xerox first designed this protocol quite a few years ago, the settled on a 48 bit protocol. So 2^48 unique addresses. That's a measly 281,474,976,710,656. It's a measly 35184 addresses for every person currently living on the planet (assuming 8 billion).

MAC address, not IP address.

[Medievalist]

MAC addresses specify the backoff time for collisions on a LAN and aren't used at "worldwide" scales. They get stripped by the first router that sees them.

Only hardware vendors that need to provide unique collision avoidance characteristics on any customer's LAN need MAC address allocations.

Re:MAC address, not IP address.

[kevmeister]

MAC addresses specify the backoff time for collisions on a LAN and aren't used at "worldwide" scales. They get stripped by the first router that sees them.

MAC addresses have nothing to do with collision back-off time. The back-off time is an algorithmically specified value that depends on the number of collisions (up to 16) that have occurred while attempting to transmit a frame and a random number. Collisions only occur on half-duplex Ethernet which is not normally used on modern LAN implementations. They are dropped (along with the entire frame header and CRC) by the first layer 3 (routing) device to process the frame, but are potentially used globally when an Ethernet frame is wrapped in another frame such as in some VLANs and increasingly popular Software Defined Networks (SDNs). Since they are guaranteed globally unique, they can be very handy for many things.

Only hardware vendors that need to provide unique collision avoidance characteristics on any customer's LAN need MAC address allocations.

Again, MAC addresses have noting to do with collisions and most LANs installed in the past decade have no collisions. They are used for addressing at layer 2 of the OSI reference model (Data-link). They are not actually a part of the Ethernet (IEEE 802.3) spec, but of a more global specification for creating globally unique hardware identifiers for network devices (IEEE 802) and are used by several LAN types which never had collisions (E.g. token ring, MAP (EtherBus), and FDDI).

As has already been pointed out, 16 million is the SMALLEST block of MAC addresses assignable, so this is far, far from massive. It does indicate that they plan on providing a globally unique ID for every machine which may or may not be actually used for addressing purposes.

Re:MAC address, not IP address.

[Medievalist]

Thank you for that. Very informative.

Do modern switches signal fake collisions to attached ethernet devices when their switch memory is exceeded?

Re:MAC address, not IP address.

[kevmeister]

Thank you for that. Very informative.

Do modern switches signal fake collisions to attached ethernet devices when their switch memory is exceeded?

No. 802.3 added flow control to the spec and that is the only standard method of dealing with this. It is optional and not all devices support it.

Faking collisions is not really practical as a collision is signaled from the transceiver, which used to be a separate physical device, to the MAC (Media Access Control) of the transmitting system. There is no mechanism on Ethernet to support sending a collision to a remote system. If running half-duplex (again, mostly obsolete), you could set your transmit line to block the transmitter, but that would trigger an error (collisions are not errors) that would disrupt the transmission and result in a packet being dropped. This would be way to disruptive, though dropping a packet due to lack of buffer space would be similarly disruptive.

This all gets into very complex issues as to much buffer space will break TCP congestion detection and severely impact performance. This is not for forum to discuss these issues, so I'll stop here, but you can search for buffer bloat" for lots of information.

I also highly recommend the use of the Netalyzer tool from ICIS.

Re:MAC address, not IP address.

[Medievalist]

To be honest I stopped paying much attention to the details of ethernet about the same time I drilled my last 10b5 etherhose for a vampire tap. The earliest switches I remember were 10bT (with optional full duplex, assuming you hadn't cheaped out on the wires) and I believe they would fake a collision at the RJ45 port if you exceeded their (very limited) switching capacities. In those days most arguments were Ethernet II .vs. 802.3 and SNA .vs. DecNet... not really relevant any more in the world of jumbo frames and ubiquitous IP.

Thanks again for the info! Clearly I should shut up about ethernet tech unless I'm going to study up on it a lot.

I know what these are going to be used for!

[Anonymous Coward]

WIFI enabled insulin pumps!

Can we ask you...

[jlowery]

... the reader, to investigate these questions for us? Please?

I know Slashdot isn't a journalism site, but what use is pointless and unsubstantiated speculation?

Yeah use paper money

[Anonymous Coward]

Be safe for now... then wait till assholes integrate serial number readers IN FUCKIN EVERYTHING. And track you by the bills you get... Oh look he got back a bill with serial number at 7 eleven (picture here) and spent it in this vending machine (varified identity with a picture from vending machine, and he put on a hat too must be cold outside)... The world will only get more creepy sir.

Minimal range, not massive!

[Terje Mathisen]

MAC addresses consists of 48 bits, of which 24 is a vendor code and the other half some sort of serial number.

I.e. the smallest possible allocation of MAC addresses is a single vendor code, giving 2^24 or 16M unique addresses.

Sounds like an obvious starting point for a Coca-Cola MAC address in every vending machine.

New Freestyle machines being scaled up..

[xtal]

http://www.coca-colafreestyle.com/

They've been working up to this for awhile. The technology is very impressive, and they've been tested over the last year or two. Tracking preferences and usage, as well as supply delivery, etc is very much part of their model.

Old news, though, I thought?

Most likely for each dispensing machine

[Anonymous Coward]

Even today, most coke machines (that dispense cans/bottles) are internet-enabled. If they have Coke mac addresses, then they can be validated, and sales are automatically registered (and vailidated) with the company. Sounds like a reasonable business situation to me... :-)

Vending Machines of Soda Fountains?

[StarWreck]

I remember Coca-Cola looked into credit card readers for their vending machines during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta and the credit card fees back then made the concept completely untenable. I'd be willing to bet a buck that this has more to do with their Coca-Cola Freestyle fountains which automatically phone home whenever a flavor cartridge is low or empty. There might be a ridiculously huge rollout all at once of the machines, like at McDonalds. So far they've only been installed at a few test McDonalds and a few other chains that don't have nearly the coverage of McD's.

Re:Vending Machines of Soda Fountains?

[Anonymous Coward]

Freestyle Machines are installed ONLY at high-volume locations and leased to the owners. With the exception of the company who installs them for new Wegmans grocery store locations, they can only be installed/serviced directly by Coke technicians if they break, (Unlike traditional fountain machines) which also makes them really only a good investment for those locations.

Re:FFS, all I wanted was some delicious sugar wate

[Hillgiant]

Sometimes I try to do things and it just doesn't work out the way I wanted to. ...
All I wanted was a Pepsi.

Coke Fountain Machines

[Sylak]

uhhh... freestyle machines? Or is that too obvious to be true?

Because that's the smallest increment available?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wondering what they're up to is all well and good, but the IEEE assigns MAC address in 24-bit blocks, so any request gets 2^24 addresses. You can't infer how many they intend to use from that.

Also, MAC address prefixes are used more widely than just ethernet, the 22-bit "Organizationally Unique Identifier" is used by other standards, too.

Re:FFS, all I wanted was some delicious sugar wate

[Anonymous Coward]

Earl Grey. Hot.

Its because of the pricing.

[myforwik]

This has nothing to do with wanting millions. Its because of the stupid pricing. Buying 16 million is only double the cost of buying 4096. The real question is why so many companies buy 4096 at such a high price.

Dollar coins in vending machines

[ai4px]

The dollar changer at work has given dollar coins for years.... but the vending machines wouldn't accept them. I called the vendor several times explaining why I could not buy a $1.35 coke with the 4 dollar coins and 4 quarters I got when changing a $5. Finally after several years, they changed all the coin boxes and we have no problems now. My only issue is I have to be careful not to confuse them with quarters, but it's really not hard.

While we're talking about OUI registrations

[mysidia]

Perhaps we should be talking about IPv4 address space; and why ALL of these, each of them hogging huge /8 networks, with 16,777,216 IPv4 addresses?
Most likely tens of thousands of times as many addresses as any of them should really be using. General Electric MIT, Ford, IBM, Xerox, Hewlett Packard X3, Apple, Computer Sciences Corp, the UK Ministry of Defense, DLA, Halliburton, Prudential, duPont, UK Government Department for Work and Pensions, SITA, The US Postal Service, the DoD Network Information Center, Cap Debis CCS

Internet Coke Machine ..

[codeusirae]

"The Coca-Cola company got a range of MAC addresses allocated .. What are they planning to use them for?" ..

To use in their Internet Coke Machine ..

In the US, corn-syrup Coca Cola

[greggster]

is the 'redefined "the real thing"'.. I decided to became a corn-syrup snob and that helped me kick the soda habit. Now I just drink coffee all day.

Yo

[terrywirth5]

Things go better with coke not Koch.

Re:FFS, all I wanted was some delicious sugar wate

[Anonymous Coward]

Punchline should have been:
"YOU WILL BE ENTERED IN A DRAWING TO WIN AN OFFICIAL COCA-COLA MUG OR T-SHIRT"
*2 months later he wins a t-shirt and you know what it says on it....*

Why do they need MAC addresses when every NIC has

[Danathar]

I'm a little confused here. Why would they need their own set of MAC addresses? Every NIC comes with one from the vendor. If Coke buys a NIC from somebody then the NIC has an Ethernet address.

Internet Enabled Vending Machines

[Anonymous Coward]

It's real simple... they want MAC addresses for their vending machines. Modern vending machines talk to a modem and can charge credit cards, as well as notify vendors when they need to be refilled or track sales statistics with granularity. The ones around here use a little cell modem, I think.

Out with the old

[Zynder]

mechanical spring type vending machines

...need to die in a horrible fire. They are antiquated pieces of shit that continue to linger on like to those damned dial indicator gas pumps with the blackjack style pull handle on the side. Neither will accept credit and so have to inconvenience the users by searching for someone to make change (which most will only do if you buy something) or by forcing you to prepay inside. The whole point of using a vending machine of any sort is so you don't have to deal with real people. Keeping both of these old ass relics just holds everyone back. They should go away with much speed, preferable into the Sun.

Re:Out with the old

[Zynder]

"preferably" was the word I was looking for!

Similar to MS products

[yenic]

That sounds like one of the more worthless uses of RFID. I doubt the percentage of people who do that is high enough to matter. Also, even if it did matter statistically, pop is so cheap to produce (especially with HFCS) that little is lost. I'd be more worried if people were no longer interested in stealing the rancid HFCS stuff (include me in that camp).

They'd be better off letting some people pirate a little bit than cutting them off. They might find something better.