Actually, the name you sign doesn't have to match the name printed on the card, so I suppose "See ID" could be a valid signature if you decide you want to do that. Of course, you'd have to sign your charge slips the same way. And if you're worried about someone forging your real signature, surely it's easier for them to forge this "signature", so what's the point?
Whereas the story for check cards will more like go like this: [horror story]
Indeed. The big difference between credit and debit cards isn't the ease of committing fraud, but the consequences of fraud if it occurs.
However, the other debit cards are worse. Finding your PIN isn't any harder for a scammer than forging your signature, and on PIN debit cards, you don't have the fraud guarantees that you do with Visa - so not only will your checks bounce and your credit score fall, but you'll never see that money again.
The banks know that the check cards have extreamly bad security. That is the point. To shift the risk to you.
Nonsense. They have exactly the same level of security as a regular credit card. They do pose slightly less risk to the bank, since you're spending your own money instead of the bank's money, but something tells me the money they take in from credit card interest far outweighs what they lose to fraud.
The thing about these commercials that always got me was that they showed that you didn't need ID AND you didn't need a pin. They actively advertised that they were easy to commit fraud with.
No, you still have to sign when you use them. Forging a stranger's signature is harder than watching him type his PIN.
That's not a valid signature, unless your name happens to be See Id. Your card is invalid according to Visa, and merchants who follow the rules are supposed to make you sign it in front of them, just as if you hadn't written anything there at all.
According to page 29 of this PDF: "If you are suspicious about the transaction or feel you need additional information to insure the identity of the cardholder, make a Code 10 call." Page 33 describes the code 10 procedure, which is basically just making a phone call and answering some questions, all done in a manner designed not to make the customer suspicious (which is why they call it "code 10" instead of "I think this card is STOLEN!").
Wow. I didn't know that. I guess I shall be calling it soon - EBGames always checks ID for all credit card purchases. (They have a sign, too...) And yes, they take Visa - I only carry a Visa card. Not only that, but they record down the ID presented and the number. I believe that would really be against their rules...
Indeed. Here are the merchant rules (PDF). Page 29 says "merchants cannot refuse to complete a purchase transaction because a cardholder refuses to provide ID. Visa believes merchants should not ask for ID as part of their regular card acceptance procedures. Laws in several states also make it illegal for merchants to write a cardholder's personal information, such as an address or phone number, on a sales receipt."
Anyhow, how are merchants supposed to check signatures?
Look at one, look at the other, and decide whether they match.
If you don't sign the back of the card, they ask you sign right there, so the signature strip on the back is useless for comparisons.
Well, it's useless that one time. But if you don't sign the back of the card, it's not valid anyway; you're supposed to sign it as soon as you get it.
On the same page of the merchant rules is this procedure for dealing with unsigned cards:
1. Ask for ID. (This is the only time it's acceptable to demand ID.) 2. Ask the customer to sign the card while you watch. If he refuses to sign, do not accept the card. 3. Compare the signature on the card against the signature on the ID.
I can't recall what the purpose of the signature on the back of the card is for, other than maybe indicating that it's a valid instrument for financial transactions?
It's there so merchants can make sure you're the same person who the card was issued to. Forging a signature isn't as easy as it sounds.
I can't tell you how many times I've had cashiers ring up a sale without ever even looking at either my ID or my signature on the back of the credit card.
They're supposed to check your signature, but not your ID.
Remember those Visa Check Card commercials from a few years back, where some easily recognizable celebrity would walk into a store without his ID, try to pay for something with a check, and be frustrated when the clerk couldn't recognize him? The point was you don't need ID when you pay with Visa, you just need your signature. In fact, it's against Visa's merchant rules for a store to require ID with a purchase: they can ask, but if you refuse, they still have to go through with the transaction. (If they won't let you pay without ID, call (800) VISA-911 and file a complaint.)
Most UK stores refuse credit/debit cards for payments under £10 ($18 or so).
That's against the credit card merchant agreements, at least here in the US: Visa forbids merchants from setting a minimum payment. I can go into any grocery store and buy a 30 cent pack of gum with my credit card - not that I would, but I do regularly use plastic for transactions of less than $10.
We live in a two-party system because of Duverger's law. Complaining about how Democrats and Republicans are all the same won't do anything; the most you can hope for is two different parties to choose from, and then in a few years, those two will be the same anyway. It's how the system works. The only way to change it is to change the way we run elections: approval voting, ranked voting, or proportional representation.
Not really. Electronics stores don't accept food stamps, you know. Have you actually met any of these alleged people--let's call them "welfare queens"--or just heard scary stories?
It seems to me that is only half true. Smoking ANYTHING is going to greatly increase your risks of cancer. It's not a guarantee, of course, but your argument seems somewhat akin to me to saying that if you play Russian Roulette there's no specific reason to believe you're going to blow your brains out. After all, five out of six chambers are empty, and that's probably better odds.
Exactly: the risks are potential outcomes, not certainties.
We can, however, estimate how likely they are and act accordingly. A 1-in-6 chance of death is intolerably high, so Russian Roulette is a bad choice. But where do you draw the line? In 2005, there were 14.66 traffic fatalities per 100,000 population (US DOT), so if you go anywhere near a car this year, you have about a 1-in-6821 chance of dying as a result. But you're probably willing to take that risk, right?
I suspect you picked pot for your argument because it seems as though it is one of the more innocuous drugs.
I picked it because it's in the subject line.
Even if I can't convince you that there's a difference between choosing to ski and getting hurt and choosing to shoot heroin and getting addicted (and all the stuff that entails), I think you will agree that there is a difference between something you do that causes your harm and something somebody else does that causes you harm.
When you're considering risks, you have to realize that you can't control what anyone else does, but you can control your own choices. If making a certain choice entails a certain risk of death, it doesn't matter whether that death comes at the hands of someone else or from your own stupidity--you're just as dead either way. What matters is simply whether the risk is low enough to be acceptable.
If you cross the street in a stupid way (dart out into traffic, don't look both ways, that sort of thing) then it's absolutely your fault. If you do it safely, it's a perfectly safe thing--barring the idiocy of other drivers. You can't control the actions of other people and in this example, crossing the street is likely something that you can not avoid in the way that drug use or even the skiing would be avoidable.
Well, crossing the street involves a series of choices, and each of those can raise or lower your risk. Drug use is the same way, though. If you use pot by filtering the smoke, heating it in a vaporizer, or eating it, you lower or eliminate the risk of cancer; if you control the amount, frequency, and situations in which you use any drug, you can control your risk of becoming addicted; and so on.
For the most part, I don't believe taxpayers should be forced to pay for negative consequences of those actions either, no. The only exception I draw is medical: I don't think it is right to let anybody die or suffer for lack of ability to pay, including drug users. However, other effects should be yours to deal with. It should be your responsibility to sober up. It should be your responsibility if whatever happens to you causes you to lose your job, or go to jail, or lose your house. If you spent your life savings on that ski trip or drug addiction, that's your problem. I'm not unsympathetic, and I would wholly support your fellow citizens or church groups or whatever CHOOSING to help you out; I simply don't support the forced charity that it would become to divert taxes.
I agree. I don't think any taxes are being diverted to resolving any of the consequences other than those directly related to keeping people alive, though (the necessities: food, shelter, and medical care), and I can't think of any others I'd support. In fact, I thought those were the ones we were talking about.
Or are you saying you'd let people die from starvation and exposure to the elements, just not disease or injury?
Exactly how does Apple do this? By not selling OSX for Intel separately in a box?
By incorporating code into the OS that prevents it from running on non-Apple hardware. Perhaps you've heard of the DSMOS kernel extension or the magic poem? If not, I suggest you do your homework before making any more claims about Apple's lock-in strategy or lack thereof.
Get it: Apple builds computer SYSTEMS but does not make an OS. They have no obligation to make or sell you the OS they happen to include with their complete systems. [...]
Nice little rant, but it's irrelevant. I'm not talking about any obligations. I'm just pointing out that Apple's history of DRM use isn't any better than MS's, although they seem to use it for a different purpose (selling more hardware instead of selling more data).
Yes, they actively try to stop people from running it on other machines, through both legal means and technical means. Search for "Do Not Steal Mac OS X" and "magic poem".
The override feature we really need is one that lets the owner--a person with physical control over the PC--lie about the software installed on his computer, that is, attest that he's running a specific configuration, whether or not he really is. That way, we get the advantages of TPM (e.g. encryption with the keys kept in hardware, and some protection against malware) without the drawbacks (remote entities being able to deny us service based on the content of our PCs, which is really none of their business).
I don't think it's true of Apple either. Mac OS X integrates DRM too, to keep users locked into Apple hardware - much like what the iPod's DRM does. MS uses their DRM to make you buy content; Apple uses theirs to make you buy hardware.
Should I have gone with the Gigabeat and just used BitTorrent (yay UTorrent!) to get my audiobooks? Possibly...because I don't think that Audible.com deserves any money because they suck. But overall I would rather be guilt-free.
Easy solution: do it but don't feel guilty about it. Just realize that you're copying bits, and copying bits doesn't hurt anyone. If you want to pay the authors, mail them a check for a dollar; they'll probably get more out of the deal that way anyway.
All of your specific examples are examples of accidents. While you may get hurt skiing, there's no specific reason to believe that if you get on the slopes today, you're going to hurt yourself. There are plenty of people who ski all their lives and never have any serious injury (or any injury at all). Same with driving, and definitely with something like crossing the street.
The same is true of drug use, of course. There's no specific reason to believe that if you smoke a joint, you're going to get lung cancer, or run over a kid on a bike at the drive-thru, or spend the rest of your life sitting on the couch doing nothing. That happens to some pot smokers, yes - just like a broken leg happens to some skiiers.
Drug use is not an accident, nor are the effects of it unknown.
This statement has exactly as much meaningful content as "Skiing is not an accident, nor are the effects of it unknown" - which is to say, none.
You known if you light up a joint or get yourself drunk or ram yourself full of heroin that it is going to have certain effects on you, potentially including addiction and death. Even if it doesn't go that far, there WILL be some effect.
The effects that are certain are not the negative ones you seem to be concerned about. Pot makes you stoned, alcohol makes you drunk, heroin makes you whatever-you-call-it.. and that's about where the certainties stop. As you said yourself, addiction and death are potential effects. Most people who drink alcohol, for example, won't become alcoholics or die of cirrhosis. Those are possible effects, but uncommon ones, just like breaking a leg on the slopes or getting hit by a car while you cross the street.
If these negative effects mess up your life, I stop short of saying you deserve what you get but I certainly don't believe your fellow taxpayers should be forced to pay for your slack.
Again, I hope you also believe your fellow taxpayers shouldn't be forced to pay for the possible negative consequences of skiing, driving, etc. After all, nobody does those things by accident, and the (potential) effects are known.
The problem is that we have this wonderful idea that there should be a "social safety net" whereby people can choose to be supported by taxpayers so they can spend all their time in a stupor.
If the people that chose this life were left to fend for themselves and starve, that would be fine with me.
Would you also extend that to people who get injured playing sports, skiing, driving a car, walking across the street, or making any other voluntary choice? Or only drugs?
Or are you just one of those... well, I can't think of a better word than "sociopaths"... who wants to tear down the whole system and let everyone starve if they make the wrong investments, don't save enough, or get sufficiently unlucky?
You can retire from life in the US and live off welfare, SSI and other state-funded programs.
If by "live off welfare" you mean "avoid dying of hunger", you're right. There's a bit more to life than that, though, and our welfare system doesn't provide any of the rest. Anyone who'd rather give up on life to live in a slum and eat government cheese than work deserves our pity more than anything.
HDTV can't really take off until a good HDTV model is affordable for the masses, and at this rate, that'll still be another three years or so. Why get a 19" 4:3 HDTV for $170 when you can get a 19" 4:3 SDTV for $80? It's not like you can tell the difference anyway; a 19" 4:3 set doesn't provide any of the advantages that HDTV is known for.
Target had a 19" LCD HDTV for around $170. Most of the shoppers had one of these in their cart. At this price point, just about everyone can afford to have an HDTV. There is little or no market for a standard tube TV anymore, when a HDTV can be had at the same price point.
I don't know about you, but I have a 27" TV in my living room, and so does everyone I know (if not a larger one).
19" is tiny, especially for a widescreen display. Using this calculator to compare the sizes, I see that even for 16:9 content, my current TV has 69% more screen area than a 19" HDTV.
Now, most of the content I watch is still 4:3, for which I'd need a 31-32" HDTV to match the screen size I have now. Even if I only watched 16:9 content, I'd still need a 24-25" screen to match the size of my current set. The closest I can find on Target's site is a 26" HDTV for $399. That's nearly twice what I paid for my TV, and even then, the screen is still 61% smaller for 4:3 content - everything on Comedy Central, Adult Swim, etc.!
HDTV prices still have a long way to fall before they'll be affordable.
You left out the beginning of that sentence. Let me fix it for you: According to the Portages-de-l'Outaouais school board, the incident took place a month ago, when one student provoked the teacher into yelling at her while a classmate secretly taped the confrontation.
Now, remember, this is a statement from the same school board that's banning all electronic devices simply because they can be used to provide a factual record of teachers' actions. (Whether the video was taken out of context or not, that's still what this ban boils down to: preventing students from recording factual evidence, which means anyone who complains about a teacher's actions will have to rely on nothing more than their word.)
There isn't even a statement from the girls themselves. Why should we trust the school board's story that this was an orchestrated prank, rather than a teacher simply getting caught yelling at a student?
Keep in mind that I'm not saying that everything they teach you isn't worthless in real life. As indicated above, it's the self-discipline you're demonstrating. I can't think of many professions that don't require that.
As I've said, the self-discipline that most students are expected to demonstrate boils down to putting in a lot of work for no meaningful reward, or in the best case, a potential reward that may or may not arrive several years in the future (a degree hardly guarantees that you'll land a high paying job). That has parallels to investment--putting money away now in the hopes that it'll turn into more money in the future--but few professions, if any, actually require such masochism.
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Actually, the name you sign doesn't have to match the name printed on the card, so I suppose "See ID" could be a valid signature if you decide you want to do that. Of course, you'd have to sign your charge slips the same way. And if you're worried about someone forging your real signature, surely it's easier for them to forge this "signature", so what's the point?
Indeed. The big difference between credit and debit cards isn't the ease of committing fraud, but the consequences of fraud if it occurs.
However, the other debit cards are worse. Finding your PIN isn't any harder for a scammer than forging your signature, and on PIN debit cards, you don't have the fraud guarantees that you do with Visa - so not only will your checks bounce and your credit score fall, but you'll never see that money again.
Nonsense. They have exactly the same level of security as a regular credit card. They do pose slightly less risk to the bank, since you're spending your own money instead of the bank's money, but something tells me the money they take in from credit card interest far outweighs what they lose to fraud.
No, you still have to sign when you use them. Forging a stranger's signature is harder than watching him type his PIN.
That's not a valid signature, unless your name happens to be See Id. Your card is invalid according to Visa, and merchants who follow the rules are supposed to make you sign it in front of them, just as if you hadn't written anything there at all.
According to page 29 of this PDF: "If you are suspicious about the transaction or feel you need additional information to insure the identity of the cardholder, make a Code 10 call." Page 33 describes the code 10 procedure, which is basically just making a phone call and answering some questions, all done in a manner designed not to make the customer suspicious (which is why they call it "code 10" instead of "I think this card is STOLEN!").
Indeed. Here are the merchant rules (PDF). Page 29 says "merchants cannot refuse to complete a purchase transaction because a cardholder refuses to provide ID. Visa believes merchants should not ask for ID as part of their regular card acceptance procedures. Laws in several states also make it illegal for merchants to write a cardholder's personal information, such as an address or phone number, on a sales receipt."
Look at one, look at the other, and decide whether they match.
Well, it's useless that one time. But if you don't sign the back of the card, it's not valid anyway; you're supposed to sign it as soon as you get it.
On the same page of the merchant rules is this procedure for dealing with unsigned cards:
1. Ask for ID. (This is the only time it's acceptable to demand ID.)
2. Ask the customer to sign the card while you watch. If he refuses to sign, do not accept the card.
3. Compare the signature on the card against the signature on the ID.
It's there so merchants can make sure you're the same person who the card was issued to. Forging a signature isn't as easy as it sounds.
They're supposed to check your signature, but not your ID.
Remember those Visa Check Card commercials from a few years back, where some easily recognizable celebrity would walk into a store without his ID, try to pay for something with a check, and be frustrated when the clerk couldn't recognize him? The point was you don't need ID when you pay with Visa, you just need your signature. In fact, it's against Visa's merchant rules for a store to require ID with a purchase: they can ask, but if you refuse, they still have to go through with the transaction. (If they won't let you pay without ID, call (800) VISA-911 and file a complaint.)
That's against the credit card merchant agreements, at least here in the US: Visa forbids merchants from setting a minimum payment. I can go into any grocery store and buy a 30 cent pack of gum with my credit card - not that I would, but I do regularly use plastic for transactions of less than $10.
We live in a two-party system because of Duverger's law. Complaining about how Democrats and Republicans are all the same won't do anything; the most you can hope for is two different parties to choose from, and then in a few years, those two will be the same anyway. It's how the system works. The only way to change it is to change the way we run elections: approval voting, ranked voting, or proportional representation.
The consumer is waiting for prices to come down, because he can't justify spending a month's pay on a TV set.
Well then, I hope you tipped off the authorities. If there's fraud involved, I'm sure they'd be interested.
Not really. Electronics stores don't accept food stamps, you know. Have you actually met any of these alleged people--let's call them "welfare queens"--or just heard scary stories?
Exactly: the risks are potential outcomes, not certainties.
We can, however, estimate how likely they are and act accordingly. A 1-in-6 chance of death is intolerably high, so Russian Roulette is a bad choice. But where do you draw the line? In 2005, there were 14.66 traffic fatalities per 100,000 population (US DOT), so if you go anywhere near a car this year, you have about a 1-in-6821 chance of dying as a result. But you're probably willing to take that risk, right?
I picked it because it's in the subject line.
When you're considering risks, you have to realize that you can't control what anyone else does, but you can control your own choices. If making a certain choice entails a certain risk of death, it doesn't matter whether that death comes at the hands of someone else or from your own stupidity--you're just as dead either way. What matters is simply whether the risk is low enough to be acceptable.
Well, crossing the street involves a series of choices, and each of those can raise or lower your risk. Drug use is the same way, though. If you use pot by filtering the smoke, heating it in a vaporizer, or eating it, you lower or eliminate the risk of cancer; if you control the amount, frequency, and situations in which you use any drug, you can control your risk of becoming addicted; and so on.
I agree. I don't think any taxes are being diverted to resolving any of the consequences other than those directly related to keeping people alive, though (the necessities: food, shelter, and medical care), and I can't think of any others I'd support. In fact, I thought those were the ones we were talking about.
Or are you saying you'd let people die from starvation and exposure to the elements, just not disease or injury?
By incorporating code into the OS that prevents it from running on non-Apple hardware. Perhaps you've heard of the DSMOS kernel extension or the magic poem? If not, I suggest you do your homework before making any more claims about Apple's lock-in strategy or lack thereof.
Nice little rant, but it's irrelevant. I'm not talking about any obligations. I'm just pointing out that Apple's history of DRM use isn't any better than MS's, although they seem to use it for a different purpose (selling more hardware instead of selling more data).
Yes, they actively try to stop people from running it on other machines, through both legal means and technical means. Search for "Do Not Steal Mac OS X" and "magic poem".
Then that's a pretty useless switch.
The override feature we really need is one that lets the owner--a person with physical control over the PC--lie about the software installed on his computer, that is, attest that he's running a specific configuration, whether or not he really is. That way, we get the advantages of TPM (e.g. encryption with the keys kept in hardware, and some protection against malware) without the drawbacks (remote entities being able to deny us service based on the content of our PCs, which is really none of their business).
I don't think it's true of Apple either. Mac OS X integrates DRM too, to keep users locked into Apple hardware - much like what the iPod's DRM does. MS uses their DRM to make you buy content; Apple uses theirs to make you buy hardware.
Easy solution: do it but don't feel guilty about it. Just realize that you're copying bits, and copying bits doesn't hurt anyone. If you want to pay the authors, mail them a check for a dollar; they'll probably get more out of the deal that way anyway.
The same is true of drug use, of course. There's no specific reason to believe that if you smoke a joint, you're going to get lung cancer, or run over a kid on a bike at the drive-thru, or spend the rest of your life sitting on the couch doing nothing. That happens to some pot smokers, yes - just like a broken leg happens to some skiiers.
This statement has exactly as much meaningful content as "Skiing is not an accident, nor are the effects of it unknown" - which is to say, none.
The effects that are certain are not the negative ones you seem to be concerned about. Pot makes you stoned, alcohol makes you drunk, heroin makes you whatever-you-call-it.. and that's about where the certainties stop. As you said yourself, addiction and death are potential effects. Most people who drink alcohol, for example, won't become alcoholics or die of cirrhosis. Those are possible effects, but uncommon ones, just like breaking a leg on the slopes or getting hit by a car while you cross the street.
Again, I hope you also believe your fellow taxpayers shouldn't be forced to pay for the possible negative consequences of skiing, driving, etc. After all, nobody does those things by accident, and the (potential) effects are known.
You're right, they can't.
Would you also extend that to people who get injured playing sports, skiing, driving a car, walking across the street, or making any other voluntary choice? Or only drugs?
Or are you just one of those... well, I can't think of a better word than "sociopaths"... who wants to tear down the whole system and let everyone starve if they make the wrong investments, don't save enough, or get sufficiently unlucky?
If by "live off welfare" you mean "avoid dying of hunger", you're right. There's a bit more to life than that, though, and our welfare system doesn't provide any of the rest. Anyone who'd rather give up on life to live in a slum and eat government cheese than work deserves our pity more than anything.
HDTV can't really take off until a good HDTV model is affordable for the masses, and at this rate, that'll still be another three years or so. Why get a 19" 4:3 HDTV for $170 when you can get a 19" 4:3 SDTV for $80? It's not like you can tell the difference anyway; a 19" 4:3 set doesn't provide any of the advantages that HDTV is known for.
I don't know about you, but I have a 27" TV in my living room, and so does everyone I know (if not a larger one).
19" is tiny, especially for a widescreen display. Using this calculator to compare the sizes, I see that even for 16:9 content, my current TV has 69% more screen area than a 19" HDTV.
Now, most of the content I watch is still 4:3, for which I'd need a 31-32" HDTV to match the screen size I have now. Even if I only watched 16:9 content, I'd still need a 24-25" screen to match the size of my current set. The closest I can find on Target's site is a 26" HDTV for $399. That's nearly twice what I paid for my TV, and even then, the screen is still 61% smaller for 4:3 content - everything on Comedy Central, Adult Swim, etc.!
HDTV prices still have a long way to fall before they'll be affordable.
You left out the beginning of that sentence. Let me fix it for you: According to the Portages-de-l'Outaouais school board, the incident took place a month ago, when one student provoked the teacher into yelling at her while a classmate secretly taped the confrontation.
Now, remember, this is a statement from the same school board that's banning all electronic devices simply because they can be used to provide a factual record of teachers' actions. (Whether the video was taken out of context or not, that's still what this ban boils down to: preventing students from recording factual evidence, which means anyone who complains about a teacher's actions will have to rely on nothing more than their word.)
There isn't even a statement from the girls themselves. Why should we trust the school board's story that this was an orchestrated prank, rather than a teacher simply getting caught yelling at a student?
As I've said, the self-discipline that most students are expected to demonstrate boils down to putting in a lot of work for no meaningful reward, or in the best case, a potential reward that may or may not arrive several years in the future (a degree hardly guarantees that you'll land a high paying job). That has parallels to investment--putting money away now in the hopes that it'll turn into more money in the future--but few professions, if any, actually require such masochism.