[PLUG-TALK] Debit card fraud

Keith Lofstrom keithl at gate.kl-ic.com
Sat Sep 26 05:42:44 UTC 2015


> >A skimmer? Whassat?

On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 05:12:55AM -0700, Rich Shepard wrote:
>   Read all about 'em at <http://www.krebsonsecurity.com/>. He's published
> extensively on ATM skimmers including a couple earlier this week on new ones
> in Mexico that work via bluetooth. It's a world-wide problem that will not
> be solved even with the new chip-enabled cards that US banks will (finally)
> slowly start issuing.

Depends on the problem needing solving.  My bank issued a new
chip-and-pin card to replace my old stripe card - before I
activated it, I looked at the enabling legislation.  If I
read that correctly, the legislation assumes the new cards
are perfectly secure and thus any irregularities are the 
fault of user, the bank is no longer responsible.  That
solves the problem for the bank, not for you - you have
less risk until the crooks figure this out, more after.

But then, I may have read the legislation wrong, my credit
union may protect me anyway just because they love me so much,
or maybe the crooks will never ever ever figure this out.
Instead, we will all get free ice cream and ponies.

Keith

P.S. apropos not much:  I recently did the math for an economic
comparison example: providing free ice cream and ponies to
everyone in the world would cost about $15 trillion a year,
most of that for feed, stable rental, and vet bills, though
a pint a day of good ice cream isn't cheap.  When people talk
about extremely expensive new government programs to provide 
this or that, I compare it to free ice cream and ponies.

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com



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