Contactless Payments
Oct. 13th, 2011 08:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplecatEgg has been bought out by Barclaycard. As a result I am to receive a barclaycard. I'm taking steps to remedy this but in the interim I've been reading the wee booklet they sent me and am struck by its assurances about contactless payments
"you'll be able to make contactless payments up to £15.
...
it's really safe to use so you can shop with confidence knowing your account is secure.
....
Instead of inserting your card in the Chip and PIN reader and entering your PIN, to make a contactless payment you simply hold your card near the reader. And that's it - off you go."
No, it obviously isn't "really safe" otherwise you'd let me spend more than £15 at a time with it. In fact I can see no protection at all, under this system, which prevents someone with the right kind of reader wandering around a crowded shopping centre quietly nicking £15 from every customer in range. I had hoped that, like Chip and PIN, you might at least need to confirm your purchase with a PIN number (even though there are security issues with broadcasting PIN numbers wirelessly between devices) but it doesn't look like you do.
I'm also imagining the chaos that will be caused when the person behind you in the queue accidentally pays for your shopping because they were standing too close and holding their credit card while you were fussing around in your bag.
Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic, but I can't see anything which suggests that contactless credit cards aren't the plastic equivalent of wandering around with your purse open and a sign on it saying "help yourself". Well, OK, you do need the right kind of card reader and then a way to quickly launder your ill-gotten gains but I have rather more confidence in the ingenuity of the criminal fraternity than I do in the forethought that has gone into preventing abuse of these things.
This entry was originally posted at http://purplecat.dreamwidth.org/55919.html.
"you'll be able to make contactless payments up to £15.
...
it's really safe to use so you can shop with confidence knowing your account is secure.
....
Instead of inserting your card in the Chip and PIN reader and entering your PIN, to make a contactless payment you simply hold your card near the reader. And that's it - off you go."
No, it obviously isn't "really safe" otherwise you'd let me spend more than £15 at a time with it. In fact I can see no protection at all, under this system, which prevents someone with the right kind of reader wandering around a crowded shopping centre quietly nicking £15 from every customer in range. I had hoped that, like Chip and PIN, you might at least need to confirm your purchase with a PIN number (even though there are security issues with broadcasting PIN numbers wirelessly between devices) but it doesn't look like you do.
I'm also imagining the chaos that will be caused when the person behind you in the queue accidentally pays for your shopping because they were standing too close and holding their credit card while you were fussing around in your bag.
Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic, but I can't see anything which suggests that contactless credit cards aren't the plastic equivalent of wandering around with your purse open and a sign on it saying "help yourself". Well, OK, you do need the right kind of card reader and then a way to quickly launder your ill-gotten gains but I have rather more confidence in the ingenuity of the criminal fraternity than I do in the forethought that has gone into preventing abuse of these things.
This entry was originally posted at http://purplecat.dreamwidth.org/55919.html.