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Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
Forget fraud, Société Générale and Groupe BPCE's new bank cards are about to change everything about fraud.
Part of the problem is that once your card details are stolen – whether through a phishing attack or by someone copying the digits on the back – fraudsters are free to go on a spending spree until you notice something's up.
They're getting away with millions, and it's a problem affecting over half a million people in the first half of 2016 alone.
Normally by the time you get around to actually cancelling your card, it's all too late. But what if the numbers on your card changed every hour so that, even if a fraudster copied them, they'd quickly be out of date?
That's exactly what two French banks are starting to do with their new high-tech ebank cards.
On the back of each card is a 3 digit security number which you must quote to validate any online or telephone purchase. If this number is compromised then there is nothing to prevent the card being used by anyone else. But on the new card the digits are displayed on a small LCD 7-segment display:
The three digits on the back of this card will change, every hour, for three years. And after they change, the previous three digits are essentially worthless, and that's a huge blow for criminals.
Providing that you still have the card in your possession, then whoever has access to the current security number has less than 1 hour to make use of the card. No details are given on how the card issuer and businesses keep synchronised with the current valid card number.
[Ed's Note: Edited to show LCD display rather than LED. Apologies for my error.]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:05PM
I actually remember the LM3909.
My college roommate made these things he called a "fuzzy blink". It was a big furr ball with a mouth, nose, and two cloth hollow tube extensions coming out where eyes would be and a blinking LED at the end of each little tube to make two blinking eyes.
Powered by a D cell. Sow it up into the cloth. Forget ever servicing it.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:33PM
I have no comment on the aesthetics of that other than I hope I can sleep at night now, but yeah a D cell should run it until it naturally rust thru and leaks, probably five years. I suppose the aesthetics could be cute or could be Lovecraftian, so it depends a bit.
In the old days you could guess a decent AA primary cell at 2 aH and 10 aH for a D cell. I imagine its changed a lot over the years, all new battery chemistry. Do mercury free alkalines have more energy or less or just higher internal resistance? Who knows and I'm too lazy to pull data sheets.
As an exercise in arithmetic its interesting to see how bright a LED you can get from various combinations of exotic lithium primary cells and exotic drivers and exotic low current LEDs. They say the cells are shelf stable to a decade, and to one sig fig there's 100K hours in a decade. Now a days a half mA gives a very dull red you won't be reading books with that or blinding people but you'll see its on. The biggest problem with "switchless flashlights" that I can remember is the lithium battery chemistry dies in a decade but white LEDs phosphor dies in about 2, 3 years of continuous use, so even at low brightness you have to use a monocolor like a red LED.
(Score: 1) by Chrontius on Wednesday October 05 2016, @11:55PM
Modern rechargeables (Eneloops and similar low-self-discharge chemistries) offer exactly that - 2 AH in a AA, and 10 AH in a D cell - but the difference between NiMH and alkaline is that NiMH delivers their rated capacity at close to 1C - one capacity per hour - whereas alkalines deliver their rated energy with draws of only about 150 mA for a D cell. Decent for low-drain stuff like remote controls - if not for the pesky tendency to leak and destroy your gear.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday October 06 2016, @01:27PM
This was definitely back in the 'old daze'. I don't know what the capacity of an alkaline D cell was in 1981.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.