Swiping left on magnetic stripes:
The shift away from the magnetic stripe points to both consumers changing habits for payments and the development of newer technologies. Today’s chip cards are powered by microprocessors that are much more capable and secure, and many are also embedded with tiny antennae that enable contactless transactions. Biometric cards, which combine fingerprints with chips to verify a cardholder’s identity, offer another layer of security.
Based on the decline in payments powered by magnetic stripes after chip-based payments took hold, newly-issued Mastercard credit and debit cards will not be required to have a stripe starting in 2024 in most markets. By 2033, no Mastercard credit and debit cards will have magnetic stripes, which leaves a long runway for the remaining partners who still rely on the technology to phase in chip card processing.
[...] More than half of Americans prefer using a chip card payment at a terminal over any other payment method, with security being the driving factor, according to a December survey for Mastercard by the Phoenix Consumer Monitor. That was followed by contactless payments — with a card or a digital wallet. Only 11% said they preferred to swipe, and that drops to 9% when looking at cardholders with experience using contactless payments.
And in a July study by Phoenix, 81% of American cardholders surveyed reported they would be comfortable with a card that does not have the magnetic stripe, and 92% would increase or keep usage of their cards the same if the magnetic stripe was no longer on the card.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 18 2021, @06:14AM
WHO DAT?
Who dat at my dawah?
Chicken? Did you bring chicken?
Nuttin' but another one of those JIVE TURKEYS.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 18 2021, @06:19AM
8===========D ~~~~ ~~ ~
Kept it all nice and juicy for ya.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 18 2021, @06:30AM
IBM came up with idea about the same time MasterCard was still Bank of America Card.
The mag stripe was designed for B.A.R.T. with 9-track tape segment glued to a poster board.
There was NO SECURITY in these early cards or even later...
In 1989, if you checked into a hotel in Hong Kong, with-in one hour 20 duplicate cards where only magnet stripe was change were on the street. So hotel was skimming the cards-- no more elegant than that. They tapped the POTS lines for CrCard Clearing houses. So when the system asked for authorization - TRACK2 was sent to clearing house with all the information... ALL IN THE CLEAR! Did not even start to encrypt that connection in earnst until 1996 time frame. ZonJR did that too.
Hell that thought the card number being modulo-10 was good. Except if transpose a 09 for 90. Still was valid math. Or if transpose 1n0 and 0n1 or 2nnn3 and 3nnn2 still valid modulo-10.
Reservation centers - finally stepped up encrypting at the point of entry. Again in the middle of 90's.
Europe on the other hand got to chip tech faster (15+ yrs before US) and card companies could even bring that working tech to the States, but instead crippled the tech.
Now they are going look at this shine thing... removing the unencrypted track data on back of card.... Aren't we good? YOU ARE LATE.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by krishnoid on Wednesday August 18 2021, @06:33AM (11 children)
The chip on the card wasn't working, so they had to swipe the strip, which did work. Maybe they could have typed in the numbers directly ... will that still work?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 18 2021, @07:36AM
Cards die. Always carry a backup. In a al shielded wallet.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday August 18 2021, @08:53AM (1 child)
My experience is the opposite: the magnetic strip is long gone before the chip starts failing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 18 2021, @08:33PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday August 18 2021, @04:34PM (6 children)
There should be two chips on cards so they would work inserted or handled either way and provide backup. Of course, with the speed of American banking innovation, it'd take another 20 years. By that time most of the world would do without cards at all, but by simple client recognition technique.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday August 18 2021, @09:26PM
Discover lets you order more than one card (with different designs, if you want them), so having a backup card is an option too, I guess.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 18 2021, @09:28PM
Yup send Amazon hour palm print. The give you $10 dllar credit. Wave at the scanner at whole food and pay your bill. Then they use at the poles since it is a fact no privacy issues.
To get your president Gary back. Cut you hands off
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday August 19 2021, @10:18AM (3 children)
[1] The first-gen ones were really bad because they'd use WiFi or Bluetooth to talk to a base station containing a MODEM. If no one had made a payment for a few minutes, you'd have a 30+ second delay while they made the connection.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday August 19 2021, @03:32PM (2 children)
No matter how often the issues are, the mere possibility makes a client to carry an additional card issued by a competitor so the banks loses a sizable portion of profits. So, skimming pennies on card design seems unwise. As per server failures, it's all withing the banks authority to fix and if a bank can't do it it should be abandoned.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday August 20 2021, @11:31AM (1 child)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday August 20 2021, @05:40PM
An average old card costs about $1 while the most advanced triple interface ones $2. An extra chip would be less that $1. Meantime banks charge 2+% processing fees. One $50 purchase at a supermarket covers the costs, while my weekly trip is $200 not counting beer and steaks.
Now, each time I pay I have to check which way I handle the bloody thing and if I wave it never works from the first attempt. It actually feels broken every time. Anyone who can fix these everyday nuances will rip the market. But it'll not happen. Even damn usb c connector, which we pay for, took how long?
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by optotronic on Thursday August 19 2021, @01:48AM
I had this happen a couple times with one of my cards recently. Someone suggested holding the card in place after inserting. This has been working since, but I need a couple more months to consider it a permanent fix.
(Score: 2) by wirelessduck on Wednesday August 18 2021, @08:20AM (6 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 18 2021, @09:51AM
Mostly just chip. No sign, pin, or fish.
(Score: 3, Informative) by legont on Wednesday August 18 2021, @04:36PM (1 child)
Yes, most of the time.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 19 2021, @02:39AM
Only one store I've been to in the last year needed a signature. It is usually just chip, no signature. And, at one store with bum card readers where I usually have to swipe after chip fails to read, it is just swipe, no signature. Ditto for the places with tap, no signature is ever asked for.
I think covid helped get rid of signature requirement at most of the places that still required one. Since handling the stylus was considered a potential vector. I've also noticed most places have gotten rid of their touch screen prompts too.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 18 2021, @06:10PM
Chip and sign is bad, because nobody checks the signatures. But other than delay due to often slow card readers it doesn't seem like a regression over swipe and sign (which is also bad, but accepted for historical reasons).
Chip and pin is also bad, because you're entering your pin on a device not controlled by you so skimming is trivial, shoulder-surfing is often trivial, the pin is usually required to be short enough to make the previous points even more trivial, and in some cases retailers can just ignore pin errors and put the payments through anyway somehow so what is the point. Have also heard claims of financial institutions rejecting claims of obvious fraud because chip and pin is so secure so how could fraud be possible, ignoring the things in the previous sentence, but I do not know if this sentence is fact or rumor.
Tap is also bad, allegedly because it is possible to intercept enough information wirelessly to make additional payments. I seem to recall the Mythbusters claiming they were going to demonstrate this but didn't due to threats of advertisements being pulled, but I might be misremembering this and can't be bothered to look it up.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday August 18 2021, @08:03PM (1 child)
Chip and PIN would be better. Nobody checks signatures. Even if they do, they can't really know if it is the right signature, and even worse if the authorized person is denied because the minimum wage slave doesn't think the signature matches.
Requiring a Chip and a PIN would automate that. They have to know the PIN and have obtained it somehow.
Blank ones for fun. Build your own ID card system.
Fused J2A040 Chip Java JCOP Cards w/HiCo 2 Track Mag Stripe JCOP21-36K - 100 Pack [amazon.com]
They run a subset of Java. Not what runs on desktops and servers.
There can be only one cable TV Network: USABCNNBCBSyFy
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 18 2021, @09:29PM
You can't run a "subset" on the server? No wonder every program's so damn bloated if you have to use every bit of the language in every program!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @02:33AM
per headline