Chip and PIN - as safe as Swiss cheese condoms
UK research has revealed a serious flaw in Chip and PIN machines that authenticate debit and credit card transactions. Two of the most popular PIN entry devices in the UK are vulnerable to a paper clip, a needle and a small recording device. This is because UK banks opted to issue cheaper cards that do not use asymmetric cryptography to encrypt data. Tampered PIN entry devices have already been used to steal £80,000 from 1,500 people when crooks cloned their cards using a doctored device in a local petrol station.
tags: Chip and PIN, credit cards, crimeCivil liberties campaigners get it wrong in defending the indefensible
The children’s commissioners for England and Scotland have joined civil liberties campaigners calling for a ban on the sale and use of a device that emits a high-pitched noise designed to disperse young people, reports The Independent. Alongside the article is a poll, in which 52% of respondents don’t agree. I’m with them on this one—if the police can’t or won’t do anything about the terrorism of the elderly, and all we have are the lamentably inadequate and ineffective Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) when they eventually do act, then I don’t see how sending packs of kids running away covering their ears affects their civil liberties at all. What about everyone else’s?
