Comment Re:Positive pressure? (Score 1) 378
The chip requires a PIN to be entered. If you don';t do that correctly within three times, the card is rendered useless.
And this does not have to be three consecutive times.
So even if you have the card, you are unable to do any purchases with it.
Turns out: not so much. As was predicted by the security community, there are flaws, and after a couple years the flaws were exploited, and the PIN is retrievable. This cycle has repeated (is chip-and-PIN in its 3rd generation now? it's at least the second).
Chip-and-PIN means only that the bank makes you liable for your stolen money, claiming "the card couldn't possibly have been stolen because magic". It solves a problem for the banks, and makes it worse for the consumer - shocking, I know.