The point is that the "magic number" would be different for each purpose (i.e. generated by you for this transaction with Sony).

The key here though is not the technological hurdles - it'd be relatively easy to come up with a better system. The problem is that its not cheaper for Visa et al to switch - and they have no incentive to do so. The system as designed puts the economic burden on the merchants (and then the consumers) leaving the "cardtels" unscathed.

Until that externality is addressed, we will continue to read about breaches in the news.

Yup to the CAFC... where all patent cases go to die (look at this week's TIVO/Echostar "decision" in its *seventh* year of appeals).

My guess is that the Linux Kernel will be in version 12 before this concludes.

Plug it in at home, problem solved.

However: Why buy a server at all? Get a hosted vm image somewhere, throw the software on there, and just have everyone in the department use it. Putting a machine on the IT department's network is what causing the issue (legitimately for them, annoyingly for you) remove that part of the equation, and the problem is largely solved (only issue left would be whether keeping the schedule outside is a privacy, or policy violation).

...playing Angry Birds on his ipad and laughing at how expertly he trolled slashdot!

(obligatory Douglas Adams reference)

"You get this bath, see? Imagine you've got this bath. And it's ebony. And it's conical."

"Conical?" said Arthur. "What sort of ..."

"Shhh!" said Ford. "It's conical. So what you do is, you see, you fill it with fine white sand, all right? Or sugar. Fine white sand, and/or sugar. Anything. Doesn't matter. Sugar's fine. And when it's full, you pull the plug out ... are you listening?"

"I'm listening."

"You pull the plug out, and it all just twirls away, twirls away you see, out of the plughole."

"I see."

"You don't see. You don't see at all. I haven't got to the clever bit yet. You want to hear the clever bit?"

"Tell me the clever bit."

"I'll tell you the clever bit."

Ford thought for a moment, trying to remember what the clever bit was.

"The clever bit," he said, "is this. You film it happening."

"Clever," agreed Arthur.

"You get a movie camera, and you film it happening."

"Clever."

"That's not the clever bit. This is the clever bit, I remember now that this is the clever bit. The clever bit is that you then thread the film in the projector ... backward!"

"Backward?"

"Yes. Threading it backward is definitely the clever bit. So then, you just sit and watch it, and everything just appears to spiral upward out of the plughole and fill the bath. See?"

"And that's how the Universe began, is it?" said Arthur.

"No," said Ford, "but it's a marvelous way to relax."

obviously you've never ridden in a real military Humvee.

Seriously, the bad guys already have it, so enlist the help of the security community to improve it.

The laser is nailed to the head, so that it won't fall off during high speed maneuvers and the fish* is taped to the airplane so that it can be dropped on commando raids deep behind enemy lines - granted, they just sorta flop around on the ground afterward, but anyone walking by is likely to get quite a sunburn.

*Yes, we've been *told* they are mammals, but I believe its all a conspiracy started by the "late"** Douglas Adams to ensure that they wouldn't be seen as cannibals during the pre-release marketing for his fourth book in the trilogy.

**I put late in quotes because we know that he's just gone home.***

***OK, I've got nothing... POPCORN!