Re:All about shifting liability (Score 1)

I agree, its not the technology, its who is liable for it.

Two points:-

First point. If the credit card companies are offering such an onerous deal to the merchants then it seems to me there is a gap in the market for a payment system that does share the liabilities around more fairly.

Second point. What is a card number and pin anyway? It looks a bit like a username and password to me. Do you know of any other computer systems that restrict you to a numerical username and a 4 digit numerical password?

My bank sent me a little gadget that I can put my bank card into, enter the pin and it returns "pin correct" and an authorization code. The machine is stand alone and looks like a pocket calculator. If I was in possession of a stolen card I could use this gadget to brute force the pin. Ok it might take me 80 hours to go through all 10,000 pin's by hand, but I bet I can get it a lot quicker for many cards. Start with numbers like 1940, 1941, 1942... up to about 1990 and similar strategies.

No wonder there is fraud.