I ask myself... (Score 1)

...is all this work really worth it? If you think about it, what all of this work is going towards is a high-tech solution for people to be lazy. For some applications, sure it makes sense, like a high flow area such as bridge/highway tolls and paying for the subway etc. In areas like that it makes sense that the person, probably in a hurry, should be able to keep going, especially if they are in a car already traveling in excess of 50mph. But when you're talking about a credit card... you're gonna be in a store anyways, and you're gonna have to stop at the "register" where you will have to wait for all of the encrypted transactions to happen. At this point, why not just say hello to a friendly sales clerk (and if he isn't friendly, complain becuase that's what they're getting paid for) and hand him your credit card to swipe through a machine? What time is there really to be saved? Maybe 30 seconds? Is that worth your credit card being able to be hacked by just about anyone who wants to (because once one persone figures it out, everyone who wants to will know how). So i reiterate in asking myself why these companies are putting so much effort into being lazy, especially in something that will save negligable amounts of time?