New "chip and PIN" cards vulnerable to theft up to $1 Million. Makes me feel "warm & fuzzy" about new cards.

http://www.wired.com/2014/11/chip-n-pin-foreign-currency-vulnerability/

Quote :

As U.S. banks and retailers are barreling toward a 2015 deadline to replace magnetic-stripe credit and debit cards with more secure cards that come embedded with a microchip, researchers have announced a critical flaw in the card system.

According to researchers at Newcastle University in the UK, the card system developed by VISA for use in the United Kingdom fails to recognize transactions made in non-UK foreign currencies and can therefore be tricked into approving any transaction up to 999,999.99....

... What’s more, because the cards allow for contactless transactions, wherein consumers need only to have the card in the vicinity of a reader without swiping it, a thief carrying a card reader designed to read a card that’s stored in a wallet or purse could conduct fraudulent transactions without the victim ever removing their card.

Since the transaction is done offline without going through a retailer’s point-of-sale system, no other security checks are done.

“With just a mobile phone we created a POS terminal that could read a card through a wallet,” Martin Emms, lead researcher of the project that uncovered the flaw, noted in a statement about the findings. “All the checks are carried out on the card rather than the terminal so at the point of transaction, there is nothing to raise suspicions. By pre-setting the amount you want to transfer, you can bump your mobile against someone’s pocket or swipe your phone over a wallet left on a table and approve a transaction.”

If I ever go to the Chip 'N PIN card, I am going to buy one of those secure sleeves for the card that prevents theft of the chip info.

I see no advantage to a chip....I want to hand the cashier a relatively secure magnetic credit card.....The chip sounds like a nightmare letting people rob you easily.

I suspect that they are going to phase out the old magnetic strip cards and go with Chip 'N PIN.

You might not have a choice, man.

I wonder when the US Dollar will be outlawed.

Well the fact is they will use it to track us everywhere we go It will send out a signal they can pick up whether we buy something or not. They want to get rid of money so they can track everything we buy. I feel like a damned rat in a maze.

I always know how to get a response out of T :]

With a shielding sleeve, nobody can track you.  

Here is a shielding wallet you can make.  There are probably all kinds of commercial products available too... or, there will be.

http://lifehacker.com/5842853/make-your-own-rfid-shielded-wallet-to-foil-id-thieves

Here is one cheap product http://www.kohls.com/product/prd-1857608/Travelon-RFID-Blocking-Passport-Holder.jsp?ci_mcc=ci&srccode=cii_17588969&cpncode=33-354621962-2&CID=shopping15

Google "block RFID" and there are lots of matches.