* David Alexander Molnar: > Actually, smart cards are here today. My local movie theatre in Berkeley, > California is participating in a trial for "MasterCard PayPass." There is > a little antenna at the window; apparently you can just wave your card at > the antena to pay for tickets. I haven't observed anyone using it in > person, but the infrastructure is there right now.
If you are interested in useful RFID applications, just visit Singapore. 8-) They use RFID tickets on the subway (MRT) and on busses, and you don't have to worry about buying the right ticket because the system charges you the correct amount. However, there's one thing that makes me nervous: if you know the card number (which is printed on the cards), you can go to a web page, enter it, and obtain the last 20 rides during the last 3 days, without any further authentication. It's a system where contactless readers make a lot of sense, though. > Here's the MasterCard fact sheet about PayPass: > http://www.paypass.com/fact_sheet.html In Germany, we have got something even better: digital cash (Geldkarte). The system is rather old, so it doesn't use contactless smartcards, and it was never accepted by customers and merchants. I'm not even sure if it's still usable. I own one or two of the smartcards, but I don't think I've ever used them. 8-/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]