Peter Fairbrother wrote:
Florian Weimer wrote:
* 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.
London Underground have a contactless system too, but it isn't used much. As
I remember it had a similar problem, but they may have changed that.
You take out your wallet with the card in and wave it over a palm-sized
yellow blob on the turnstile, but you don't have to open your wallet to
withdraw a token.
Muggers and pickpockets keep a close eye out to see how fat your wallet is
and where you keep it ...
Which, of course, they would never do if you were extracting money to
buy a ticket, or showing your season ticket. Explain to me how the
contactless system alters this risk in any way?
Cheers,
Ben.
--
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