Re: Anonymous payment scheme

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From: Brian Lane <blane@seanet.com>
>   I don't see why a debit card couldn't be anonymous, even to the point 
> of having no name, AND no picture on it. Yes, the bank has the money, but 
> their only obligation is to dish it out to the vendors/ATMs that you have 
> used your card with. Why should a bank care who you are once they have 
> your money in the account.

Again, it is unclear here whether you are proposing that you would be
anonymous to the bank or just have a blank card.  As I wrote, banks are
required to get SS#'s for depositers right now, and I wouldn't expect
that to change any time soon.  If anything, the trend appears to be
towards more tightening rather than less.  Duncan and/or Sandy have
suggested giving a fake SS# when you open your secured account; maybe
that would be legal but it sounds questionable to me.

>   As to avoiding fraud with the card, is it really that huge of a 
> problem? As long as noone copies the number(could go so far as no 
> embossed number. Just a gloss black card with a hologram of a Bald Eagle 
> on the front of it), and you don't lose the card how can someone use your 
> account?

I used my VISA yesterday, and after swiping it through the now-ubiquitous
card readers the vendor was required by the machine to manually enter the
last four digits on the card.  He complained that this was something new
and was happening very frequently now (maybe a change with 1995?).  I
have heard of fraud where people make fake VISA cards (or steal them) and
re-program the mag stripe to have a different number than what is on the
front.  Maybe this is a countermeasure for that.  It doesn't sound like a
blank card is the direction the industry is going.  Does anyone have more
info on this change?

Hal

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On Tue, 3 Jan 1995, Hal wrote:

> >   I don't see why a debit card couldn't be anonymous, even to the point 
> > of having no name, AND no picture on it. Yes, the bank has the money, but 
> > their only obligation is to dish it out to the vendors/ATMs that you have 
> > used your card with. Why should a bank care who you are once they have 
> > your money in the account.
> 
> Again, it is unclear here whether you are proposing that you would be
> anonymous to the bank or just have a blank card.  As I wrote, banks are

  I'm aiming towards anonymous from everyone. The vendor, and the bank. 

> required to get SS#'s for depositers right now, and I wouldn't expect
> that to change any time soon.  If anything, the trend appears to be
> towards more tightening rather than less.  Duncan and/or Sandy have
> suggested giving a fake SS# when you open your secured account; maybe
> that would be legal but it sounds questionable to me.

  I guess I'm being a little too unrealistic about my wishes. In my 
ideal case the IRS and the government would have nothing to do with the 
bank. Fake SS# is a good idea, but noone seems to know exactly how legal 
this is. They could, for example, claim that you were trying to defraud 
the bank and/or the IRS.

> I used my VISA yesterday, and after swiping it through the now-ubiquitous
> card readers the vendor was required by the machine to manually enter the
> last four digits on the card.  He complained that this was something new
> and was happening very frequently now (maybe a change with 1995?).  I

  I hadn't heard of this. Its been a couple of years since I've had a 
VISA card.

> have heard of fraud where people make fake VISA cards (or steal them) and
> re-program the mag stripe to have a different number than what is on the
> front.  Maybe this is a countermeasure for that.  It doesn't sound like a
> blank card is the direction the industry is going.  Does anyone have more
> info on this change?

  That's why I suggested the blank card(no embossing). Without that it 
makes it more diffcult to get your card number. I envision a transaction 
like so:

  1. Card is swiped and the database is checked for your card # and 
enough balance for the purchase.
  
  2. If authorized, a receipt is printed without card #.

  To get your card # the criminal has to either intercept the transaction 
with the database(not too hard), or comprimise the database itself.

  As long as you keep your card physicly secure you should be reasonably 
secure.

      Brian

P.S. I apologize for any misspellings or missing chars. My 
ISP(seanet.com) misses incoming characters when more than 3 sz sessions 
are running.

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"Everyone is a prisoner holding their own key."    | finger blane@seanet.com 
    -- Journey                                     | PGP 2.6 email accepted
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I don't know about the rest of these suggestions, but I am reasonably 
sure that using a fake social security number is a violation of federal 
law -- no matter what the user's motivation may have been.