Quote: Original post by phantom

Quote: Original post by benryves
How are those self-checkout machines viewed in Australia? They don't seem especially popular over here; I find them irritating, erratic and far slower than just queuing up to be served by a human being.

See, I really like them.

I hate their weight sensor. My bike bags aren't those chintzy plastic bags, and trip the 'rescan item' whine. If it weren't for that single nagging issue I would use them all the time. Smaller (usually no) line, and I'm an antisocial asshole anyways.

As for wireless wallets, I'm using a supposedly RFID Blocking Wallet. Does this make me a luddite?

RFID tags are scary easy to scan from a distance. The more common RF access badges give off enough signal when they're powered up by the scanner to be read from across a parking lot with the right equipment, which is not hard to come by.

RFID credit cards make me nervous, but normal credit cards are just as bad. Do you really trust the fast-food monkeys to not steal your number? The whole credit card system is horribly insecure. The only thing keeping the things usable is the vicious reaction by the card company to detected fraud, which thankfully is quite good.

In the future, once the cloud collects enough information on your habits, it will be able to prevent fraud by checking purchases against your personality simulation. After that happens, it will be a simple matter to run the simulation ahead a bit and preemptively make purchases you would have made anyway on your behalf, at which point you and your cards can remain safely at home. Trust the cloud, the cloud is your friend.

Quote: Original post by Koobs
[...]but normal credit cards are just as bad. Do you really trust the fast-food monkeys to not steal your number? The whole credit card system is horribly insecure. The only thing keeping the things usable is the vicious reaction by the card company to detected fraud, which thankfully is quite good.[...]

If you think credit cards are scary, you should be terrified of checks. They carry the information necessary to directly drain your bank account, where you basically have no recourse aside from suing the person that stole your money. At least with credit cards you have some level of protection from fraudulent charges.

I don't think it's a big deal to hack the cash-register: it shows/prints 2 euros, but drains 2.1 or 100...

Quote: Original post by BerwynIrish

Quote: Original post by LessBread
Grocery store self-checkout machines? Man, the ultimate killer of low wage jobs. We don't have that here

I don't know if you meant the USA when you said "here", but we've got these in the Chicago area.

The "I'm faster than the regular human clerk and bagger" advantage (who can actually sometimes be quite fast) can be offset by waiting in line behind self-checkout shoppers who are at least as slow as the pros.

Maybe they have them in SoCal, but I haven't seen that yet. We've had "bag your own" for a long time. It's more the norm now, but the check out person remains. Maybe they still have their jobs because they mostly belong to a union? At any rate, it seems to me that a self-checkout grocery store wouldn't be much different than an overgrown vending machine. How long before they replace the people who stock the shelves with robots?

Quote: Original post by Koobs
In the future, once the cloud collects enough information on your habits, it will be able to prevent fraud by checking purchases against your personality simulation.

Some credit cards have already been doing this based on geography. Before my wife and I were married, she had a second copy of her mom's credit card so that she could just charge emergency items instead of taking the time to call and ask for money to be wired. This almost always locked the card down and generated a call to her mom that the card had been used "not in accordance with the established pattern of use".

Quote: Original post by Extrarius

Quote: Original post by Koobs
[...]but normal credit cards are just as bad. Do you really trust the fast-food monkeys to not steal your number? The whole credit card system is horribly insecure. The only thing keeping the things usable is the vicious reaction by the card company to detected fraud, which thankfully is quite good.[...]

If you think credit cards are scary, you should be terrified of checks. They carry the information necessary to directly drain your bank account, where you basically have no recourse aside from suing the person that stole your money. At least with credit cards you have some level of protection from fraudulent charges.

I dislike checks for a variety of reasons and as such have made it a point to never get any, ever. There really is no reason for them nowadays, IMHO. I mean, paper? Used to represent wealth? Transferred physically? Anachronism, I say!

Also,

Quote: Original post by Hodgman
[...]With this many wireless chips in one leather case (and probably many more to come in the future - it's probably a matter of time before my photo ID, health-care, various membership cards and even gift certificates follow suit), how do they co-operate? How does the scanner hear "my credit card number is xxxx" over the cacophony of "this is not the card you are looking for"?[...]

The systems that allow "simultaneous" reads use smart tags that take turns and won't talk over each other. If two tags start talking at the same time, they figure it out and wait for a random amount of time before trying again.

Quote: Original post by BCullis

Quote: Original post by Koobs
In the future, once the cloud collects enough information on your habits, it will be able to prevent fraud by checking purchases against your personality simulation.

Some credit cards have already been doing this based on geography. Before my wife and I were married, she had a second copy of her mom's credit card so that she could just charge emergency items instead of taking the time to call and ask for money to be wired. This almost always locked the card down and generated a call to her mom that the card had been used "not in accordance with the established pattern of use".

They check some other metrics, too. I got a similar call when I made a large purchase at a home improvement store, which was correctly identified as out of character.

Quote: Original post by Alpha_ProgDes
I'm surprised they don't have them in California of all places.

They do. I haven't seen them too often in grocery stores (but some Albertsons have them), but I saw them all the time in different Home Depots, when I lived in California until a year ago. And here in Kansas City, Missouri, I see them in Lowes.

Quote: Original post by Koobs
but normal credit cards are just as bad. Do you really trust the fast-food monkeys to not steal your number? The whole credit card system is horribly insecure. The only thing keeping the things usable is the vicious reaction by the card company to detected fraud, which thankfully is quite good.

These days, at least in the UK (and probably many other countries) your credit or debit card should never go out of your sight anyway and the movement towards Chip+Pin has increased this.

For example, if I want to buy something on a credit card now I goto the store, get what I want, goto the automated check out, scan the items, select credit card, pop the card in a reader, enter pin number, wait a few seconds while it processes, remove the card, take recepit and vanish.

I honestly can't recall the last time I had to sign to pay for something...