Japan facing credit card number shortage • Hacker News Board

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#251

Post by nottorp » Wed, Aug 26, 2020, 9:26 AM UTC

mcv wrote: post #229

joshfraser wrote: post #96

What's crazy is that we've had public key encryption for over 40 years, and we're still publishing magic numbers on little pieces of plastic that give whoever sees them the power to take all our money without our consent.

The prevalence of credit cards has baffled me for decades now. I admit I have one, but the only thing I need it for is to buy things from webshops that don't cater to the Dutch market. Every webshop that's vaguely aware of the Dutch market supports iDeal, which is specifically designed to handle internet payment and doesn't involve sharing any sensitive information with merchants or other unknown parties; my bank han…

That's nice... as long as you only buy stuff from your country.

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#252

Post by kwhitefoot » Wed, Aug 26, 2020, 9:27 AM UTC

lmm wrote: post #236

sydd wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit card numbers can be easily generated, there are tons of generators online. The right solution is not to have a number that you give out to random people who then gain access to your money. Also the righ way is not to trust the few giant credit card corporations to move all the money in the world The right way (EU is introducing it) is that you get a payment request that you can paste into your bank app and the…

It's pretty easy to make a secure payment method for one-off payments or fixed-price regular payments. A lot of the value of credit cards is that you can use them to pay for things that do usage-based billing, without having to do anything after the initial setup.

That's what direct debits (Avtalegiro in Norwegian) are for. Works fine here. I only use my credit cards for buying things in shops or one off things online. And my credit card gets paid by direct debit.

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#253

Post by GoblinSlayer » Wed, Aug 26, 2020, 9:29 AM UTC

dqv wrote: post #60

Slartie wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only slightly more insane than keeping the handy 4x4 format, but extending it from base 10 numbers to base 16, which I would really love to see :D

They would need to EOL over-the-phone payments to do this. People have horrible diction and it's hard to tell the difference between b, c, d, and e when a particularly lazy lipped person says these letters (in addition to non-hex letters like g, p, t, and v). Then they use their own ambiguous phonetic system (b as in ball, c as in call, d as in doll will confuse anyone trying to distinguish between the three). Oh and…

Many systems here have over-the-phone robots that understand button presses, but yeah, I think they support only decimal digits.

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#254

Post by seppel » Wed, Aug 26, 2020, 9:29 AM UTC

xfer wrote: post #187

ViViDboarder wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that chip work online? As far as I know, CCs around the world still depend on numbers. For what it’s worth, in the US, chip is pretty much everywhere. Main difference is that it’s chip and signature vs chip and pin. I wish we’d switch to pins as well, but it’s not like it’s the dark ages or anything.

It's called 3D Secure and requires a PIN to verify transaction(typically with SMS), or a security device provided by bank.

And its super annoying. I bail out when I'm asked to do that.

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#255

Post by seppel » Wed, Aug 26, 2020, 9:32 AM UTC

AlphaSite wrote: post #161

i386 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s very US centric. In every other place except America, credit card issuers mandate the use EMV’s and pin codes.

I think most us cards have chips, but no pins. It’s bizarre.

My card has a PIN but the PIN is actually quite dangerous. If someone gets my PIN, then it fraudulent transactions become my problem. Whereas a stolen credit card number is a problem for the bank or the merchant.

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#256

Post by seppel » Wed, Aug 26, 2020, 9:34 AM UTC

vasachi wrote: post #215

quelltext wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then see customers complaining about the annoying extra steps. 3D Secure affects conversion rates adversely which means customers are generally happier without it and don't mind the fraud risk (as is consistent with the rest of this discussion on the thread).

Really? In Russia I haven’t seen a single store without 3D Secure for a loooong time. And they are doing quite fine. Maybe it’s just that US customers are lazy?

They sometimes trying it in German but I bail out when I'm asked to jump through this extra hoops.

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#257

Post by avar » Wed, Aug 26, 2020, 9:35 AM UTC

mcv wrote: post #229

joshfraser wrote: post #96

What's crazy is that we've had public key encryption for over 40 years, and we're still publishing magic numbers on little pieces of plastic that give whoever sees them the power to take all our money without our consent.

The prevalence of credit cards has baffled me for decades now. I admit I have one, but the only thing I need it for is to buy things from webshops that don't cater to the Dutch market. Every webshop that's vaguely aware of the Dutch market supports iDeal, which is specifically designed to handle internet payment and doesn't involve sharing any sensitive information with merchants or other unknown parties; my bank han…

You should use a credit card for online purchases when you can in The Netherlands. With IDEAL you don't get the ability to do chargebacks, and most webshops will charge the consumer the same amount of money for an IDEAL and a CC purchase.

Not using a CC is just leaving insurance money on the table for no reason. I've done chargebacks after getting fraudulent goods transferred over with relatively little hassle, and would probably never managed to reverse a bank transaction.

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#258

Post by me_me_me » Wed, Aug 26, 2020, 9:40 AM UTC

joshfraser wrote: post #96

What's crazy is that we've had public key encryption for over 40 years, and we're still publishing magic numbers on little pieces of plastic that give whoever sees them the power to take all our money without our consent.

> What's crazy is that we've had C and other higher level languages for over 40 years, and we're still maintaining banking and industry backends in Cobol or other old tech.

The thing is something that works, and works well is hard to displace. Especially when it makes money. And when you are running a business and you have to choose:

- keep making money

- update system that is making money and hope it will work and it will stop making money

What really is the sane option here?

Also one other point the credit card companies are way better option for customer over say paypal.

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#259

Post by mrjin » Wed, Aug 26, 2020, 9:42 AM UTC

joshfraser wrote: post #96

What's crazy is that we've had public key encryption for over 40 years, and we're still publishing magic numbers on little pieces of plastic that give whoever sees them the power to take all our money without our consent.

Card numbers are there for a reason: transactions without presenting the card, which actually are not a big problem as there are strict rules to follow and if frauds do occur, card holders are backed by charge-back policies. I guess all your concerns should really go to magnetic strip cards as there is virtually no way to tell fake card from genuine cards and that's the reason of EMV/PBOC card migration which just as you said, put strong cryptography into the chips on cards. But again, you still need card numbers to support transactions without presenting the card.

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#260

Post by DetroitThrow » Wed, Aug 26, 2020, 9:43 AM UTC

bartvanH wrote: post #238

bartvk wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Dutch system is not on the side of the consumer. It's simply a bank transaction before they send you the goods.

Yes, because the banks are not the ones who should be protecting the consumer. There are consumer protection laws in place to do the same thing the credit card companies seem to take care of from my POV :)

Just curious, what exactly are these laws? Unreversible transactions front loads the burden of verifying inauthentic sales/services onto the consumer or government, doesn't necessarily provide a mechanism for returning a consumer's money when inauthentic merchants do show up, and restricts consumer choice either through having to be more discerning than a credit card user or relying on a government program to oversee merchant authenticity.

I absolutely agree that banks should not be the ones discharged with consumer protection but unreversible payments are not nearly as beneficial for consumers even if insured in some ways by the government.