[pchelpers] What's behind retail data breaches

this is a troubling report from C|Net. sorry it's a bit old (Sept 19)
   
  Back in 1992, Dr. Neal Krawetz, now of Hacker Factor, and several partners 
had an idea: they wanted to bring credit card transactions to a local flea 
market. Better yet, they wanted De Anza Junior College in Cupertino, 
California, to offer wireless transactions from the open-air stalls, operating 
over packet radio. The idea was good enough that they secured a meeting with 
Verifone, the largest provider of credit card swiping equipment in North 
America. During the meeting, Verifone agreed to loan the them one of their 
Tranz 330 transaction units, perhaps the most commonly used credit card swiper 
in the world. But before handing it over, the Verifone person took out a 
12-page document, then keyed in a master password reset. Intrigued, Krawetz 
remembers asking what's to stop someone from stealing the credit card data 
within. Verifone replied that it was aware of the risk and said "it's being 
addressed." Krawetz said recently, "if an expert tells me that, I'm going to 
believe
 them." Now, 15 years later, he has gone public (click for PDF), with more or 
less the details of the flaw he first observed in 1992, the flaw that Verifone 
and other companies still haven't addressed.
   
  
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3513_7-6774939-1.html?tag=nl.e404


Cheers,
Ellen M.
       
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