NatWest - home card reader?

[Huge]

And what do you do about palindromic PINs, other than banning them and thereby reducing the already too small address space?

[Huge]

Not just industrial ones. :o)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Perhaps you'd do better to carry some. And save that journey to the cash machine. Where that mugger would want the maximum you could draw out - rather than the few quid you'd carry.

[Jethro_uk]

Generally, our current account rarely has more than £50 in it anyway. With online being a thing and all, almost everything is paid from accounts which I don't have cards for.

[Michael Chare]

I think I have to say that I have never before bothered to test that card as I use it regularly and am sure of the PIN.

[Jethro_uk]

Why do anything ? If someone chooses a palindromic PIN, they are simply opting out of the service ...

As I said elsewhere, I only mention this as ADT were plugging it as a selling point on a monitored alarm. It's not an idea I am claiming as my own.

[Michael Chare]

In the case of Natwest you also have to use the card and the reader for the first payment.

[Michael Chare]

I have only had a DD fail for that reason. Water board payments reduced when I was moved to a meter.

[Robin]

I have only ever come across the term "cashpoint mugging" used in connection with people robbed at or near an ATM. That's usually after they have drawn cash to minimise the contact time between robber and victim (or robber and passing hero).

In any event, your solution would be at least as relevant to cards taking in all robberies - at cashpoints, in street robberies elsehgwre and in robberies in homes.

How many would you think is enough to warrant your solution? I ask in part because I am unclear why the rarity matters unless you think your proposal would cost the banks a lot to implement and run.

Anyhow, the the short answer is that I don't know of any statistics which separate robberies involving cards from ones which don't. I do know that robbery of personal property has fallen to about 50,000 police recorded crimes a year in E&W. The crime survey as usual suggests rather more.

But there are certainly some people who are mugged and have their cards used - witness the way your proposal keeps being aired more than 20 years after it was first proposed.

Are you saying you also don't carry debit/credit cards? Or that you would not tell muggers the true Pins for the cards?

[Huge]

[56 lines snipped]

The real problem is that urban legends never die.

[Handsome Jack]

"Dave Plowman (News)" posted

Is each card/PIN pair linked to just one of the accounts? Or does the card/pin pair P1 generate a one-time code that gives you access to both account A1 and account A2?

[Jethro_uk]

No, but the balance on the account I do have a card for is rarely more than £50. Everything else is done online from a different account which doesn't have a card.

[whisky-dave]

Or it has been know for people to be taken to the cashpoint to withdraw cash.

That would be as difficult to work out as any other rare event.

Rarity always matters thart's how you decide to do something about any event.

I'm pretty sure the banks must have some idea.

As more and more people don't bother reporting a crime as little or nothing will be done about it.

Well most people have ideas on how to stop most crimes.

well there;s always the chance you can tell them you don't know your PIN number an ex flatmate of mine could never remmeber hers.

[Tim+]

With the Nationwide, one card/one PIN can be used to access and authorise payments from all your online accounts. No need to carry multiple cards to access your different online accounts.

Tim

[dennis]

HSBC's can't read cards anyway its a OTP generator and you need a pin to operate it. Its also locked to one account I think.

[Mike Humphrey]

Yes, if you're using "identify" - the code generated is based on secret details on the card and a counter. The bank knows which code was last used, so they know what the counter is supposed to be. Try to use a code that corresponds to a lower counter value, and they'll reject it. IIRC they'll also reject it if you try to use a code that corresponds to too high a counter value - you can skip some, but not too many.

The "respond" and "sign" modes incorporate the information you enter as well as the card details and counter, so you could only pre-generate the code if you knew what you would be asked to enter in order to generate it.

All the calculations are done on the card, not the reader - this is what makes it (almost) impossible to duplicate a chip card. The chip isn't a memory device, it's a processor. You can't ask it to give you the keys, only to respond to your requests. The reader is effectively just a keypad and display for talking to the card, it doesn't contain any information itself.

Mike

[mechanic]

The PIN is the 'something I know' part of two factor authentication, so has to be input by you. If you don't know it the two factor authentication won't, at least not by that route.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yes.

You need to use the appropriate card and PIN in conjunction with the PINsentry unit to set up a new payee. And I suppose to set up some other services. It's not really possible to do simultaneous operations to A1 and A2, I think. Not that I can think of any reason to do so anyway.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Not sure there's much point in having more than one current account if one card and PIN does for all? Domestically, that is.

[Marland]

FSVO local, like most banks Nat West have closed many branches. It can be quite a hike to the nearest branch.

I ?ve just got my Mother to obtain a reader so she can set up to pay some regular traders like the window cleaner,despite using online banking for some years she was unaware of it. Because of closures her nearest branch is a 50 mile round trip which is awkward if you have voluntarily stopped driving due to age.

GH