[FYI] Did Encryption Empower These Terrorists?

Steven M. Bellovin smb at research.att.com
Mon Sep 24 18:31:13 EDT 2001


In message <v03110706b7d555f61a45@[165.247.220.34]>, Bill Frantz writes:
>At 10:11 AM -0700 9/24/01, lynn.wheeler at firstdata.com wrote:
>>as mentioned in the various previous references ... what is at risk  ...
>>effectively proportional to the aggregate of the account credit limits ...
>>for all accounts that happened to have been stored in any account master
>>file ... is significantly larger than any particular merchant may have
>>directly at risk because of a security breach. in the "security
>>proportional to risk" theory .... the entity that has the risk should have
>>control over the security measures, those security measures should be
>>proportional to what they have at risk, and the cost of those security
>>measures should also be proportional to the risk.
>
>It seems to me that because of the $50 liability limit under US law, most
>of the risk is carried by the credit card issuers.  They are also in a
>position to require proper security by contract with the merchant.
>

Actually, I believe it's by the merchants.  Internet transactions 
generally count as "card not present" transactions, which means that 
the merchants take the risk.  

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb
				  http://www.wilyhacker.com





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