EMV

[Florian Weimer]

* David Alexander Molnar:

> Actually, smart cards are here today. My local movie theatre in Berkeley, 
> California is participating in a trial for "MasterCard PayPass." There is 
> a little antenna at the window; apparently you can just wave your card at 
> the antena to pay for tickets. I haven't observed anyone using it in 
> person, but the infrastructure is there right now.

If you are interested in useful RFID applications, just visit
Singapore. 8-) They use RFID tickets on the subway (MRT) and on
busses, and you don't have to worry about buying the right ticket
because the system charges you the correct amount.  However, there's
one thing that makes me nervous: if you know the card number (which is
printed on the cards), you can go to a web page, enter it, and obtain
the last 20 rides during the last 3 days, without any further
authentication.  It's a system where contactless readers make a lot of
sense, though.

> Here's the MasterCard fact sheet about PayPass:
> http://www.paypass.com/fact_sheet.html

In Germany, we have got something even better: digital cash
(Geldkarte).  The system is rather old, so it doesn't use contactless
smartcards, and it was never accepted by customers and merchants.  I'm
not even sure if it's still usable.  I own one or two of the
smartcards, but I don't think I've ever used them. 8-/

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