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Although most merchants are required to install payment terminals that can read a chipped card this year (or they assume liability for fraud), unattended fuel dispenser terminals don't have to upgrade until October, 2017.

So, there will be an opportunity for the manufacturers of the pumps (in the US, there are a few big ones) to add NFC support to the card readers.
 
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I would assume at full service stations the employees could carry portable NFC terminals. Waited restaurants could do the same thing.

I think this is the reason that US banks are replacing credit/debit cards with chipped cards, but aren't requiring the PIN. They are sticking with "chip and signature".

Restaurants in the US just aren't set up to use portable terminals. They complete the transaction at the same station they used to enter the order, away from the customer's table. So, there's no way to enter a PIN.
 
It's interesting how the Snopes and MythBusters links have been pasted in the thread at least several times yet people still think cell phone use at the pump is dangerous.

I think this is the reason that US banks are replacing credit/debit cards with chipped cards, but aren't requiring the PIN. They are sticking with "chip and signature".

Restaurants in the US just aren't set up to use portable terminals. They complete the transaction at the same station they used to enter the order, away from the customer's table. So, there's no way to enter a PIN.

Every other place that's implemented chip and PIN has originally been swipe and sign, yet were able to do the portable terminals just fine (or switched to a pay at the front model). I don't think that's the reason we're not doing PIN.
 
It's interesting how the Snopes and MythBusters links have been pasted in the thread at least several times yet people still think cell phone use at the pump is dangerous.



Every other place that's implemented chip and PIN has originally been swipe and sign, yet were able to do the portable terminals just fine (or switched to a pay at the front model). I don't think that's the reason we're not doing PIN.

Interesting dialog here on this topic:
http://krebsonsecurity.com/2014/10/chip-pin-vs-chip-signature/

This bit is sad...
"We don’t really think we can teach Americans to do two things at once. So we’re going to start with teaching them how to dip, and if we have another watershed event like the Target breach and consumers start clamoring for PIN, then we’ll adjust."
 
Well then, that's settled. Those guys are practically geniuses!

(I put more faith in the Snopes link earlier in the thread, however)

Whether they're geniuses or not is irrelevant. They are scientists by any definition of the word. And like all scientists, they document and publish their work. If you want to play the science game, then if you have results that contradict their published work, then you are welcome to publish a rebuttal. The fact that in OVER A DECADE no one has done so, I believe, is telling.
 
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I'd like to point out that that as a would be thieve it comes down to luck, as there is no way to distinguish iPhones by storage....
*joke*
Whether they're geniuses or not is irrelevant. They are scientists by any definition of the word. And like all scientists, they document and publish their work. If you want to play the science game, then if you have results that contradict their published work, then you are welcome to publish a rebuttal. The fact that in OVER A DECADE no one has done so, I believe, is telling.
Because it's important to state one's position up front in these forums to avoid arguing about completely irrelevant topics: I'm not suggesting we're all going to die in fireballs at the gas pump. I also tend to side with Zombie Feynman in the Mythbusters debate (and string theory, for that matter).

Be that as it may, I also agree that they fail at basic rigor. I think Zombie Feynman sets a pragmatically low bar for our society at testing beliefs by experiment-- it's also important to know what exactly the results of your experiment prove. That's where Mythbusters fails science in pursuit of entertainment. They give a verdict of "Busted" and state that "no cell phone will ever cause a gas station to ignite", when all they've really shown is that they couldn't get one function (ring) of one sample of one 2004 phone model to cause a fire in a small, indoor, enclosed blast chamber without a pump or a car.

They have extrapolated a law of nature from a single data point without supporting theory.

To quote Jaimie from the cell phone episode (which, full disclosure, I own) as Adam sets up the phone in the blast chamber: "Well let me see... We've got a crash test dummy with his legs removed. We've got a panty static generator with leopard fur and panties wrapped around it. It's not exactly hard science."

So no, Mythbusters didn't prove anything about phones at gas stations-- or rather they proved one small thing in such an enormous sample space that it rounds down to nothing. Then they redirected blame to static electricity, which they say can cause a fire even though they couldn't get that to work either. They had to blow it up with a neon lighting transformer.

That's why I said I place more faith in the Snopes article. They dig into the data and report on what is essentially a large number of natural experiments done in many places, by many devices, with no recorded events. They also question experts in both cell phones and petroleum who all come back saying they don't consider it a threat.

Snopes also hasn't proven it impossible (and we know that cell phones have gone up in flames due to battery failures, for example, which could cause a gas station to ignite) but they've supported the theory that the risk is vanishingly small-- which is all we can hope for in life.
 
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It's interesting how the Snopes and MythBusters links have been pasted in the thread at least several times yet people still think cell phone use at the pump is dangerous.

In all fairness, neither Snopes or Mythbusters are authoritative sources. But, the signs are probably posted out of an abundance of caution, in deference to the company lawyers.

In the US in particular, people seemed to be scared witless of statistically insignificant risks, and blithely unaware of the most common risks.
 
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*sarsacm* :)
Ah, then you know that it's easy for thieves to identify the 16GB model... They're the ones being held by people with frowny faces.
:(;)


"In other news tonight, a routine phone jacking at a local gas station turned violent when the thief discovered his ill gotten prize was a 16GB iPhone 6 and returned to confront the original owner. Witness claim the thief cried out 'Man, what are you trying to pull here?! You can't even use a 16GB iPhone!' before assaulting the man continuously until police arrived.

The thief is out on reduced bail after the judge cited special circumstances, 'Apparently the original owner of the phone tried to explain that he keeps most of his data in the cloud which, understandably, further incensed the assailant. I think law enforcement has their job cut out in trying to determine who the real victim is here.'

Experts say they expect the trial, set to start in 3 months, to focus around whether crimes like this would even happen if Steve Jobs were still alive."
 
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Ah, then you know that it's easy for thieves to identify the 16GB model... They're the ones being held by people with frowny faces.
:(;)


"In other news tonight, a routine phone jacking at a local gas station turned violent when the thief discovered his ill gotten prize was a 16GB iPhone 6 and returned to confront the original owner. Witness claim the thief cried out 'Man, what are you trying to pull here?! You can't even use a 16GB iPhone!' before assaulting the man continuously until police arrived.

The thief is out on reduced bail after the judge cited special circumstances, 'Apparently the original owner of the phone tried to explain that he keeps most of his data in the cloud which, understandably, further incensed the assailant. I think law enforcement has their job cut out in trying to determine who the real victim is here.'

Experts say they expect the trial, set to start in 3 months, to focus around whether crimes like this would even happen if Steve Jobs were still alive."

Thanks for the morning laugh!!! Awesome!
 
It's simply common sense. What if they bought equipment that doesn't work as well as predicted in the real world? Not everything can be fixed with software updates and gas pumps are especially expensive pieces of equipment (that's why they have until 2017 to get chip support vs this October for everyone else). At least they'd only need to replace readers at two stations instead of several thousand of them.
Either way I see the credit card going extinct. Cash will never die, for even in its antiquity is still more secure than a magnetic strip.
 
Either way I see the credit card going extinct. Cash will never die, for even in its antiquity is still more secure than a magnetic strip.

See, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple Pay and similar technologies never break 10-20% of transactions in the US for a long, long time. A lot of people are very resistant to change.
 
See, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple Pay and similar technologies never break 10-20% of transactions in the US for a long, long time. A lot of people are very resistant to change.
Agreed, I see 10-15 years before it even goes over 15%.
 
See, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple Pay and similar technologies never break 10-20% of transactions in the US for a long, long time. A lot of people are very resistant to change.

I think it will depend on if we start to get tap-to-pay credit cards in the U.S. That should push it along.
 
I think it will depend on if we start to get tap-to-pay credit cards in the U.S. That should push it along.

Banks had to include text in the mailings for the new chip-enabled cards that basically say that the cards can't be tapped. If it was a simple matter of "no demand" they wouldn't have bothered to include such text since no one would have cared. People are still going to (wrongly) think that someone can read their cards from across the street and clone them.

If we ever do get such cards it'll be long in the future after smartphone based payments broke the 20% barrier.
 
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