[Gllug] OT - chip & pin

[John Winters]

On Mon, 2006-04-03 at 14:31 +0100, Paul Rayner wrote:
> On 3 Apr 2006, at 14:02, John Winters wrote:
[snip]
> > Thus if a reader keeps saying, "Is this the PIN?", "How about this
> > one?", "Well, how about this one?" the on-card processor eventually 
> > goes
> > into sulk mode and starts refusing all of them, regardless of whether
> > they're right or not.
> >
> > Now whether it was actually implemented this way I don't know - perhaps
> > they removed this intelligence to save money, but if they did it rather
> > defeats the point of Chip and Pin.
> 
> It may well work this way now, but the experience of a friend of mine 
> suggests otherwise. She couldn't remember the PIN on one of her cards, 
> and so had two goes at 3 different places before saying "I can't 
> remember my number can I sign please". She then found the piece of 
> paper in her handbag (*sigh*) with the PIN on and entered it correctly 
> with no problems in the next shop. This would suggest that the "3 
> strikes and you're out" intelligence is implemented in the readers or 
> in the bank's systems.

I think you're reading too much into one incident.  The refusal
algorithm is more intelligent than just "3 strikes and you're out".
There are (or were to be) timers and all sorts of things.

John

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