[Tibbes]

> This means you can only make online purchases easily and securely at home.

Fair point - I had this problem when wanting to use Internet banking at work, but these pin readers are compact (smaller than an iPhone, marginally thicker) so I just keep mine in my bag now.

> This doesn't solve the problem (which people may not care about) that the merchant could now have your pin.

Only if the reader itself is compromised (very unlikely with the small ones provided by banks for online banking, and pretty unlikely in a shop too). However, note that the PIN is useless without the card, because the crypto chip is on the card, and it can't be cloned by a reader.

> This seems like a huge burden. Physically typing in long cryptographic codes?

They are only 8 digits long. And yes, I don't want fraudulent use of my account so I don't mind.

[jessriedel]

> However, note that the PIN is useless without the card, because the crypto chip is on the card, and it can't be cloned by a reader.

Ahh. So then the merchant could only really make use of a pin (which it would have to do by compromising the pin reader--a tall order for small time crooks) if he also stole your physical credit card. I agree that this isn't much of a risk, and retract that criticism.