Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by BlazingFrog 5459 days ago
First, I don't believe it's a problem but merely a different procedure. Second, in France (and most of Western Europe I think), all ATM's keep your card for the simple reason that the magnetic stripe (the part of the card that's in contact with the ATM when you swipe) is never used, to my knowledge. It's the chip that is used to verify the identity, locally record the transaction and more.
2 comments
marshray 5459 days ago
Is that the reason? The chip on the card is positioned so that readers can be designed to only need the card inserted about halfway.

I think it has more to do with giving the machine the ability to not give the card back. :-)

link
sid0 5459 days ago
What possible use case exists for that ability? The card's generally blocked after a set number of incorrect attempts anyway, so it's not as if it could be used anywhere else.

ATMs that keep your card for the duration of the transaction only serve to decrease trust in the mechanism.

link
marshray 5458 days ago
The card's generally blocked after a set number of incorrect attempts anyway, so it's not as if it could be used anywhere else.

Remember, credit cards originated before there was universal ubiquitous connectivity. It's still no guarantee (think of a small merchant at some outdoor festival). EMV (Chip and PIN) cards have an offline mode which an bad guy can use. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mkb23/interceptor/

ATMs that keep your card for the duration of the transaction only serve to decrease trust in the mechanism.

In the past, there were modes that allowed you to overdraw your account with an ATM. I imagine this was done in consideration for unreliable communications links or banks that needed downtime in their account balances for batch transaction processing.

"Trust" is a deep and strange concept, but at the end of the day US ATM cards are only a mag stripe and a 4-digit PIN. We'd best not expect too much from them. :-)

link
sid0 5459 days ago
Dip ATMs (where you insert your card then pull it out) wouldn't have any trouble with chips either. I can see why it'd be an issue with swipe ATMs though.

I still think ATMs that eat your card up are terrible.

link