I wonder who came up with this gem:

"Climb onto the roof and physically inspect satellite antennas before approving big-ticket sales."

Do they even need to use stolen cards for this? Wouldn't cards with random (but valid) numbers work just as well?

Why not authorize transactions over redundant buried internet links? Why the need for specialized/proprietary satellite connections just do to credit cards?

I'm not sure what it is about this article or business week that attracts so many...interesting comment authors.

So they make a tin foil hat for the satellite dish and it actually blocks the signals?

Approving a large credit card transaction on faith seems like a pretty questionable move on the retailers' parts. Don't the CC companies have phone numbers they can use to manually approve transactions? Is it common for people to go into a gas station and buy a whole cartload of cigarettes? This seems like a crime that a little common sense would foil (get it? foil!).