Posted on 08/22/2014 7:32:21 PM PDT by markomalley
More than 1,000 U.S. retailers could be infected with malicious software lurking in their cash register computers, allowing hackers to steal customer financial data, the Homeland Security Department said Friday.
The government urged businesses of all sizes to scan their point-of-sale systems for software known as "Backoff," discovered last October. It previously explained in detail how the software operates and how retailers could find and remove it.
Earlier this month, United Parcel Service said it found infected computers in 51 stores. UPS said it was not aware of any fraud that resulted from the infection but said hackers may have taken customers' names, addresses, email addresses and payment card information.
The company apologized to customers and offered free identity protection and credit monitoring services to those who had shopped in those 51 stores.
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Another reason to pay with cash and be done with it. I have seen people writing a check for a 69 cent candy bar purchase. These people need to get a life and carry a few bucks. A friend of mine loves lentil soup but had never heard of Pardina lentils, the dark brown variety available at Indian stores. They have twice the protein of the usual green lentils you buy at the grocery. To introduce her to something new, I volunteered to buy her a bag, about four dollars and she said to give her a heads up as she NEVER carries cash and uses her credit card for EVERY purchase she makes. These individuals are ripe for the hacking which can only increase. The criminal mind never rests.
But my point is this: why do these people never carry a few dollar bills? I am sure they never check their credit card statements and have no clue what and where they spent it.
This is just another step forward where no one can buy or sell without the number of the beast on their body. It is currently being contemplated in Venezuela—surprise surprise, and for all the right reasons—government control, just as prophesized.
Wonder how many run a version of XP
“Another reason to pay with cash and be done with it.”
Luckily my credit cards protect my purchases, even more than cash, and allow me to buy stuff (usually much cheaper) on the Internet.
Now some things still make sense buying with cash, such as conservative books, as you otherwise make it onto Holder’s Terror Watch List if the name Palin (for example) is associated with a purchase...but that’s life.
Not sure how UPS got infected but I have seen stores where they take USB sticks from customers and stick them in their computers to do printing. Saw the same at Staples. It would be tricky to get the infection into the store that way, but trivial to take it home from an infected store computer.
While standing in line at a local convenience store the other day, I saw all 5 people ahead of me used credit/debit cards to buy soft drinks, candy, chips etc; no cash. I was stunned. No wallets or purses; just slipped the cc in their jean’s back pocket. I can’t imagine what their monthly statement looks like.
——I can’t imagine what their monthly statement looks like-—
The monthly statement is a record of all purchases. The monthly payment is made from the bill pay convenience of the bank’s on line access point.
The funds in the account are by the way all directly deposited from various sources.
If the statement is paid before the due date, there is no charge for the service.
The electronic ledger that is the on line banking site contains and disburses all the electronic blips that is the real money of today. It is never touched by human hands
Understood. What I meant is that with so many incidental purchases on a daily basis, their cc’s monthly statement must be many pages long and look like ants crawling around on a picnic table.
I agree. They allow these idiots to pay with their credit cards in the “express lane,” and it actually takes longer as they have to find their credit card, scan it, then scan it again as if they have never done this before—they can’t remember their PIN number or they entered it incorrectly.
The other alternative is cash—you give them the bill. You get the change and you are gone. Less than twenty seconds and you are on the way home—no lost credit cards, no forgotten PIN codes, not even a justified belligerent shopper waiting behind you.
Simple. Unfortunately it does not make sense as technology and the banks want it another way and the sheeple are all too willing to acquiesce. There is no going back.
Credit card purchases clear in a second or two and do not require PINs (nor signatures for small purchases). Quicker than cash and way quicker than checks or customers who insist on counting out exact change.
Debit cards do require a PIN, but there is no reason to use those.
And of course it helps if your credit card rebates 6% on groceries and 3% on gas, as mine does.
Fair enough, but you missed my point entirely. A cashless society will mean an attempt at total control by the powers that be. When you cannot see your money and it is only accessible through a card or number, you have lost control of your life and your fate. Who is to say they cannot take it away from you? The government can—even faster and with more laws than they do already. Congress shall have the power to COIN money, —” To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures; (Article one, section eight.)” — not print it, a power usurped by the “Federal Reserve” since 1913.
You were asserting that cash is faster than credit cards. Not true. On the average, in a place like a grocery store, swiping a credit card is the fastest form of payment.
Of course, obviously, cash is more private than traditional forms of non-cash payment, such as credit cards, debit cards, checks, ACHs, etc. The goal should be to develop a form of payment as private as cash yet as convenient as plastic.
But as it is now, you need to avoid the banking system entirely to achieve financial privacy. Taking cash out of an ATM and spending it on whatever may give you some privacy as to the whatever, but the cash is still coming out of your numbered, 1099-issuing, government-accessible bank account.
“You were asserting that cash is faster than credit cards. Not true. On the average, in a place like a grocery store, swiping a credit card is the fastest form of payment.”
No. You have never seen people swipe the card multiple times, get refused, only to have to do it again, then ask to do it again because they forgot to ask for cash back? A cash transaction is anonymous, as every transaction should. be. Who the hell should know where and why you spend your money. You made my point—but not entirely.
We’re on our way to being a cashless world. Someday, they’ll institute no-knock raids, impose fines and jail penalties for having/using cash. Sounds idiotic, but I see it coming.
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