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From: kaufman@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Marc T. Kaufman)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: ATM at Retailers  (was: Voice Mail Passwords)
Message-ID: <12439@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 20 Sep 90 15:54:43 GMT
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In article <12026@accuvax.nwu.edu> Dave Speed <dspeed@well.uucp>
writes:

>On a similar note, our local <Sacramento, CA> grocery chain has
>installed pseudo ATM's for banking from the checkout line. Perhaps I'm
>paranoid, but I don't see any advantage (to *me*) in giving the
>merchant my bank number and PIN. Am I being silly ?

You are not giving your PIN number to the merchant.  The PIN is
encrypted (mixed with your bank card number) in a ONE WAY algorithm by
a chip that is in the PIN pad itself.  The plaintext PIN never sees
the light of day.


Marc Kaufman (kaufman@Neon.stanford.edu)