[49094] in Cypherpunks
Re: Crypto suggestion - re: Fatal Flaws in Credit Cards
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dan McGuirk)
Sat Feb 3 09:10:26 1996
From: Dan McGuirk <mcguirk@indirect.com>
To: stewarts@ix.netcom.com (Bill Stewart)
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 1996 07:08:20 -0700 (MST)
Cc: cypherpunks@toad.com
In-Reply-To: <199602030951.BAA12301@ix2.ix.netcom.com> from "Bill Stewart" at Feb 3, 96 01:52:11 am
> Nathaniel's written about the "fatal flaw" in any system that
> involves typing credit card numbers into your computer being that
> they're easy for a keyboard-sniffer or similar cracker to recognize.
> An obvious work-around for this (and for many of the problems with
> Social Security / Taxpayer ID numbers) is to use some sort of smartcard
> that generates one-shot numbers that the credit card company (or tax thugs)
> can map back to the "real" owner's ID.
>
>[...]
>
> Any other suggestions?
Isn't this what zero-knowledge proofs are for? Prove you know the
credit card number without ever having to transmit it.
