Online Trust Failing Overall 197
twitter writes "The BBC and ZDNet are reporting on an RSA poll of 1,000 users about failing confidence in ecommerce. 43% of respondents were reluctant to give details to online sites and 70% said that firms were not doing enough to keep their data secure. The BBC goes on to quote experts who back up the perception, ZDNet claims that action is being taken and is well."
Sheesh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sheesh... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure I'd want to eat at a place where the waiters were allowed to disappear with credit cards for several minutes - they should be in view at all times.
Change? (Score:2, Insightful)
How is awareness and action replacing fear when people are afraid to shop/bank online but don't handle their passwords any differently?
Oh, wait... It was an executive who made the statement so all meanings should be reversed.
Re:Sheesh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sheesh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone should look at their monthly bills and notify the CC company of any erroneous/fraudulent charges. Then the CC company can take that up with the vendor that made the charge. It's the beauty of using a credit card.
Re:Sheesh... (Score:1, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong, I use my card on the net with condifence all the time - but the fact still remains, that there is a difference.
It's not just online businesses we distrust ! (Score:3, Insightful)
If businesses want people's trust, they need to earn it.
Should online businesses be trusted ?
I myself give out accurate personal data only when I really, really have to, and even then am pretty picky about the companies I work with - both online and offline. If confidence has declined, maybe people are learning...
Online trust (Score:2, Insightful)
Case in point: ChoicePoint (Score:5, Insightful)
Only people in California were notified of the leak, because CA has a law requiring notification. Everyone else is going to have to wait 'til their identity gets stolen.
The GA legislature is taking up a bill to require notification of GA residents when their personal information is stolen or accidentally leaked.
Part of the problem, IMHO, is that companies won't tell you when they've shared your information with a non-trusted third party. So, a good first step would be voluntary disclosure.
Indeed (Score:3, Insightful)
It is a fact of life that your important numbers hang around indeffinitely in various databases. Unless more than a number is required to use them, it will become impossible to maintain your identity.
Re:Sheesh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Same here. I think for most people, though, it's really just a fear of the unknown. Their credit card gets whisked off to some magical technological storage and they can't see what's happening. Even though they don't understand what really happens, their concerns are somewhat justified. There's a different scale of fraud possible when your credit card number gets stored in an online database vs. a waiter writing down the number.
In the case of a waiter, barring organized crime rings, your card might get used to order a couple of items and that's about it. With an online database, if that site gets hacked your number is now likely circulating amongst various hacker groups and could easily be used to rack up a lot of charges.
However, in either case your remedy is the same. Contact your credit card issuer, dispute the charges, then they go after the merchants who have to prove that a transaction was made by the owner. If they haven't swiped your card through their terminal and obtained your signature, then the merchant loses that money. Unfortunately, it's always the merchants who take the largest risk in accepting credit card payments.
Re:The Problem isn't the Internet (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't news, or especially obscure. While online credit card fraud may be the "fastest growing category," it's still minor compared to disgruntled cashiers who copy down details on the sly.
Re:Not just online (Score:3, Insightful)
If friendship or loyalty are not real to you in any tangible form, one day you may realize that you have nothing left to go on for, hence, you will not.
Get out into the world. Do a bit of community service, create LTSP installations out there, build stuff that people can use and along with the stuff you build, you will build bonds and friendships that will last you a lifetime.
You appear to be the epitome of capitalism's alienation. It doesn't have to be that way!
Re:Not just online (Score:4, Insightful)
Take it how you want it.
Re:Quotes from the BBC article: (Score:3, Insightful)
Fortunately, the passwords didn't really get you in to much other than the computers, however it was still a sad situtation, and not one the management had any intrest in rectifying.
This is why we really need to get some kind of dual authentication system that uses like a smart card and a PIN. People will NOT use good passwords. A PIN + smartcard system would be pretty hard for people to get around. You'd have to find out the PIN and physically steal the smartcard, then use them before access was revoked. Certianly not impossible, but much easier than finding out a stupidly simple password and using it covertly.
Re:Sheesh... (Score:5, Insightful)
But web pages? Most people can't really tell the difference between a real store's site and a fake page designed to look like a real store's site. Plus the ettiquite of net behavior isn't as firmly set in people's mind. If the waiter from the restaurant shows up on your doorstep saying, "Ummm.... yeah, I'm gonna need your credit card for a few more minutes, for the restaurant, I mean," you'd know it was fishy. But a convincing-looking e-mail claiming to be from ebay, people don't know the difference between that and a real e-mail from ebay.
Re:Sheesh... (Score:2, Insightful)
I have never been ripped off in any way whatsoever and the few times I've had problems with a party, VISA has been quick to handle it for me.
Yeah, if you buy stuff on an auction site from a guy in Norway selling laptops through Western Union, you're probably going to get ripped off. But do you really think that Safeway.com, Amazon.com, CDBaby.com or your power and cable company are going to rip you off?!
Keep track of what you buy and keep an eye on your online statements every week and you should be fine. Honestly, it isn't that damn difficult.
Re:lots of large scale compromises lately (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't worry about online banking or shopping per se. I worry that someone can walk into a bank, say they're me, and buy a house with my credit rating. I worry that someone can order a plasma TV over the phone with my credit card to launder money. And yes, I worry that someone can apply for a new credit card in my name over the Internet -- but that's a subset of the problem. How can you make online commerce safe when commerce itself isn't safe?
We need to prevent compromises, but that won't solve the problem. We need to make it harder for people to steal money armed with only a name and an SSN. Except without instant credit, the American economy would collapse, then the world, and then where would we be?
Re:Sheesh... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Quotes from the BBC article: (Score:3, Insightful)
I've actually made the heretical argument about password security [berylliumsphere.com] that you should write your password down (though of course some place smarter than the monitor).
Re:The Problem isn't the Internet (Score:2, Insightful)
The longstanding pattern of providing easy credit predates the Internet. It has led to practices that are insecure by the most rudimentary standards. And yet, it has certainly been profitable for the providers.
Between the transaction fees charged to the merchants, and the interest collected on credit, revenues for the providers have been greater than losses due to fraud.
You would think that all parties would benefit from better security, but evidently the providers don't see it that way. As you probably know, their core operations are very secure, so it's not as if they haven't been willing to act on security risks which they perceive to be significant.