Comment by afreak | Hacker News Reader

Comment by afreak | Hacker News Reader

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> Meanwhile, you give your credit card number to someone and they can just pull money out of it

Here's a Bitcoin private key: 5JcgxNrn4WFcA8trEix7ComAyLNEsDEyBqYVjEo8JaaXWQQNg1u

Now you have the ability to drain whatever coins are in that wallet and I'll never see them again unless you somehow decide to return them to me.

You can probably convince a layperson to give you their private key through the same means you could ask them to tell you their passwords or whatever personal information they should not divulge.

> As you use your credit card, over time you give more and more people a direct line of access to your credit until it expires or gets revoked.

Credit cards are a form of payment. I go and pay my bill for using that credit card. A month before the card expires, the issuer sends me a new card. Provided I don't neglect to pay my bill and don't abuse it, my credit card will almost always allow the transaction to go through immediately.

> Until I can generate credit card numbers on the fly with one-time-use amounts of money, I'll have a use-case for Bitcoin.

https://www.bankofamerica.com/privacy/accounts-cards/shopsaf...

"To access the ShopSafe service, sign in to Online Banking and choose Use ShopSafe from your credit card Account Activity screen. Enter your spending limits and the ShopSafe service will automatically generate a temporary 16-digit account number, with expiration date and security code, that allows you to complete your purchase while protecting your privacy."

https://www.cardbenefits.citi.com/products/virtual-account-n...

"When shopping online or by mail order, you can use a randomly generated Citi card Virtual Account number instead of your real account number. Simply click Enroll in/Get below to begin using Virtual Account Numbers.

All purchases made with your temporary number will appear on your monthly statement with your other purchases and will include the Virtual Account Number that was used for each transaction."

    > Here's a Bitcoin private key: 5JcgxNrn4WFcA8trEix7ComAyLNEsDEyB...

Notice that it's a private key that's paired with a public key. You give a hash of the public key to accept payment, and revealing your private key is the doomsday event in its security model.

Meanwhile, with most credit cards, the entire interface is that you hand out the secret directly. Maybe they'll even make a carbon copy of it with a click clack machine depending on where you live, and this is acceptable. So acceptable that here in 2016, on-the-fly credit card numbers is a niche service offered by a few companies and you need to install a desktop Adobe Flash app to even use it.

> Meanwhile, with most credit cards, the entire interface is that you hand out the secret directly. Maybe they'll even make a carbon copy of it with a click clack machine depending on where you live, and this is acceptable. So acceptable that here in 2016, on-the-fly credit card numbers is a niche service offered by a few companies and you need to install a desktop Adobe Flash app to even use it.

You're overlooking something here.

Ignoring the fact that the merchant won't typically see the credit card number if I am using it physically, you are correct that I have to offer it up to them if I am using an online store. However, there is an important distinction between a credit card number and a Bitcoin private key that you're neglecting to look at here.

A credit card number is just a reference to an account between the card holder and the issuer. In a situation where the credit card number becomes exposed via negligence not on the part of the card holder, the card holder themselves in almost all situations is not liable for the charges incurred that were not of their own. So if Target for example gets breached like they did in 2014 where millions of credit card numbers were exposed, the account holders of those affected cards are not on the hook for any purchases that they did not make. In fact, issuers and payment processors were largely able to determine who was affected and issued new cards very quickly.

The only situation I can easily recite where you are on the hook for your credit card number being exposed is if you willfully expose it to a third party. It is at this point that the credit card issuer can tell you to effectively "buzz off" and pay for the undesired purchases.

In the situation where the card becomes compromised, the solution for the issuer is to issue a new credit card number and then to deny all use of the previous number going forward. All charges are then reversed and it's a matter between the payment processor and the merchant to flesh things out. In a few days the consumer will have a new card and even in extreme cases with certain classes of credit cards, they'll have a card hand-delivered to them within 24-hours.

With Bitcoin, if the private key becomes exposed (and there are many, many ways for this to occur), then there is no recovery nor any third party to rely on to get the coins back. You're effectively out of luck and must then generate a new private key and public key and start anew.

Also with Bitcoin you need to install a third-party application on your phone or computer in order to make use of it. I can easily send a payment via credit card via telephone, Internet, or in person.

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