Card skimming disproportionally affects those most in need | Hacker News Reader

Card skimming disproportionally affects those most in need

krebsonsecurity.com

74 pointstodsacerdoti29 comments

This is really sad.

“The investigation focused on illegal skimming, particularly the high-volume cash-out sequence at ATMs near the start of each month when Electronic Benefits Transfer accounts are funded by California.”

Armed with a victim’s PIN along with stolen card data, thieves can clone the card onto anything with a magnetic stripe and use it at ATMs to withdraw cash, or as a payment instrument at any establishment that accepts EBT cards.

Even after the police officer assigned to the victim’s case confirmed they found a skimmer installed at the 7-Eleven store she frequented, her claim [for reimbursement] — which was denied — is still languishing in appeals months later.

I’d say the real problem is not the technical insecurity - that’s a result. The real problem is in the last paragraph: the fact that banks are incentivized to use insecure mechanisms by being able to shed any responsibility simply by denying customers claim.

As a meta-comment why does everything bad need some sort of impetus to drive the point home? For example here, "...affects those most in need". Sure, I agree, it most likely does. This is obvious at it's face. If someone stole $500 from me I'd be pissed, but it wouldn't keep me from feeding my family.

It feels like news in general leverages this for extra views. Card skimming effects everyone that includes poor people. It's not "a little more okay" when it happens to people who are not needy. However, the language seems to imply this. Like card skimming wasn't an issue until it started having an effect on poor people. It really cheapens the article when I read this.

You might want to read the article before commenting on it. This article is not about the fact losing money is a bigger blow when you're poor (although, that is obviously true). It is about the fact that the card type most used by them (EBT cards) do not have modern security features (most don't have a chip) and are difficult to reverse transactions on (unlike traditional credit cards which much stronger fraud protection).

It's a shame I have such a revulsion to that click bait technique I didn't bother reading what is apparently a good article.

Oh come on you are just doubling down when you got called out not having read the article. I feel this title exactly describes the point it is trying to get across.

What should the title have been then?

"Card skimming affects those most in need" is a tautology.

EBT cards most vulnerable to fraud from skimming

National EBT fraud costing $X/year

We can reduce EBT fraud by changing the way California administers SNAP

After reading the article, something along the lines of "Insecure EBT cards and bad fraud detection leave the poor disproportionately vulnerable to card skimming".

I too didn't read the title and jump directly to security issues in EBT cards, and also theres a whole import piece about officials saying"no fraud" and police not following up that isn't referenced in the original title.

The article is specifically about card-skimming of EBT cards ("food stamps"), which are effected by card skimming particularly because they basically never have "chips", and also because it's basically possible to get reimbursed for fraudulent charges.

So it's a specific story about EBT cards, which, by definition, are basically given to "those most in need", and how users of such are hit especially hard. It's not just about card-skimming in general, or about something "obvious on it's face".

But the headline could have mentioned EBT cards instead of "those most in need", and perhaps krebs used the "most in need" phrase to get attention, sure.

Most in need is a superlative expression. Yet there is no analysis why these fraud victims are in fact, "most in need".

It's a poor form of rhetorical exaggeration because everyone knows it's either true tautologically or it's not strictly true and someone can nitpick an example to prove it.

The problem identified by the article is that specific state issued EBT cards don't have chips in them.

What does that have to do with why card skimming affects those most in need? That's just a method of fraud. It does affect needy people, but what are the proprtions?

You expect, based on the title that the article will examine proportions of fraud experienced by peoples of different vulnerabilities. Which is uninteresting to me. California being too lazy to issue EBT cards with chips is much more interesting.

i mean, you're complaning that the headline suggested the article would do something uninteresting to you, and then didn't follow through on doing the uninteresting thing? "the food was terrible, and such small portions!"

Maybe go calm down and reflect on your priorities. You’re upset because an article reported that something disproportionally affects people less fortunate than you. It didn’t report that you’re not affected. It highlighted an acute harm done to a vulnerable population. That doesn’t mean you’re any less important. It just means they’re being regarded as important alongside you. Have some grace and something soothing, you’re still important too even if other people also have the prospect of not being silently further entrenched in poverty.

i felt that way until i read the article, then i realized it was the first really good use of "disproportionately affects..." i've seen in a while.

I mean, this guy uses every trick in the book to generate views, so I'm not surprised he's using this psychological device to drive views.

Card skimming devices affect the least secure cards; advocate for more secure cards (chipped cards).

Thieves aren't thinking, huh, there's some poor people, let's gittem! They're going for insecure cards.

Instead of issuing special insecure cards, just deposit the equivalent money into their bank account. Suddenly, they are afforded the same protections as everyone else. Amazing.

You’re assuming they already have a bank account, but if they don’t they automatically lose $10 a month to evil corporate bank fees. Or you assume they won’t waste the money on hookers and blow if we don’t see what the poors spend it on. Good idea, but both parties would reject it.

We’ve been talking about starting a state bank in California. Besides a service like this, it would allow marijuana businesses access to banks, thus preventing crimes around the all-cash business.

Any organization that's too big to fail should be too big to privatize.

In France bank accounts are a basic right and the Banque de France will open one for you if all other banks refuse.

Interestingly, it looks like the unbanked population in France is similar to that of the United States, approx. 6-7%: https://www.gfmag.com/global-data/economic-data/worlds-most-...

Almost 15 years ago California created a program to offer banking services to the unbanked population, but as of last year it survives in only 3 major cities, SF, LA, and Sacramento, and is mostly defunct. See https://dfpi.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/337/2022/02/Ban... It turns out that, "Simply providing low-cost banking options does not motivate unbanked populations to get banked. Programs utilizing a community-based, holistic approach have greater success with the unbanked." Which is another way of saying that unbanked populations tend to have bigger issues, beyond nominal costs. Normally I would be tempted to say that one of these issues is awareness of and ease of utilizing the assistance programs, but the situation in France suggests that in this case that may not be one of the top structural impediments.

Yes, if it were a program, I would look for another bottleneck :)

Many countries have postal banking. And the US used to have that. There are a number of US government agencies that could handle that.

Finally, there is no vocal (or at least well-heeled) constituency advocating for change.

It's actually dangerous to complain too much if you are poor and vulnerable. People already think you must be a bad person and fuck up. If you go aggravating people, it can come back to bite you rather than get you justice.

These are often people who don't want to draw attention to themselves lest that make their already sucktastic life even worse.

I was surprised when I first heard this a few months ago. I’d wondered why card skimming was still a thing since seemingly every credit/debit card has gone EMV except prepaid gift cards.

Sadly, I’m guessing there is no one in the governments who is incentivized to care. If anything I’m guessing they’re incentivized to not fix it given the costs of reissuing all the cards with more expensive versions.

Without someone’s head on the line, I fear nothing will change. It’s not like this just started this year.

Just abolish the food stamps and pay the money directly into people's bank accounts and require banks to issue an ordinary debit card for nothing.

You're assuming the recipient has a bank account.

There are also rules that limit taxation on EBT.

Why don't they have a bank account? Here in the Nordic region pretty much everyone, more than 99.5%, has a current account.

Why can't it be done in the US?

And what does tax have to do with it?

> federal law bars the states from replacing SNAP benefits using federal funds

Could states use federal funds to purchase insurance that would restore benefits to victims?

Insurance premiums are used to cover the damages. Insurance doesn’t create free money.

The financial system in the US is so out of date.

Not only are the chip-less cards obsolete, cards in general are very dated.

But it goes way beyond that. In fact the entire system is full of patchwork legacy nonsense.

The starting point is this: imagine you are creating a new digital banking system from scratch. How can you ensure:

A) that people can make secure payments in person and online without having to give out secrets such as debit card numbers and

B) the integrity of the entire system, such as preventing banks from finding creative ways to add funds to their friends' accounts?

Its worth learning about digital signatures and block chains.

And compare the current system to that.

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