PIN in PIN-less transactions

/by apr/ This has nothing to do with jPOS, but since I don't have a personal blog I thought it would be a good idea to share this funny finding. I think I've "invented" a very easy way to add a some level of security to my regular credit cards, I'm testing it and works great on my MasterCard. It's very simple. I've memorized the CVC on the back of the card and then erased it with my little swiss army knife (you've got one, right? otherwise you wouldn't be reading this blog). This won't protect you against a problem like this but it's good if your card gets robbed or you lost your wallet. The procedure to use the "protected" card is very simple, you need to stay close to the operator and when you see a weird expression in her/his face when [s]he turns around the card to read the CVC, you just say "it's kind of erased, the number is NNN". So far it has worked all the time, I just need to refine the method for restaurants with no wireless POS where my wife bugs me to use an "unprotected" card in order to avoid all the fuzz (she ends up using hers most of the time, which is not bad either)