Risks of discarded receipts Risks Digest 23.29

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2004 23:32:01 +0100
From: Tim Aidley <tim () planettimmy com>
Subject: Risks of discarded receipts

Nowadays, most credit card receipts blank out portions of the credit card
number so that discarded receipts cannot give it away to anyone who picks it
up. However, the section of the credit card number that gets blanked out
seems to vary between every shop. My wife was recently cleaning out her
wallet of credit card purchase receipts and noticed that if someone was to
get hold of several of her receipts, they would have enough information to
piece the whole of her number together. Our local council provides green
bins for everybody for them to put their waste paper, glass and tin in,
which is collected every week. If a snooper was to collect someone's paper
waste and get 3 or four receipts they would have enough information (as
obviously they know the address) to make fraudulent charges to a card.

I suppose the RISK here is assuming that a security measure that works in a
single situation will work well when multiple situations are combined.

  [We've probably discussed this problem before, but because the risks
  keep recurring, it is probably worth repeating.  PGN]

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