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RE: Texas oil refineries, a White Van, and Al Qaeda
by Trei, Peter 25 Jul '04

25 Jul '04

> -----Original Message----- > From: owner-cypherpunks(a)minder.net > [mailto:owner-cypherpunks@minder.net]On Behalf Of Thomas Shaddack > Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2004 3:48 PM > To: Justin > Cc: cypherpunks(a)minder.net > Subject: Re: Texas oil refineries, a White Van, and Al Qaeda > > > > On Tue, 20 Jul 2004, Justin wrote: > > > HOUSTON (Reuters) - Law enforcement officials said on > Monday they are > > looking for a man seen taking pictures of two refineries in > Texas City, > > Texas. > > > The person in question was just somebody with a weakness for > industrial > architecture. Indeed. Among the endless variety of things people do with their spare time are trainspotters and planespotters. This seems to be more popular in Britain than in the US, but I wonder if even over there people who park themselves near airports railway statiions, obsessively noting the arrival and departure of each vehicle, attract the attention of security? Peter

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Re: Email tapping by ISPs, forwarder addresses, and crypto proxies
by Major Variola (ret) 25 Jul '04

25 Jul '04

At 12:39 AM 7/22/04 -0500, J.A. Terranson wrote: >On Wed, 21 Jul 2004, Major Variola (ret) wrote: > >> I'm following the Principle of not underestimating the >> adversary, > >Don't go overboard: remember that there is a difference between >underestimating your adversary and unrealistically *over*estimating your >adversary. Good point. Channelling Hettinga, crypto is economics. >I (and I suspect you) live in the "high tech" world, Um, yes :-) >while a large part of academia tends to believe that the USG is around ten >years *behind* them (oh, to have such an ego!). In my personal >experience, they tend to have roughly a five year lead on what my >world considers "bleeding edge". That said, I'm willing to cut them a few >more years of slack when doing the necessary threat assessment, but I just >do not believe they are 20, or even 10 years ahead. And that is not an >"idle" belief, it's a considered, long formed opinion, based on an awful >lot of input data. Fair 'nuff. You know that 5 year predictions are too conservative, and 20 year predictions too liberal. Ask Orwell. My point is only that they will be killed should they leak their actual capabilities. >> Perhaps that grants the Maryland trogdyltes too much, but again, >> conservatism rules in this game. > >Conservatism in the real world, unreasonable paranoia in the academic >world (a necessary thing in that context). My academic experience had nothing to do with networking. I'm just a manic mechanic, okay? >> They also get radioisotope power supplies, etc. > >This is actually a *very* good point. It would also address the off-shore >splice vs power issue nicely. But we are still constrained by backhaul. Ergo my dark fiber remark, even if naif. >Yes, VA and DC have gluts of glass. In fact, that is one of the most >concentrated glut areas. And most worth observing... >While this cannot be discounted in toto, the tech comes to them from >academia (most of the time), so generally, if you are widely read, you'll >have a pretty good idea of what's *possible*. You are likely dead-on >accurate about the fabs though. In the *public* lit. >> Albeit, "Nortel" (even if Canadian, eh?) > >Yup. The Irony Meter is hanging out at the right of the scale again :-) Bent so many needles, I don't even know my real name... >Undersea taps are hard. No matter how you figure it. You think subs are just toys? >The actual intel/counterintel guys make shit for money. What I meant was, Ames and that FBI dude Hansen (sp?), at least the KGB got Ames' wife as part of the package, whereas the FBI CI dude let his wife off as part of the deal he cut. Nice xian that he was, he was into strippers. All under $2e6, all capable of reading their own records. Go figure, eh? See you in Athens, or before :-)

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More American vigilantes may be in Afghanistan, U.S. military says
by R. A. Hettinga 25 Jul '04

25 Jul '04

<http://www.billingsgazette.com/printer.php?id=1&display=rednews/2004/07/24/…> BillingsGazette.com printable article More American vigilantes may be in Afghanistan, U.S. military says Associated Press KABUL, Afghanistan - The U.S. military said Saturday there could be more vigilantes hunting terror suspects here after a group of Americans were arrested for allegedly abusing Afghans in a private jail. The U.S. government is offering big rewards for the capture of top terrorist suspects, including a US$50 million bounty on al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. It remains unclear if the three Americans who went on trial in the Afghan capital on Wednesday charged with hostage-taking and torture were hoping to cash in _ or if they were the only such group in the country. "It is entirely possible that there are others acting independently," military spokesman Maj. Jon Siepmann said. Afghanistan is awash with shadowy foreign security operatives. Some work for private contractors protecting reconstruction workers, others apparently with the military or secret services. The U.S. military has tried to distance itself from the three detained Americans, led by a former U.S. soldier on a self-appointed counter-terrorism mission. But both the Americans and NATO peacekeepers acknowledge contact with the group, which dressed in army fatigues and wore the beards and dark glasses favored by special forces soldiers. NATO troops helped the trio with three raids in the capital last month, while the U.S. military gratefully accepted a detainee at Bagram Air Field, north of Kabul, in May. Afghan authorities, who also mistook the men for U.S. special forces, arrested them only in July after NATO troops and the U.S. military denounced them as impostors and raised the alarm. Siepmann didn't say whether the military knew of any other freelancers or bounty-hunters in Afghanistan. "However, I think the issue of Mr. Idema has brought a heightened awareness to everyone involved ... to be on the lookout for this kind of behavior," Siepmann said. "I think Mr. Idema's arrest and current judicial process will serve as a warning to others who will attempt to do this in Afghanistan," he said. The three face up to 20 years in jail if convicted. Afghan security forces freed eight prisoners from the group's makeshift jail in a house in downtown Kabul. Firearms were also seized in the house. Idema, who claims to have fought with Afghan forces against the Taliban in 2001-2002, says the men were arrested to avert an al-Qaida plot to attack foreign troops and assassinate a string of Afghan political leaders. He told reporters in court on Wednesday that he had support from within the U.S. Department of Defense and that he could produce evidence to prove it _ a claim Pentagon officials dispute. The trial is expected to resume early next month. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Internet providers test ways to outsmart spam
by R. A. Hettinga 25 Jul '04

25 Jul '04

"A whitelist for my friends..." ...which, in the meantime, will probably suffice for the time being, at least as far as Mr. Pareto is concerned. Cheers, RAH "...all others pay cash." When that 20% becomes 80% again, anyway... -------- <http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/pp/04207/350858.stm> Internet providers test ways to outsmart spam Sunday, July 25, 2004 By Chris Gaither, Los Angeles Times Be liberal in what you accept and conservative in what you send. That was the philosophy when computer scientists sent the first electronic-mail messages over the Internet more than 30 years ago. At the time, the Internet was in its infancy, used by a few hundred researchers at universities, government labs and high-tech companies. Today, hundreds of millions of people have e-mail addresses, and junk e-mailers send out billions of messages every day. And Internet service providers are racing to figure out how to force spammers to abide by that old golden rule. Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and other companies are taking different approaches, but they all have the same objective: finding a way to verify that people who send e-mail are who they say they are. That would plug the biggest hole in Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, the system that has been shuttling messages around the Net since 1983. The designers of SMTP knew their protocol didn't have a built-in authentication system. But they saw no reason to worry. "There was very little attention paid to nasty people because we all knew and trusted each other," said David Farber, an Internet pioneer who is now a Carnegie Mellon University professor of computer science and public policy. "It was understood that it was easy to forge mail, but who would forge mail among your friends?" Spammers have taken full advantage of that oversight. They falsify their names and reply-to addresses to bypass junk e-mail filters and trick recipients into opening messages. They copy corporate logos to send fake messages purporting to be from companies such as eBay and Citibank to fool people into handing over their credit card numbers and other personal information in so-called "phishing" attacks. "Accountability is really the missing link for many of the problems we have on the Internet," said Phillip Hallam-Baker, principal scientist for VeriSign Inc., the company that maintains the master list of commercial Internet addresses. The Federal Trade Commission last month cited the lack of authentication standards when it declined to create a "do-not-e-mail" registry modeled after the "do-not-call" list for telemarketers. Without knowing for sure who is sending a message, the FTC said, Internet service providers and other spam fighters wouldn't be able to punish violators. The big Internet service providers don't agree on how to best fix the authentication problem. Two systems being tested now are Yahoo's DomainKeys standard and Sender ID, which is backed by Microsoft and the Pobox.com e-mail service. Sender ID has attracted the most interest. It counts on the fact that although e-mail headers are easy to forge, IP addresses -- the unique set of numbers attached to every Internet domain -- are not. Here's how it works: A company like Amazon.com Inc. publishes its IP address in a public database. When a message arrives that claims to be from the online retailer, the recipient's e-mail program automatically checks the information in the header and compares it with the information in the database. If it matches, the message goes through. If it doesn't match, the message is quarantined or blocked. ISPs including EarthLink Inc. and Time Warner Inc.'s America Online are testing a component of Sender ID called SPF, or Sender Policy Framework. AOL has started publishing the list of IP addresses from which it sends its members' e-mail, so that other e-mail service providers can block messages from spoofed AOL addresses. By the end of the summer, the country's biggest ISP hopes to begin blocking e-mail that purports to come from companies often impersonated in phishing attacks -- such as eBay's PayPal division -- but that can't be verified as legitimate. Authenticating e-mail "is the single most important thing we can do to enhance the SMTP," said Carl Hutzler, AOL's director of anti-spam operations. DomainKeys takes an approach that is based on public-private key cryptography. Sent messages include an encrypted digital signature created by the e-mail provider's private key. When the message arrives at the recipient's e-mail server, the server checks a database for the sender's public key. If the public and private keys match up, the signature can be decrypted, and the sender's identity validated. If not, the message can be blocked by spam filters. Yahoo began testing DomainKeys in March. The company said it planned to implement it for outbound messages from its Yahoo Mail customers and at least some incoming messages by the end of the year. If the ISPs succeed, e-mail marketers will have no choice but to authenticate their messages to prevent them from being blocked. And if they authenticate, ISPs and other spam fighters will be able to keep track of senders and their reputations. Companies would be held accountable for the sending habits of their employees, and ISPs would be responsible for their customers' e-mail. Those that developed a reputation for generating spam could find their e-mail blocked -- a situation that could force e-mail providers to ensure that their customers' computers are secured, so spammers couldn't hijack them to send junk mail. Legitimate e-mail marketers that allow recipients to remove themselves from mailing lists and that obey other professional codes of conduct would have their messages whisked around spam filters instead of getting blocked. Technologies like DomainKeys and Sender ID are needed to "take SMTP from being dangerously wide open to being much more controlled," said Steve Jillings, chief executive of FrontBridge Technologies Inc., a Marina del Rey, Calif., e-mail security company that plans to implement Sender ID. The catch is that an authentication standard has to be widely adopted to be effective. Getting companies across the world to agree on a standard and implement it seems highly unlikely to technologists such as Carnegie Mellon's Farber. But the future of e-mail depends on it, said Scott Weiss, chief executive of the anti-spam company IronPort Systems Inc. "The innovation of e-mail now needs to catch up with many of the rich features that have now been rendered virtually unusable." Back Copyright )1997-2004 PG Publishing Co., Inc. All Rights Reserved. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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[Fink-announce] FINK-2004-07-24 Security Announcement - Samba
by R. A. Hettinga 24 Jul '04

24 Jul '04

--- begin forwarded text

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Energy Dept. Shelves Removable Disks
by R. A. Hettinga 24 Jul '04

24 Jul '04

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10205-2004Jul23?language=printer> The Washington Post washingtonpost.com Energy Dept. Shelves Removable Disks Response to Security Breach at Lab Associated Press Saturday, July 24, 2004; Page A02 The Energy Department, in response to a security scandal at the Los Alamos weapons lab, ordered a halt yesterday to classified work at as many as two dozen facilities that use removable computer disks like those missing at the New Mexico lab. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said the "stand-down" at operations using the disks, containing classified material involving nuclear weapons research, is needed to get better control over the devices. The disks, known as "controlled removable electronic media," or CREM, have been at the heart of an uproar over lax security at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where work has been stopped as scientists search for two of the disks reported missing on July 7. Nineteen workers have been suspended pending the outcome of an investigation into the missing data devices and an incident in which an intern was injured recently in a laser accident. The missing Los Alamos disks raised concern at the Energy Department about the handling of the devices at other facilities involved in nuclear weapons research, department officials said. Abraham said he wants to "minimize the risk of human error or malfeasance" that could compromise the classified nuclear-related information held in the devices, which are used at Energy Department facilities nationwide in nuclear-related work. "While we have no evidence that the problems currently being investigated are present elsewhere, we have a responsibility to take all necessary action to prevent such problems from occurring at all," Abraham said in a statement. The stand-down involves classified work across the government's nuclear weapons complex wherever the CREM storage devices are used, the official said. It will continue until an inventory of the devices is completed and new control measures on their use is put in place, said Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis. Employees using the disks must also undergo security training. Among the facilities that are preparing for an interruption of classified work are the Argonne National Laboratory outside Chicago; the nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn.; and the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, where a missing classified disk was reported found last week. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Re: Texas oil refineries, a White Van, and Al Qaeda
by Tyler Durden 24 Jul '04

24 Jul '04

>The person in question was just somebody with a weakness for industrial >architecture. > Either that, or they wanted to see if there'd be ANOTHER apocalyptic chain reaction decimating Texas City, just in the off chance someone hits just one of the tanks.* In other words, does public safety still boil down to "just trust us"? *: A year or two ago someone posted about the blow up of Texas City back in the early 1950s. Apparently, some kind of tanker hit something else and set of a chain reaction killing thousands and wiping out the town (I know someone who walked over to Texas City right after it happened and looked around.) _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/

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Texas oil refineries, a White Van, and Al Qaeda
by Justin 24 Jul '04

24 Jul '04

http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/415877|top|07-19-2004::15:07|reuters.h… Jul 19, 2:57 PM (ET) HOUSTON (Reuters) - Law enforcement officials said on Monday they are looking for a man seen taking pictures of two refineries in Texas City, Texas. Texas City, located on the Texas Gulf coast about 30 miles south of Houston, has three refineries including the largest U.S. plant operated by BP Plc., which is the third-largest U.S. refinery, processing 470,000 barrels of crude oil per day. The man, described as white with dark hair, was seen taking pictures outside the refineries, all located on the same highway, at about 5 p.m. CDT on Saturday, said Bruce Clawson, emergency management and homeland security director for Texas City. While it is not illegal to take pictures of a refinery from a highway or street, officials would like to talk to the man to find out his reason for taking the photographs. "This is based on the idea that al Qaeda does its homework," Clawson said. "That's not to say we don't have enough home-grown idiots already who might want to do something." The man was seen driving a white van. Valero Energy Corp. operates a 243,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery in Texas City. Marathon Ashland Petroleum LLC, a joint venture between Marathon Oil Corp., and Ashland Inc., operates a 76,000 bpd refinery in Texas City. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has repeatedly warned refiners that they are possible targets for would-be terrorists. U.S. refinery security officials say their security guards regularly report people observing or taking pictures of refineries. During the Independence Day holiday, ExxonMobil Corp. tightened security at the largest U.S. refinery, the 538,000 bpd plant in Baytown, Texas, 30 miles east of Houston, because of general warnings about possible terrorist activity. -- "When in our age we hear these words: It will be judged by the result--then we know at once with whom we have the honor of speaking. Those who talk this way are a numerous type whom I shall designate under the common name of assistant professors." -- Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (Wong tr.), III, 112

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FIPS chassis/linux security engineer?
by Eric Murray 24 Jul '04

24 Jul '04

Does anyone know of a manufacturer of FIPS 140 certified or certifiable 1u/2u rack mount chassis? For a seperate project, does anyone know of a small linux-ready/able box with ethernet? Gumstix looks cool but I need hardwire networking. Last, I'm looking for a Linux expert security engineer in the SF bay area. (I'm managing a security group at a startup that has been shipping products to paying customers for a few years. No its not lne.com, this just address I use to post). This person will need to know linux/unix OS security/hardening _in depth_ and also have an understanding of crypto APIs (writing them not using them) plus significant industry experience. Sorry, no relocation assistance. Eric

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As Cash Fades, America Becomes A Plastic Nation
by R. A. Hettinga 24 Jul '04

24 Jul '04

<http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB109053116869571496,00.html> The Wall Street Journal July 23, 2004 PAGE ONE Paper Losses As Cash Fades, America Becomes A Plastic Nation Even State Troopers Accept Credit and Debit Cards; McDonald's Capitulation A Swiper for Church Donors By JATHON SAPSFORD Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL July 23, 2004; Page A1 Whenever state trooper Michael Poupart pulls over a speeding motorist on I-94 in Wisconsin's Kenosha County, he offers to take Visa or MasterCard debit and credit cards right there on the side of the road. Drivers initially look puzzled, until the trooper explains he has a card swiper onboard. "Then they say 'OK,' and hand over the card," he says. "They'd rather deal with it right there." Trooper Poupart is one reason the nation passed a watershed last year. For the first time, Americans used cards -- credit, debit and others -- to buy retail goods and services more often than they used cash or check in 2003. The nation now uses cards to subscribe to cable TV, pay taxes and hire Phil Marlowe, a 17-year-old in Tyngsboro, Mass., to cart stuff in the back of his Chevy Silverado. He carries a cellphone with a "PowerSwipe" snapped onto the back to handle his card transactions. His sales roughly doubled when he started advertising credit-card acceptance on the side of his truck. "One lady gave me a $30 tip just because I accepted cards," he says. Vending machines, subway systems and charities now accept cards. The government is handing out cards in lieu of food stamps and child-support disbursements. Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons is marketing a service that lets people put their paychecks directly onto a Visa card, giving consumers without bank accounts access to plastic. At "Da Money," an online chat room where consumers trade financial tips, participants recently touted the benefits of Mr. Simmons's card. "For the Ladies, YES! There is a...'pre-paid' VISA credit card and it is PINK!" said one writer. "Let Puff Daddy top that!!!'' By letting consumers buy things with unprecedented convenience and speed, cards have transformed the economy. They have helped keep consumer spending strong even through terror attacks and recessions. When people pay with plastic, they tend to spend more -- often more than they have in the bank. Thus, credit cards also have fueled an explosion in consumer debt. It is expected to hit $838 billion this year, an increase of 6.8% from 2003 and more than double what it was ten years ago. The aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman went completely cashless earlier this year. The Navy issued MasterCards to all 5,000 sailors aboard. On payday, seamen insert cards into a machine that electronically loads money stored onto each card. They then use the cards for all onboard purchases. The Navy estimates sailors on the Truman buy 250,000 soft drinks monthly. When it was a cash ship, somebody had to collect half a ton of quarters each month from all the Truman's vending machines. Those coins then had to be redistributed. Now it's all settled electronically. An added benefit: Shipmates can use the same cards while visiting nightclubs or movie theaters on shore, as well as to send money home. The Navy has even put a swiper by the door of the chapel as a substitute for the Sunday church-service collection plate, says Cmdr. Boyle McDunn, a chaplain aboard the Truman. A currency can be anything that all members of a society agree it should be. The current boom in plastic is one of those rare moments in history when that agreement shifts and one payment form overtakes another as the preferred way to pay. The first such change came sometime between the 10th and 6th centuries B.C., when Greece and India each introduced metal coins, which surpassed barter or the shell currencies of earlier times. Coins dominated trade for the next 2,000 years, until the introduction of checks by Italian merchants in the Middle Ages. In 1690, Massachusetts became the first of the colonies to introduce paper money. Cash took decades to gain broad acceptance, but eventually became the standard of payment for the next three centuries. The first credit card was introduced as a service for the wealthy in New York in 1950 under the Diner's Club brand. Today, U.S. consumers use plastic to buy $2.2 trillion in goods and services each year -- roughly 20% of U.S. gross domestic product. Last year, cash was used in 32% of retail transactions, down from 39% in 1999. Credit-card usage has remained stable, accounting for about 21% of purchases during that time. Meanwhile debit cards, which take money out of checking accounts immediately after each purchase, shot up to 31% of purchases last year, from 21% in 1999. CHARGING AHEAD The rise in plastic by the numbers Households with payment cards 1970 16% Today 73% Amount consumers purchased with cards 1994 $724 billion 2003 $2.2 trillion U.S. GDP attributed to card purchases 20% Average cards held per household 1971 0.6 2003 7.8 Merchants accepting cards 1971 820,000 Today 5.3 million Amount Visa USA processes over its networks per second $32,000 Card solicitations to be sent to households this year 4.9 billion Solicitations sent for cards touting shopper rewards 2002 811 million 2003 1.27 billion Average amount a household spent on cards in 2003 $15,066 Amount cardholder must spend* with an American Express card to qualify for a Personal chef for cooking lesson and dinner for eight $95,000 Three-day polo lesson in Palm Springs, Fla. $180,000 Suborbital space flight with Russian cosmonauts $20 million *Total spending requirement can be less depending on where card is used. Sources: Sinovate Mail Monitor; Cardweb.com; Paywithplastic.org; American Express; Visa USA; Nilson Report Consumer activists have long warned of the dangers of credit cards, which have caused many a tragic story of personal bankruptcy and become fodder for late-night TV commercials for debt doctors. As cards spread, critics say consumers are running tabs for increasingly routine purchases. "You could end up paying interest on ice cream," says Travis Plunkett of the Consumer Federation of America. Roughly 60% of credit-card holders roll balances over each month, paying interest of as much as 22%. Because these cardholders are the most lucrative customers of the banks, critics say they effectively subsidize the remaining 40% of cardholders. Maria Nemeth, a psychologist in Sacramento, Calif., says card usage is becoming so easy and pervasive that consumers are losing the ability to budget. Using plastic, she says, is as hard to resist as junk food, and potentially as dangerous. She regularly tells clients to go on 48-hour "cash diets," refraining from the use of plastic for two days at a time. Tension has also surfaced over the fees that merchants pay the card industry on each transaction. The European Commission argues consumers paying in cash are effectively forced to subsidize the acceptance of plastic. That's because the merchants' cost of accepting cards drives up prices on all goods in stores. Some Christians see the pervasive use of plastic as part of a dark biblical prophecy. Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, has said that plastic may signal the cashless society of the end times foreshadowed in the Bible. Mr. Robertson's network accepts contributions from supporters on both Visa and MasterCard. A big part of the mission of companies like Visa and MasterCard (joint ventures owned by the thousands of banks that issue cards under those names) is to become to consumers exactly what Ms. Nemeth warns against: a ubiquitous presence that is hardly noticed, much less resisted. "It's like the switch on the wall," says Robert W. Selander, president and chief executive of MasterCard. "You turn on electricity and the lights turn on. ... We take it for granted." "We're like the dial tone," says Carl F. Pascarella, president and chief executive of Visa USA Inc., the biggest credit-card company in terms of cards outstanding. Over the longer term, big earnings for the card industry could come from the commission merchants pay with each swipe, anywhere from 1% to 5% of each transaction. It amounts to a tax, of sorts, on the new currency of choice. "There are still trillions of dollars in cash and check that are out there just waiting to be captured on plastic," says Bill Glenn, president of American Express's Merchant Network, which manages the company's relations with merchants. Card issuers have been targeting merchants who refuse to accept plastic, offering incentives and lower fees. The fast-food industry held out for years in the face of intense card-industry lobbying. Behind the reluctance: Signing or punching in code numbers at the counters was too time-consuming for an industry that relies on quick service, and the transaction fees were considered too expensive. In response, the card industry lowered the fees they charge quick-service restaurants and waived the signature requirement. McDonald's Corp. capitulated in March, agreeing to widespread card acceptance at its restaurants, a move that many in the industry say will force other fast-food restaurants to follow. Card companies say McDonald's found the average transaction jumped from $4.50 to $7 when customers used debit and credit cards instead of cash -- in part, because cardholders tend to buy for more people. A California company named Creditel Corp. has found a way to turn the cellular telephone into a swiper. Its "PowerSwipe" snaps onto the back of Nextel cellphones. Stadium food hawkers were given the devices before last year's Super Bowl in San Diego. Fans were able to charge beer and hot dogs from their seats, without missing any of the game. The cellphone can even fax a receipt to the cardholder's office or home. Emily Cook, a U.S. Olympic ski team member sponsored by Visa, participated in a year-long Visa experiment in which she used plastic for every purchase over $10. Rushing through airports from country to country to join qualifying meets, she never had to change currencies. For roughly 60 million Americans without bank accounts, however, living without cards is getting harder. They can't easily rent cars or stay in hotels, among other things. "You're effectively locked out of the American Dream if you don't have some kind of plastic, and it's going to get worse," says Mr. Simmons, the hip-hop mogul, whose RushCard lets holders put their paychecks onto plastic. U-Haul International Inc., the truck-rental company, has begun issuing "payroll cards" to about 3,000 of its employees, or about 17% of its work force. They are mostly hourly workers who lack bank accounts. Workers can withdraw cash once a week from any automated teller machine without paying a fee, and they can use the cards wherever Visa is accepted. They can even get cash back after a purchase from the supermarket without any charge. The company, meanwhile, says it is saving about $500,000 a year in costs associated with issuing checks. More technological innovation is coming, and plastic itself may eventually fall into disuse. After all, it is the numbers carried on plastic, not the plastic cards themselves, that are necessary to complete transactions. Since cards are susceptible to theft and fraud, the industry is working on "biometric" identification techniques. Computers would link credit-card numbers, housed on an electronic database, to unique body parts such as fingerprints, irises or facial characteristics. Card industry executives envision consumers being identified at cash registers with devices such as fingerprint readers or eye scanners, which would replace the signature or PIN that consumers currently use to verify identity. Online shoppers might identify themselves by pressing fingers to a silicon wafer embedded in the keyboard, which would read the fingerprint, match it online with a copy held by bank or merchant, then authorize the sale. They wouldn't need a card at all. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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