Fellow ticklers and ticklees,
I just read an article in PC World (January 2002, "Home Office: Wily Tricks to Thwart Rascally E-Thieves" by Steve Bass, page 47) about safely using your Credit Card for on-line expenses.
Even though I am an avid on-line buyer, I have always felt uneasy about leaving my credit card information all over the place. I always try to be secure and keep my information private and in one location and to not save any profile in any web site. However, this is tiresome and makes me very paranoid.
One of the things the article talks about it to generate a temporary credit card number that you can use safely in the web. The site the author recommends is http://www.mbnashopsafe.com. He says there are other credit card companies offering the service, but that's the one he uses.
You register the real credit card(s) you want in the system. Then you can select which one to use to charge to. Finally, using some Flash-based software, you can generate a fully valid credit card number with the expiration of your choice (1 month minimum) and with the amount of your choice ($1 minimum). You can use this number (and the three-digit CVV2 or CVC2 number, if the merchant asks you for it), to make any purchase anywhere.
The account number will be accepted anywhere your credit card would be accepted. The online merchant does not need any special software or applications to process your account number.
To provide additional security at each merchant site, a new account number needs to be generated for each online merchant site. However, you may reuse the same account number at the same merchant site if the Valid Thru date has not expired and the balance remaining covers the amount of your purchase.
I just bring this up because a lot of us subscribe to sites, buy videos or clips, and do several purchases on-line. This is a good way to prevent your information to be stolen and to prevent to be over charged. One good example is to make sure memberships do not "automatically" renew even if you only wanted a short-time membership.
Well, I hope you find this information useful.
Bye,
Knight Tickler
P.S.: For those hackers in the house... How is this technology different from the one used by early time hackers to do on-line purchases with valid "looking" numbers that did not point to any valid account? This was possible before on-line merchants started doing their account checks. However, how can they now verify that this is a valid account even though it was randomly generated?
I just read an article in PC World (January 2002, "Home Office: Wily Tricks to Thwart Rascally E-Thieves" by Steve Bass, page 47) about safely using your Credit Card for on-line expenses.
Even though I am an avid on-line buyer, I have always felt uneasy about leaving my credit card information all over the place. I always try to be secure and keep my information private and in one location and to not save any profile in any web site. However, this is tiresome and makes me very paranoid.
One of the things the article talks about it to generate a temporary credit card number that you can use safely in the web. The site the author recommends is http://www.mbnashopsafe.com. He says there are other credit card companies offering the service, but that's the one he uses.
You register the real credit card(s) you want in the system. Then you can select which one to use to charge to. Finally, using some Flash-based software, you can generate a fully valid credit card number with the expiration of your choice (1 month minimum) and with the amount of your choice ($1 minimum). You can use this number (and the three-digit CVV2 or CVC2 number, if the merchant asks you for it), to make any purchase anywhere.
The account number will be accepted anywhere your credit card would be accepted. The online merchant does not need any special software or applications to process your account number.
To provide additional security at each merchant site, a new account number needs to be generated for each online merchant site. However, you may reuse the same account number at the same merchant site if the Valid Thru date has not expired and the balance remaining covers the amount of your purchase.
I just bring this up because a lot of us subscribe to sites, buy videos or clips, and do several purchases on-line. This is a good way to prevent your information to be stolen and to prevent to be over charged. One good example is to make sure memberships do not "automatically" renew even if you only wanted a short-time membership.
Well, I hope you find this information useful.
Bye,
Knight Tickler
P.S.: For those hackers in the house... How is this technology different from the one used by early time hackers to do on-line purchases with valid "looking" numbers that did not point to any valid account? This was possible before on-line merchants started doing their account checks. However, how can they now verify that this is a valid account even though it was randomly generated?
