Fingerprint recognition in schools

[Nicholas Bohm]

Ian Batten wrote:
> 
> On 06 Oct 08, at 1325, Wendy M. Grossman wrote:
> 
>> Ian Batten wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Cheques are over.  It may be that for a tiny minority they still
>>>>> have an
>>>>
>>>> They may be over for *you*. I think it's perfectly reasonable not to
>>>> be willing to trust online banking yet.
>>> False dichotomy.  The choice here is a cheque, or making a card
>>> payment via a payment portal.   Are you saying that you do not use a
>>> debit or credit card online, and will only deal with online companies
>>> that will
>>
>> Fair enough - I do use credit cards online.
> 
> Which is lower-risk than online banking because...?

Because the merchants are there in the middle to carry the risk:  if you
reject a credit card charge for an online  customer-not-present
transaction, the bank recharges the merchant, who is lumbered because he
has no evidence that you authorised the charge.

(This may start to change with Verified by Visa etc, though my
experience of that so far is that the model is badly broken: I'm shifted
from merchant to - I hope - the bank page, which asks for digits x, y
and z of my password.  I enter them, correctly, and have them rejected;
and then I'm asked if I want to change my password, which I do, putting
the same one in again, which it accepts.  Then it asks for digits a, b
and c, and accepts them.  The value of this for security purposes seems
pretty limited.  Goodness knows how it plays out if there's a dispute.)

Nicholas
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