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Comment by illumin8 | Hacker News Reader

Apple Pay generates a unique credit card # for every transaction, ensuring a compromise of one merchants system will never end up in the ability for hackers to use your card for any other transactions.

Unique card # per transaction is the holy grail of security.

Your claims of somehow compromising confidentiality are also provably false.

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> Your claims of somehow compromising confidentiality are also provably false.

What's the point of saying something is provably false and then completely leaving out any reference to that proof?

Then prove them as false?

There is a reliance on the security of the local device that isn't an issue with cards. Primarily this is more of a social engineering concern anyway, rendering most technical solutions useless.

Last year there was an article how Apple Pay was making it easier for scammers to use cards. I believe this particular vector was patched by having to authenticate that you are trully adding your card via bank authorization. However, Mobile Payment is susceptible to fraud and thieves will find a way.

http://mashable.com/2015/03/02/apple-pay-scammers/

That was a flaw in the process the banks were using to allow cards in the Apple Pay (without verification), not a flaw in Apple Pay itself.

> That was a flaw in the process the banks were using to allow cards in the Apple Pay (without verification), not a flaw in Apple Pay itself.

Agree. However, this does illustrate a point that safety concerns are valid.

Myself, I'm a proponent of mobile payment but I understand the inherited hesitation from some folk about security.

Technically, I don't think they're doing a unique credit card # for every transaction, it's just per retailer.

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