Hacker News Reader

Comment by jayknight | Hacker News Reader

Every time you hand your card to someone they could grab the info. If they use it to buy something, that's fraud and they'll hopefully get in lots of trouble. But if they just use it to track you to your home neighborhood or place of work, is that illegal?

View on HN

Sorry I'm not American, I don't just hand my card to random strangers. Kinda forgot that was a thing at restaurants there.

My perspective comes purely from a person that exclusively uses Google Pay and occasionally Chip + PIN when my purchases go over the limit for that.

Yeah, no one really cares here because we're not responsible for someone else stealing the money. We just call the bank and they give it all back. The worst part is waiting for a new card to ship and then updating all your payment information with the new card number wherever you're using auto payment.

I don't even bother updating the number on recurring stuff. Most recurrent payments keep going through just fine even if the number itself was compromised.

If you are using it to represent someone else's identity, yes, that's fraud. Doing it on a computer outside the intended purpose will add on a hacking charge. Together, at maximum, that can get you 5 years in prison and a ban from using a computer or smartphone for a decade. Those are federal maximums, per count, but states might have harsher penalties. Source: An FBI agent at an infosec conference.

"Can".

I'm not quite convinced the FBI has "accessing a normal poor person's data without a password" at the top of their list of crimes to investigate.

Nah, the source is for the maximums for fraud and hacking. Should have clarified.

.. unless you piss off the government. Then they'll get you good!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com