[ILUG] Net banks with linux support

[Timothy Murphy]

On Sat 16 Jul 2005 20:08, Colm MacCarthaigh wrote:

> Of course ATM still have they're own deficiencies, like the simple
> man-in-the-middle attacks that been occuring in the last few years.

Aren't you all a bit paranoid?

I feel both online banking and ATM machines are reasonably safe.
The chances of being mugged at an ATM machine
strike me as much higher than any electronic attack.

In any case, wouldn't the bank re-imburse you
if you were the victim of an attack on their system?
One thing I like about online banking is that
you can see your transactions reasonably simply.
(The Bank of Ireland has a bizarre way
of making it difficult to see transactions
from before the last printed statement they sent out,
but it is possible if you press the right buttons.)

My colleague Michael Purser (the cryptography expert)
 told me of a strange attack on ATM machines when they first came out.
Apparently if you completed an identical transaction
within a short time
it was assumed that it was the same transaction
which had been interrupted,
so you could get 200 pounds while only being debited 100 pounds.
But that was a long time ago.

Are there figures for the sums lost by fraud
at ATM machines or online banking?
Most of the scare stories one reads strike me as urban myths.
Or else they are put about by firms involved in electronic security.



-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland