A persuasive essay I wrote on why America needs something more secure than credit cards.

1. Mims 1
" Credit Cards and Swiping Information"
" You may not realize it, but the American credit system is in a time of change. The
fact is, change cannot come soon enough. Credit security breaches have proven over
and over that we need a better system than the terrible, primitive one we have now."
" Let me refresh your memory on how our system works now with an explanation
by Casey Liss on Accidental Tech Podcast:"
If you're at a restaurant, the general way things work is, you ask for a check,
they bring you the check, you give the server your credit card, they run away to
some terminal that could be in the back of the restaurant well out of your line of
sight, swipe your card, hopefully not skim your card, bring it back, and then you
are to add the tip that you want to add, sign the paper, and leave it and just hope
that (A) they didn't skim your card, and (B) they actually put the amount you
want them to put into the point of sale system in order to charge you…we are so
backwards anything will be an improvement. (Arment)."
" As you can imagine, plenty of security breaches have come from this. The
biggest one in the recent past happened in late November to early December 2013,
when data from around 40 million credit and debit cards was stolen from Target
Corporation. ("Target security breach affects up to 40M cards"). In all of 2013, $6 billion
was lost to credit card fraud in the U.S., up from around $4.5 billion in 2011. ("Seventy
Percent of U.S. Credit Cards to be EMV Enabled by the End of 2015")."
Cody Mims"
Mrs. Mann"
DC English III"
11-20-14

2. Mims 2
" By October 1, 2015, credit card transactions in the United States are going to
require a chip built into the card. (Rosenblatt). This is a much safer system that 19 other
countries have already adopted. In the United Kingdom, counterfeit credit card fraud
plummeted to $67 million in 2013 from $151 million in 2004 after it started using chipped
cards. However, what we are doing in the U.S. is still a feeble half measure that involves
the customer giving a signature instead of entering a PIN. Signing is a pointless ritual
that gives a false sense of security, and without a PIN, stolen cards can be used for
online shopping just as easily as ones with a magnetic stripe."
" A wonderful effect of this change is that now is a great time for completely new
payment methods to arrive. NFC payments such as Google Wallet and Apple Pay offer
humongous security benefits over credit cards. Here is how it works: instead of using
your actual credit and debit card numbers when you add your card to your phone, your
phone stores an encrypted, unique Device Account Number. When you make a
purchase, you enter a PIN, or, in the case of Apple Pay, scan your fingerprint, and the
Device Account Number, along with a transaction-specific dynamic security code, is
used to process your payment. Your actual credit or debit card numbers are never
shared with merchants or transmitted with payment."
" Mobile payments are a great alternative to credit cards that could create a world
where you don't have to remember to grab your wallet along with your phone and keys
when you leave your house in the morning, and are much more secure, although
considering what we have now, chip and PIN alone would be a drastic improvement.
American credit companies need to think about how long they really want to wait before
doing away with signatures and implementing PINs.

3. Mims 3
Works Cited!
" Arment, Marco, Casey Liss, and John Siracusa. Entering the iTouch Phase of My
Life. 2014. MP3."
" Rosenblatt, Seth. "Chips promise more security for credit cards, but signature still
required." CNET. CBS Interactive Inc., 17 Nov. 2014. Web. 18 Nov. 2014."
" "Seventy Percent of U.S. Credit Cards to be EMV Enabled by the End of 2015."
Aite. Aite Group LLC, 10 Jun. 2014. Web. 18 Nov. 2014"
" "Target security breach affects up to 40M cards". Associated Press via
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 19 Dec. 2013. Web. 21 Dec. 2013.