minusonebit

No, Smokey. That?s logical. You keep forgetting that ePassporte cannot be logical. If ePassporte were to do something logical, it wouldn?t be ePassporte anymore.

We are conditioned to accept that security is something that inconveniences us but we must accept it. This is no exception. ePassporte has come up with some great idea of theirs (just like eBay did with their stupid message center, although even they didn?t manage to make this bad of a mess with it) and so they say "Yeah, we'll tell them its for their security. No one will dare question that and anyone that does, why we can just write them off as unpatriotic, a conspiracy theorist or a moron. Everyone wants to be secure online, and they'll do anything we tell them if we lead them to believe they'll be more secure." EPassporte seems to have taken a play right out of The George W. Bush Screws America playbook, as this is exactly his SOP.

There are alot of people online who are scared shitless of the big, bad credit card and identity thieves because the media whips up this hysteria about them (while, of course, putting a few "special messages from the sponsor" in here and there) and people are clamoring for even a false sense of security. Most people don?t take responsibility for any aspect of their lives and how they safeguard their financial information is no exception. Most people don?t understand that if they get ripped off, 98% of the time its their fault. If people just did some common sense things to safeguard their information, these crooks would be out of business. That includes not giving out your social security number to everyone who asks for it.

Never mind the fact that we are not any more secure after we jump through the hoops than we were before. eBay thought their little message center was going to solve everything. It didn?t. PayPal accounts are still getting hijacked and people are still getting fucked over, usually because of something they did to themselves. What has happened is everyone's life has gotten more difficult and everyone had to change the way they did things to work around the limitations of the new system. This is also no exception, admittedly on a smaller scale than eBay.

So we look at this little message system. What are we gaining? A lot of headaches and a little false sense of security. Some of us cant get into the old e-mail system now, so that means if we wanted to use our virtual cards unless we recorded the information outside of the system, we're fucked until access is restored. If we don?t get back in before they shut off the old system completely, then what? Well, ePass is ignoring that question right now.

As has been pointed out, if someone roots out your account and wants your virtual card number, they are going to go to your message center to get it. Putting it there offers it no greater protection. The only thing it does is inconvenience a legitimate customer who wants to use his account to make a purchase.

Even if we do get back in, its still a pain because some people have alot of info in there that they have to fuck with. And all of this for what? I challenge anyone to prove how this messaging system will prevent any fraud that an ordinary account holder couldn?t have prevented on their own with the tools already available to them.