So I first read about this on my favorite blog wowinsder(giving credit where it's due ;) ), and i decided to research it a little more in depth. Basically as you see in the pic, there is a keypad, and an lcd screen. From what I understand, the keypad is to enter your password onto the card, that generates a one time use keycode. I'm willing to bet that keycode shows up on screen to be typed in while making online purchases, but hopefully you don't have to in the store. It seems like it would cause things to take a little longer while you wait in line, but if the technology works, it would really boost cred card security. The traditional method goes straight to the visa servers for authentication. With this new visa, your card will be sent to two different servers. One server verifies your visa, the other verifies your key code number. The new visa is being tested in Europe right now, and if it's a success, we can expect it to be offered out at all major companies soon after.
So why was this on my world of warcraft site? Well we use the same technology to secure our online accounts. See we face the danger of having someone hack into our account, and mailing off all of our virtual assets. It is very upsetting to have a game like wow, where you invest a lot of your time, and to log in to see your characters naked and all of your money gone. People hack into your account through key loggers on your computer, that record your keystrokes, like your passwords. This happened to my brother. I myself have an authenticator now, after I seen my computer had been infected by a trojan. I had removed it, but that was a clear reminder that I could easily be hacked.
So far there has yet to be 1 person who's account was hacked while using the authenticator. With the visas, no one can use them without those one time use keys. For that they have to have your visa physically in hand, and they need to know your password just to show the key number.
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