PCI Data Security Law

The aim should be to remove the value in stolen card and personal data.

The current methodology of transacting is flawed and unless it changes there will just be more of this going on. In boom times insider threats tend to diminish, but when people get financally stressed or fear job loss they may be more ameniable to a few dollars on the side.

There are easy, low cost ways to do it. Perhaps the tightening financial markets will see retail banks looking at more modern and relevant ways to get ahead of the criminals.

The alternative is a third party Paypal type service taking over the retail transaction space and turning old fashioned banks back into somewhere you (temporarily) park your money. 

Dean:  I agree that current US public policy makes paypal a more attractive option.  But that policy -- which is most famously advanced by the Federal Trade Commission -- is inadvertant.  The FTC and other authorities have mindlessly adopted the conventional wisdom that the problem of merchant data security is a merchant problem alone and not a systemic problem.  --Ben  http://hack-igations.blogspot.com/2008/04/more-on-tjx-data-breach-and-federal.html