Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Personal Identification Number shopping experience:
1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Personal Identification Number offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Personal Identification Number at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.
2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about
3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Personal Identification Number? Wrong! If the Personal Identification Number is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.
4. Questions - Got a question about Personal Identification Number then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....
5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Personal Identification Number? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Personal Identification Number and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.
6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Personal Identification Number wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.
7. Feedback - happy with your Personal Identification Number then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.
8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Personal Identification Number site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site
9. Contact - got a question about Personal Identification Number, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.
10. Payment - ready to pay for your Personal Identification Number, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.
A
personal identification number (PIN) is a secret numeric password shared between a user and a system that can be used to authenticate the user to the system. Typically, the user is required to provide a non-confidential user identifier or token (such as a banking card) and a confidential PIN to gain access to the system. Upon receiving the User ID and PIN, the system looks up the PIN based upon the User ID and compares the looked-up PIN with the received PIN. The user is granted access only when the number entered matches with the number stored in the system.
PINs are most often used for
Automated teller machines but are increasingly used at the Point of sale, especially for debit cards. Throughout Europe the traditional in-store credit card signing process is being replaced with a system where the customer is asked to enter their PIN instead of signing. In the UK and Ireland this goes under the term '
Chip and PIN', since PINs were introduced at the same time as EMV chips on the cards. In other parts of the world, PINs have been used before the introduction of EMV. Apart from financial uses,
GSM mobile phones usually allow the user to enter PIN between 4 and 8 digits length. The PIN is recorded in the SIM card.
In 2006,
James Goodfellow, the inventor of the personal identification number, was awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List.{{cite web | url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/5087984.stm
| title=Royal honour for inventor of Pin
| year=2006
| publisher=BBC
| accessdate=2006-11-24-->
PIN Security
Financial PINs are often 4-digit numbers in the range 0000-9999, resulting in 10,000 possible numbers. Many PIN verification systems allow three attempts, thereby giving a card thief a 1/3333 chance to guess the correct PIN before the card is blocked. This holds only if all PINs are equally likely and the attacker has no further information available, which has not been the case with some of the many PIN generation and verification algorithms that banks and ATM manufacturers have used in the past.{{cite paper | author=Kuhn, Markus
| date=July 1997
| title=Probability theory for pickpockets — ec-PIN guessing
| url=http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ec-pin-prob.pdf
| format=PDF
| accessdate = 2006-11-24-->
If a mobile phone PIN is entered incorrectly three times, the
SIM card is blocked until a Personal Unblocking Code (PUC), provided by the service operator, is entered. If the PUC is entered incorrectly ten times, the SIM card is permanently blocked, requiring a new SIM card.
In 2002 two PhD students at University of Cambridge, Piotr Zieliński and Mike Bond, discovered a security flaw in the PIN generation system of the IBM 3624, which was duplicated in most later hardware. Known as the decimalization table attack, the flaw would allow someone who has access to a bank's computer system to determine the PIN for an ATM card in an average of 15 guesses.{{cite paper | author = Zieliński, P & Bond, M
| title = Decimalisation table attacks for PIN cracking
| version =
| publisher = University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory
| date = February 2003
| url = http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/TechReports/UCAM-CL-TR-560.pdf
| format = PDF
| accessdate = 2006-11-24-->
{{cite web | url=http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mkb23/media-coverage.html
| title=Media coverage
| publisher = University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory
| accessdate = 2006-11-24-->
In 2006 two researchers
Omer Berkman and
Odelia Moshe Ostrovsky, discovered several security flaws in the PIN processing standards. Published under the title The Unbearable Lightness of PIN Cracking, the flaw would allow someone who has access to a bank's computer system to determine the PIN for an ATM card in as little as one guess, and to attack bank customers of other banks.{{cite paper | author = Berkman, O & Ostrovsky, O
| title = The Unbearable Lightness of PIN Cracking
| version =
| publisher =
| date = November 2006
| url = http://www.arx.com/documents/The_Unbearable_Lightness_of_PIN_Cracking.pdf
| format = PDF
| accessdate = 2006-11-24-->
English language usage
The term "PIN number" (hence "
personal identification number number") is commonly used, which is an example of
RAS syndrome (Redundant Acronym Syndrome).
Reverse PIN hoax
Rumours have been in e-mail circulation claiming that in the event of entering a PIN into an ATM backwards, police will be instantly alerted as well as money being ordinarily issued as if the PIN had been entered correctly.{{cite web | url=http://www.snopes.com/business/bank/pinalert.asp
| title=Reverse PIN Panic Code
| accessdate = 2007-03-02--> The intention of this scheme would be to protect victims of muggings; however, despite the [ATM Safety PIN Software being proposed for use in some American states, there are no ATMs currently in existence that employ the software.
Proof that this is, in fact, a hoax: palindrome PINs.
See also
References
A
personal identification number (PIN) is a secret numeric
password shared between a user and a system that can be used to authenticate the user to the system. Typically, the user is required to provide a non-confidential user identifier or token (such as a banking card) and a confidential PIN to gain access to the system. Upon receiving the User ID and PIN, the system looks up the PIN based upon the User ID and compares the looked-up PIN with the received PIN. The user is granted access only when the number entered matches with the number stored in the system.
PINs are most often used for Automated teller machines but are increasingly used at the Point of sale, especially for
debit cards. Throughout Europe the traditional in-store credit card signing process is being replaced with a system where the customer is asked to enter their PIN instead of signing. In the UK and Ireland this goes under the term '
Chip and PIN', since PINs were introduced at the same time as EMV chips on the cards. In other parts of the world, PINs have been used before the introduction of EMV. Apart from financial uses,
GSM mobile phones usually allow the user to enter PIN between 4 and 8 digits length. The PIN is recorded in the SIM card.
In 2006,
James Goodfellow, the inventor of the personal identification number, was awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List.{{cite web | url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/5087984.stm
| title=Royal honour for inventor of Pin
| year=2006
| publisher=BBC
| accessdate=2006-11-24-->
PIN Security
Financial PINs are often 4-digit numbers in the range 0000-9999, resulting in 10,000 possible numbers. Many PIN verification systems allow three attempts, thereby giving a card thief a 1/3333 chance to guess the correct PIN before the card is blocked. This holds only if all PINs are equally likely and the attacker has no further information available, which has not been the case with some of the many PIN generation and verification algorithms that banks and ATM manufacturers have used in the past.{{cite paper | author=Kuhn, Markus
| date=July 1997
| title=Probability theory for pickpockets — ec-PIN guessing
| url=http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ec-pin-prob.pdf
| format=PDF
| accessdate = 2006-11-24-->
If a mobile phone PIN is entered incorrectly three times, the SIM card is blocked until a Personal Unblocking Code (PUC), provided by the service operator, is entered. If the PUC is entered incorrectly ten times, the SIM card is permanently blocked, requiring a new SIM card.
In 2002 two PhD students at
University of Cambridge, Piotr Zieliński and
Mike Bond, discovered a security flaw in the PIN generation system of the
IBM 3624, which was duplicated in most later hardware. Known as the
decimalization table attack, the flaw would allow someone who has access to a bank's computer system to determine the PIN for an ATM card in an average of 15 guesses.{{cite paper | author = Zieliński, P & Bond, M
| title = Decimalisation table attacks for PIN cracking
| version =
| publisher = University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory
| date = February 2003
| url = http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/TechReports/UCAM-CL-TR-560.pdf
| format = PDF
| accessdate = 2006-11-24-->
{{cite web | url=http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mkb23/media-coverage.html
| title=Media coverage
| publisher = University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory
| accessdate = 2006-11-24-->
In 2006 two researchers
Omer Berkman and Odelia Moshe Ostrovsky, discovered several security flaws in the PIN processing standards. Published under the title The Unbearable Lightness of PIN Cracking, the flaw would allow someone who has access to a bank's computer system to determine the PIN for an ATM card in as little as one guess, and to attack bank customers of other banks.{{cite paper | author = Berkman, O & Ostrovsky, O
| title = The Unbearable Lightness of PIN Cracking
| version =
| publisher =
| date = November 2006
| url = http://www.arx.com/documents/The_Unbearable_Lightness_of_PIN_Cracking.pdf
| format = PDF
| accessdate = 2006-11-24-->
English language usage
The term "PIN number" (hence "
personal identification number number") is commonly used, which is an example of RAS syndrome (Redundant Acronym Syndrome).
Reverse PIN hoax
Rumours have been in e-mail circulation claiming that in the event of entering a PIN into an ATM backwards, police will be instantly alerted as well as money being ordinarily issued as if the PIN had been entered correctly.{{cite web | url=http://www.snopes.com/business/bank/pinalert.asp
| title=Reverse PIN Panic Code
| accessdate = 2007-03-02--> The intention of this scheme would be to protect victims of muggings; however, despite the [ATM Safety PIN Software being proposed for use in some American states, there are no ATMs currently in existence that employ the software.
Proof that this is, in fact, a hoax: palindrome PINs.
See also
References
Personal identification number - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A personal identification number (PIN) is a secret numeric password shared between a user and a system that can be used to authenticate the user to the system.
Personal identification number (Denmark) - Wikipedia, the free ...
The Danish Personal Identification number (Danish: CPR-nummer or personnummer) is a national identification number, which is part of the personal information stored in the Civil ...
The PIN Site - Federal Student Aid
Your PIN serves as your electronic signature and provides access to your personal records, so you should never give your PIN to anyone, including commercial services that offer to ...
What is a PIN? - Federal Student Aid
... is a 4-digit number that is used in combination with your Social Security Number, name, and date of birth to identify you as someone who has the right to access your own personal ...
AskOxford: personal identification number
personal identification number • noun a number allocated to an individual and used to validate electronic transactions. Perform another search of the Compact Oxford English ...
Personal Identification Number
The Free Online Dictionary of Computing (http://foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk/) is edited by Denis Howe < dbh@doc.ic.ac.uk >. Previous: Personal Digital Assistant Next: Personalized Array ...
personal identification number - Idioms - by the Free Dictionary ...
as straight as a die (British & Australian, American) completely straight. The road runs straight as a die for fifty miles. See also: die, straight
Personal Identification Number definition of Personal Identification ...
security) Personal Identification Number - (PIN, "PIN number") A password, typically four digits entered through a telephone keypad or automatic teller machine.
FAFSA - Free Application for Federal Student Aid
... digit number that is used in combination with your Social Security Number, name, and date of birth to identify you as someone who has the right to access your own personal ...
personal identification number - Hutchinson encyclopedia article about ...
PIN. In banking, a unique number used as a password to establish the identity of a customer using an automatic cash dispenser. The PIN is normally encoded into the magnetic strip ...
