corrente

That's a lot!

MasterCard International reported yesterday that more than 40 million credit card accounts of all brands might have been exposed to fraud through a computer security breach at a payment processing company, perhaps the largest case of stolen consumer data to date.

A MasterCard spokeswoman, Sharon Gamsin, said an infiltrator had managed to place a computer code or script on the CardSystems network that made it possible to extract information. She would not elaborate on how long the breach might have lasted, on when the inquiry began or on whether any infiltrators had been identified. She did say that the breach occurred this year.

"The processing companies are hubs for millions of payment records," which could be infiltrated as information passes through, said Chris Hoofnagle, senior counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a digital rights group based in Washington. "It is the juiciest target for an individual who wants account numbers. It is a honeypot for identity thieves."
(via Times)

So, on the one hand, the credit card companies order the Republicans (along with DINOs like Biden (D-MBNA) to set us all up to be sharecroppers through debt peonage. And on the other hand, they don't protect our identities, so we can end up liable for debts we didn't contract.

But hey, it's all about margin, isn't it?

Sounds like a debt amnesty is in order; 40 million Americans might not owe what the credit card companies think they owe. Of course, that means a lot of Rich Fucks will lose some money but hey, if it's good enough for Africans and Argentinians, why not for American citizens?