5 ms·
> What happens when you swipe a credit card People look at you funny for not knowing how a credit card has worked for the last 30+ years. Here chips got introd
by bigbugbag 10y ago
> What happens when you swipe a credit card
People look at you funny for not knowing how a credit card has worked for the last 30+ years. Here chips got introduced mid-80's and all cards had chips circa early-90's.
Why did it take so long for credit card to feature chips in the US ? Because it took a while for CIA's in-q-tel to take over control of gemplus, the company who owned the smart card technology, which happened early 2000's. This is known as "l'affaire gemplus". Once they got control, the company HQ got moved to luxembourg tax haven and the R&D and tech moved to the US. A few years later in 2006 it merged with competitor axalto to form gemalto famous for making SIM cards and recently for their SIM crypto getting in NSA hands[1]. In 2009 french government tried to counter the takeover by becoming gemalto's major shareholder, but it was too late, CIA got what they were after as shown by in-q-tel selling its shares in 2010 which coincidentally was the years EMV credit card got introduced to the US.
[1]: https://theintercept.com/2015/02/19/great-sim-heist/ https://theintercept.com/2015/02/19/great-sim-heist/
- korginator 10y agoSIM and EMV cards are both "cards" to the layperson but the 2G-SIM heist has nothing to do with EMV cards.
- pokemongoaway 10y agoAnd what did the CIA want? Any recommended reading on the CIA's control of financial systems?
- wheelerwj 10y agoI would check out [redacted] written in [redacted]. its a really [redacted] story which covers the [redacted] orders from when [redacted] was president and the [redacted] court which had oversight. really exceptional reading material.
- Signez 10y agoIf you understand French language, there is an episode[0] from France Inter's radio show "Rencontre avec X" that is dedicated to Gemplus and its takeover by the CIA. [0]: https://www.franceinter.fr/emissions/rendez-vous-avec-x/rendez-vous-avec-x-10-novembre-2012 https://www.franceinter.fr/emissions/rendez-vous-avec-x/rend...
- woliveirajr 10y agoAnd I'm really curious about the security of tokens used to store private keys... in Brazil, at least, many tokens are in the form of cards, with gemalto being the main supplier.