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Initially there was no validation for credit cards. There were programs called credit card generators that could generate a card from any bank in the world, wit
by 29athrowaway 5y ago
Initially there was no validation for credit cards. There were programs called credit card generators that could generate a card from any bank in the world, with any name on card, etc.
If you wanted you could generate a card for McLovin from some bank in Hawaii and it would work.
I never used them but a close friend back in middle school did and got his computer taken away permanently.
- edmundsauto 5y agoThis was a checksum that machines could run locally, to make sure the account # was "valid". Then, in batch, systems would connect to the bank for the account interaction. Some services (AOL, when it charged by the minute) wouldnt do the actual bank reconciliation for a few days, during which you could use the service.