I don't know too much about the protocol used by these cards, but it would be easy to e.g. have a secret key on the chip, which signs the transaction (date and

I don't know too much about the protocol used by these cards, but it would be easy to e.g. have a secret key on the chip, which signs the transaction (date and time, amount, location) if the right PIN is provided to it. Even listening in to all the communication between the card and the machine would not allow an attacker to make a bogus transaction. Apart from that, making a skimmer that sits between the chip of the card and the contacts of the machine would be much harder to make than the current skimmers. So even if the chip would not sign the transaction but just provide static data if given the right PIN, the situation would be significantly improved.