Idiot millennials are saving credit card PINs on their mobile phones

Re: And pre-Millienials were tech savants?

Millienials stupidly store their pins in their phones.

Pre-Millienials stupidly store their pins on a post-it note stuck to their monitor.

Re: And pre-Millienials were tech savants?

Solution to stories about millenials

Re: And pre-Millienials were tech savants?

I think the main issue here is that this generation always had this technology around them. They're comfortable with it and generally trust it. It's not that they're not tech-savvy they're just tech-complacent.

If the phone/tablet etc... has a password/lock that encrypts the data then that's still a lot better than the post-it-note-in-the-wallet scenario. It's still a bad thing to do but it's less worse than the low tech version.

Also:

"ten grand of student debt"

First year students only then?

Re: And pre-Millienials were tech savants?

Well, it's all a matter of how you choose to spin it, isn't it? This article runs with '21 percent of millenials store PINs on mobile devices', but one could just as easily run the exact same story as 'only 16 percent of baby boomers have discovered the memo function on their mobile device'... which is pretty much the main reason my mother doesn't keep her PINs on her phone. I dread the day she actually looks under the 'all apps' menu.

I'd second this.

Yes, I have some details stored, under GnuPG-protected files with a 4096-bit RSA key. Never kept persistently in cleartext. Ever.

The machines where I keep those passwords run self-built versions of Gentoo. I've been doing my own stage builds for about 5 years now using the same scripts I used to maintain official stage builds for their MIPS port. Sufficiently long enough to have "bread out" most backdoors by now.

My phone however has none of the above. It is considered "untrusted" as it runs a dated version of Android for which I do not have the source code, thus only gets the bare essentials in terms of passwords. I'll never use GnuPG or OpenSSH on it with my regular keys, and will not use it for storing confidential information.

As it happens, I have just one debit card, issued by the post office. It rarely gets used. I draw money out of the bank by visiting the branch in person and using a passbook: same way I've done for almost 21 years now.

I'm not sure what age group classify as "millennials", I'd be in the 30-35 age bracket.

bin doing that for decades

Since my first mobile phone (The Nokia Orange), I have kept any new PINs as part of a faked up phone book entry.

These days it is easier, as most banks let you change the pin to something you can remember, but you still need to remember the one they set until you can reach that elusive Branch ATM.

Agreed, you need to know what they were actually asked before drawing conclusions, You need to know whether the PINs/passwords were encrypted, or plain text backed up to iCloud.

Re: PINs?!

I can't. But I don't have chip and pin cards for exactly that reason.

Re: PINs?!

Personal account pin, joint account pin, credit card pin, corporate card pin, some of which are only used in a blue moon. Its not hard to see why this would happen.

Re: PINs?!

I can remember PINs for my debit card, the wife's debit card, and my phone. I don't use the credit cards anywhere near often enough in order to remember the PINs for them.

Re: PINs?!

I have the PIN for a couple of cards stored in my phone. They're unencrypted but somewhat obfuscated, even though I actually have KeePass and a private-cloud-synced password database on the phone, due to sheer laziness. I'm definitely not a "millennial", by the way.

I can remember the PIN for my personal debit card that I use daily, but for example it's probably more than a year since I last used my work card for anything other than an online transaction, so no, I'm not likely to remember the PIN for it.

I don't really it as a big issue anyway; AFAIK most card fraud does not involve using the PIN, since it's mostly online activity. For this to be an issue, you'd need to physically steal or clone the card, as well as stealing and gaining access to the phone to extract the pin, and then present the stolen card and use the stolen PIN in person, which leaves you much more likely to be traced and caught than if you just used the card and CSC for a little cross-border online fraud.

Re: PINs?!

Wait awhile until you get to the point where you walk into a room and forget why you walked in.

Re: PINs?!

But surely people can remember a four-digit PIN?

Remember a different one for each card? Not quite so easy now.

Here's how. Memorize a two-digit number that you never ever explicitly write down or store. Memorize the positions of two digits out of the 16-digit card number. When you want to use any card you recall your two digit number and read the other two digits from their memorized places on the card. Combine them in the way your remember. Different PIN for each card, and easy to remember.

Human brains remember procedures much better than random four-character strings. And it's the same procedure for all your cards, so practice makes perfect.

@AC - Re: Phones make you stupid

Only intelligent phones are making you stupid.

Re: Phones make you stupid

Speed dials and contact lists don't help either.