I was out again last weekend with a few friends. We were talking about funny things that had happened to us recently, as you do. Some of the anecdotes were interesting and others less so.
\nThere was one story, though, that had all of us totally spellbound.<\/p>\n
Marc was having lunch with his colleagues the other day: \u201cBoy, we had such a laugh in the canteen. You\u2019re not going to believe this! They\u2019ve got these debit cards that you can top up, so that all you have to do to pay is hold them underneath a scanner. One of the people I work with was forever forgetting his card, and in the end he decided to scan the code on the back into his smartphone. It\u2019s quick and really convenient using a barcode generator<\/a>. He never goes anywhere without his mobile and that way, he thought, he\u2019d never be without his code again. At least we wouldn\u2019t have to make sure we\u2019d got enough on our cards to pay for him as well anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n Laughter all round.<\/p>\n For Susanne, that was old hat: \u201cYes, but that\u2019s nothing new. I\u2019ve got a scanner app<\/a> that I often use to compare prices or check the ingredients because I\u2019m allergic to nuts.\u201d<\/p>\n (Oh no, we not another one of those allergy stories, please\u2026)<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe, but that\u2019s not what I\u2019m trying to say. We were sitting there trying to think up ways that we could hijack his barcode with our smartphones and get our own back for all those times we\u2019d ended up paying for his lunch,\u201d Marc replied.<\/p>\n Frank shook his head: \u201cThat sounds pretty difficult \u2013 you\u2019d need to get your hands on his debit card, which he never has on him anyway. Or his mobile\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHang on a minute, let me finish,\u201d said Marc. \u201cIt occurred to us that the card number is printed above the barcode. One of us took a phone out of the pocket, entered one of our card numbers in the app, pressed the button \u2013 and, abracadabra, we had a barcode!\u201d<\/p>\n Frank was still skeptical: \u201cWhat? And that worked? And you took it with you to the checkout?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOf course \u2013 we had to try it out! It was only one of our cards, after all.\u201d<\/p>\n By now, we were all watching Marc with bated breath. \u201cWell, come on then, out with it \u2013 did it really work?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, we bought a bar of chocolate. And that\u2019s not all. We kept the receipt and took a closer look at it. No kidding \u2013 the card number is printed on it too.\u201d And a mischievous grin appeared on Marc\u2019s face.<\/p>\n The rest of us all burst out laughing in disbelief. Frank was the first to get a few words out again: \u201cSo now you go round collecting all the receipts that people have left lying on their trays and use them to get a free meal every lunchtime?\u201d<\/p>\n Marc was quite definite: \u201cWell, I certainly don\u2019t leave mine lying around anymore.\u201d \u201cYou\u2019re dead right, though \u2013 we even considered adding all of our card numbers as profiles and using them to pay at the checkout. We\u2019d then pretend to be surprised \u2013 oh, sorry, does my card need topping up again? Just a second, I\u2019ve got another barcode here that you could try instead. But I think someone would probably have noticed.\u201d<\/p>\n Susanne had reservations: \u201cSo what are you going to do now? You can\u2019t keep something like that to yourselves. It\u2019s a glaring security flaw\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI know \u2013 the card number is printed both on the receipt and on the card itself. What\u2019s more, all there is on the card is a sticker with the barcode and the card number. It would be easy to fake that too. I can\u2019t believe how any company can seriously sell a system like that. We told the woman at the checkout what we\u2019d found out the next day, of course. She was totally confused, as you can imagine. It\u2019s part of our job dealing with issues like that every day but she\u2019d got no idea what to do about it\u2026 At the very least, they need to get rid of the card number on the checkout receipts as soon as possible. I wonder what will happen next…\u201d<\/p>\n And so do we. \u201cYes, you must definitely keep us posted. And you could always invite us to lunch in the canteen one day!\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Design thinking \u2013 tackling digitalisation with help from your users<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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