We have all heard how "bad people" are trying to steal our credit card data by installing little cameras on the ATM that will read the card number and the PIN-code we enter. We are thus warned to look for any suspicious change in the front of the ATM. Great advice, but are we really expected to know how an untampered machine is supposed to look. Here in Indonesia I can now use my card on nearly all banks' ATM, even free of charge. But not only do the different banks have different machines installed, but regionally the same bank does not necessarily use the same ATM. The main reason probably being that the main cities get the newest versions and the older ones are recycled to the provinces.
Today, however, I discovered that the card data are under threat from a different angle, too.
I pulled money out of an ATM—my own bank's machine in a shopping mall—and also paid with the card in one of the shops there. When examining the print-outs one gets of the transactions, I discovered that the ATM print-out gave the first 12 numbers of my card and X-ing out the last four. The shop made me sign a transaction slip that listed the last four digits, and Xes for the first 12 numbers.
Throwing the ATM-paper in the wastebasket placed near the machine and the second one somewhere else, will make it virtually impossible to ever match the two. When disposed off at home, however, this would be quite possible.
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