Infomation Use

Information Use

The world of information has changed the world of the consumer. Whether one likes to think it has or has not is irrelevant since these transactions often take place behind the scenes. One’s local utility company is a good example of this. Once the billing information is placed it must travel digitally to be recorded for the records of the company. Another more blatant form of information exchange comes in the form of credit card terminals found in all aspects of retail, from restaurants to the local gas station. What exactly happens once the employee (or often the customer themselves) swipes the credit or debit card? Here we will attempt to explore this issue.

Credit or debit cards contain a magnetic strip that is read by the card swiper. This strip contains account information that is used by data processing systems to acknowledge the payment as well as check the balance on the account to see if there is enough money to cover the transaction. This all occurs over a highly secure data stream, whether always connected via LAN or a dial up connection.

At its conception, the credit card terminal was a way to transmit data back and forth from the location it was being used at to the company. As digital content became more mainstream and cards became more popular the credit card industry needed to develop a more standardized approach between all companies in order to share information exchange and more importantly to keep that data secure. What they decided to develop was the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, or the PCI DSS (Shift 4, 2012). This standardization created an entirely new industry that allowed for sensitive customer data to be exchanged without the threat of hackers and other people that would attempt to use the card in various forms of theft.

While this was a great innovation in the physical world the online world was just beginning to sprout. This world opened up an entirely new era in crime because of the very...