Programmable Geographic Validity for ATM Cards

ATM fraud is now increasingly common all around us. With the explosive growth of Net Banking and ATM transactions, there are chances that your ATM card and PIN can be compromised sooner or later. Opting out of the ATM system and foregoing the convenience of Internet banking would be out of the question, considering the sheer convenience they provide. Crime gangs are very sophisticated now. Skimming and spy cameras can crack your PIN surprisingly easier than you think. Once these details are stolen, the criminals can withdraw money from any machine in the country, or, as was seen in a case exposed two weeks ago, from foreign countries as well. Even if the ATM is made secure by a combination of legitimate cameras and physical security, the card’s PIN is still vulnerable at a POS (point of sale) terminal. How many people will cover the keypad while punching in their PIN? Normally, it is no bother for an unscrupulous salesman to note the number as you are typing. The machine will be held in the salesman’s hand, which makes it difficult to enter the number, and you end up taking more time for the operation, which would be enough for the swindler to make a mental note of your PIN.

Once the card number and PIN is leaked, it is only the sweet convenience of the thief that stands between you and your money. He can forge a card in no time, and withdraw cash from an ATM located thousands of kilometers away. You’ll come to know it only when the payment alert is received on your phone. By the time, the money would’ve been lost forever. Even though all ATM kiosks are supposed to be entered without wearing a helmet or any kind of face mask, this can’t be effectively implemented in a machine that is unattended by a security guard. Banks may recompense the victims for their stolen money from their insurance cover, but the resultant hike in premiums will only end up as increased costs on the customers themselves. How can we bring in more security to our cards, without much investment on the part of banks?

My suggestion is to enforce programmable geographic validity to ATM cards. While it may be a matter of pride to brag that our card can be used anywhere in India to withdraw money, its real-life utility is rather limited. Who wants his card to be valid in Kanyakumari, Dibrugarh, Kutch and Leh simultaneously, and all the time? Only if a person plans to travel to these places need his card to be valid there. Statistics shows that a person’s life is much more predictable than we think. Just take a moment to guess where you’d be at 6’o clock in the evening next Friday, and compare afterwards. Even inside a state, one person’s travel route is somewhat fixed most of the time. 99.9% of the people follow predictable routes 99.9% of the time. This may be tested, repeated and can be proven true or false based on trials. Hence, this hypothesis must be scientific! So, who needs one’s card to be valid all over the country all the time, making them sitting ducks for any adventurer who cares to have some fun?

In the proposed programmable geographic validity system, the regions where the card will be valid can be configured by the user. By default, the card shall be valid only in the home district where the card is issued. The user shall be able to use Net Banking or Mobile Apps or USSD codes to add or delete other districts, states or regions for additional coverage. If a person from Kerala having validity of his card only in Ernakulam district in the state wants to travel to Shimla via Delhi, he can configure the validity to include the states of Himachal Pradesh and Delhi using his mobile phone or PC. He shall be able to set a time period also, for this ‘roaming’ validity of the ATM card, say 2 weeks or 1 month or forever. For truly high flying businessmen, the existing system of universal coverage can be continued. Banks may charge a nominal fee for additional validity to meet the additional cost on software. There must still be a provision for those customers who couldn’t extend the validity, but want to withdraw money or use the card urgently. Such users shall send the serial number of the machine displayed prominently on it through SMS from their registered phone to the bank’s designated number, which should be accepted as a request for one-time validity extension for that machine.

These suggestions can be implemented without making any software or hardware change on the hundreds of thousands of ATMs and POS terminals installed in the country. The only hardware change is to paint the machine’s serial number on it. The required software changes are on the bank’s servers, where an additional module would do the trick. Once the system is functional, banks may charge the customers a nominal fee for each validity extension. The users who don’t want to part with even that may set national validity on their cards, and opt not to use the system any more.

This is a Win-Win solution to banks and customers alike, I think.

Bankers' Sense of Humour

Have you heard the adage “If you want to buy a secondhand car, buy it from a doctor; and if you want to buy a secondhand heart, buy it from a banker”? The logic was that both wouldn’t have been used much by the first owner! Bankers are still perceived to be personification of evil, or at least, reincarnations of Shylock. In a few years’ time, when engineering graduates will take up most of the banking positions, this might change, but for the time being, it is not much use expecting any sense of humour from bankers.

So did I thought.

Until today morning!

Three days back, I had received a mail from Kotak Mahindra Bank – a usual one, detailing safety tips while responding to SMS for banking transactions. But the subject line was intriguing – “Tips for Safe Baking – SMS Fraud”. Obviously, ‘banking’ was misspelled as ‘baking’.

No big deal.

The amusing part of the deal was a message I received from the same bank today morning, with a subject line “Just to confirm that we have not diversified into baking”. Opening the mail, there was more, to have a hearty laugh, which ran thus.

“We sent you an email sometime this week whose subject line read "Tips for Safe Baking: SMS Fraud". We would like to apologize and set the record straight. Kotak Mahindra Bank has not entered the baking business. And has no serious plans of doing so anytime soon, no matter how much dough there may be in it. :). What's more, to the best of our knowledge, baking is more or less a safe activity. Unless, perhaps, you overheat the oven?”

The clever use of ‘dough’ was the icing on the cake, to continue in baking parlance!

Would you believe it? Reading this message in the morning at office lifted my mood up.

So I thought I would better tweet the bank, acknowledging their immense sense of humour, which one would hardly expect from a bank’s help desk.

Hence I tweeted thus, including the bank’s twitter handle, “@KotakBankLtd sends a funny clarification mail on a misspelled warning sent earlier. Never thought bankers could've humour sense! Good one!”

Whatever you may say against them, Kotak’s customer response is fast and prompt. A few minutes later, I received a reply tweet.

“@sajith2009 Hi, plz elaborate your exact issue to assist further. ^Kotak Team”.

I was lost for words. However, I replied to them thus.

“@KotakBankLtd This regarding an earlier mail on 'banking' misspelled as 'baking'. Your clarif mail was amusing and my tweet was appreciative”.

To which, they replied “@sajith2009 Ohh Sorry about that! We have already highlighted the issue to relevant team to rectify the same. ^Kotak Team”

Now, once again I am not so sure about bankers’ sense of humour!

Chic Web Sites

Some cool websites that provide some really nice functionalities

1. PDF Password Removal online: https://online2pdf.com/remove-pdf-password

Really Tired or Acting Up?

Lionel Messi retired from international football at the remarkably tender age of 29. For the last few days, newspapers and social media alike are eulogizing the farewell of this Argentine star, who commands a sizeable chunk of fans in Kerala. This is not surprising, since its society is generally left-leaning and this has prompted a few politicians to associate Messi and fellow Argentines with Che Guvera and the failed communist revolts in Latin America. When their hopes were pitiably dashed in Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, they adopted the martyred Che as their messiah!

How the Keralites became so fond of Argentina and Brazil in world football? One obvious reason is that the home country, India, is a nobody in football. Our obsession with cricket has relegated all other games to the background. Watching a game, any game for that matter, without a favourite to cheer on is boring for spectators. But why Argentina? The origin of this worship goes back to 1986 and the Mexico World Cup, where Argentina snatched the cup riding on the mesmerizing performance of a short-statured genius – Diego Armando Maradona. The Mexico games were the first World Cup football tournament ever to show live on TV in Kerala. After all, TV came to the state only in 1982, in the run up to Asian Games held at New Delhi that year. Many people, including teen-aged myself, saw firsthand on TV the heroic action we had earlier read only as narratives in newspaper reports. That fascination we Keralites had felt for the Argentine team has not still worn off, even though we see the next generation glued to TV now.

But what about Messi? Did he make such a sacrifice in retiring from international football? The answer is a resounding ‘No’. He will continue to play in club football in Europe, which is raining money on to his pockets. And football is essentially a club game! International games are so scheduled as not to clash with club fixtures. They are generally held in the months of June and July, which is the vacation period of European clubs. According to FIFA’s rules, if you are selected by the national team, you have to play anyway – with only a fraction of the remuneration you used to collect from clubs – and that too, at a time when you are to be resting and relaxing for the next club season. This is the real reason behind the ‘poor form’ of many star players who were consistently performing spectacularly in club football till a few weeks before. So, what this means is that Messi want to concentrate only in making money from now onward, and he is not to be pestered with demands from the national team. I think Brazil’s Neymar would soon follow him.

No Commitment to Anyone

The suicide of Rohith Vemula came as a rude shock to the nation. A 27-year old handsome Ph.D scholar committed suicide in the University of Hyderabad campus in response to his suspension and consequent ouster from the university hostel. It was also alleged that the authorities had stopped paying him his stipend of Rs. 25,000 per month in last July. This much is enough to evoke cries of victimization from the hypersensitive media, but compounded on these sordid facts was the realization that Vemula belonged to a Dalit community. The lid of the kettle of allegations was immediately blown and everybody blamed the authorities for causing the death of an earnest scholar who wanted to pursue astrophysics, or that was what he mentioned in his suicide note. Charges for abetting the suicide of a Dalit boy was charged against the Vice Chancellor of the University and also against Mr. B. Dattatreya, who is the local MP.

But, what exactly was the sequence of events that ended up in Vemula’s death? Is he such an innocent victim as the others make him out to be? If we look back just seven months to July 2015, we see a 53-year old chartered accountant named Yakub Memon hanged in Nagpur jail after he was condemned to death eight years ago. His crime was to take part in India’s largest terrorist bloodbath in 1993 in Mumbai. The Memon brothers and their accomplices planted lethal explosives in Mumbai’s suburban trains and set them to explode at just after office hours when the rush will be at the maximum. The targeted victims were the lower and middle classes who use the railway system and in order to maximize the death toll. The operation was staged perfectly and 277 people perished. In an instance of the most shameful form of minority appeasement, the government was reluctant to hang Memon in fear of antagonizing the Muslim votes. When the Modi government assumed power in 2014, Memon’s day were numbered and he was hanged on July 30, 2015.

Unfortunately, fringe groups organized against the killing of Memon, even though all judicial processes were complied with and his clemency pleas turned down by the President of India. Rohith Vemula and his friends were the sponsors of the protests in UoH campus, under the guise of Ambedkar Students Association. This organization is now present in many campuses in India and is the student voice of the anti-establishment movement you’d expect in any university. This organization of Dalits is a militant outfit that wants to avenge the wrongs and ill treatment heaped on Dalits over the ages. Dalits were once at the lowest rung of societal hierarchy in India that existed prior to the establishment of the Constitution of India, which forbade all discrimination on the basis of caste, birth or language. Dalits were treated as sub-human almost everywhere In India hardly a century ago, and going by press reports, the cruel discrimination has still not run its course in some parts of the country as seen in the brutal atrocities committed against them in some isolated pockets of the backward states.

But Dalit organizations including the ASA, takes this as a license to vent their ire against others in India’s civil society and against the state as well. They want to take the other castes and the Indian state itself, up in a bid to obtain compensation for historical wrongs. And this tirade is with totally forgetting the scores of legislation and slew of economic measures targeted at the uplift of Dalits. India’s constituent assembly, which framed its constitution, granted them reservation in all legislative forums and government jobs in proportion to their share in population. This magnanimous act was carried through the assembly in which Dalits constituted only a tenth of the membership. Severe penalties were introduced to prevent atrocities against them, which are in fact misused widely. The Dalits’ continued bickering in the face of all these benevolent measures is an indicator of the pampering they have obtained at the hands of political parties who are conscious of vote banks. Our society is surprised at the anti-national remarks of ASA which is all the more outrageous because of the ingratitude, if nothing else. Most of them will not even be crossing the threshold of the prestigious institutions if not for the reservation kindly bestowed on them by India’s constitution.

So, what makes a few of the otherwise gentle individuals turn arrogant when they form groups and assume the Dalit identity? In the case of Hyderabad, ABVP activists interrupted the meeting commemorating Yakub Memon and naturally, an altercation arose between the organizers and protestors. As a sequel to this ruckus, a group of students belonging to ASA barged into the room of ABVP’s leader in the hostel. It is said that Vemula was also part of the gang. The ABVP guy was manhandled and forced to recant his opposition. This led to widespread protests and the Vice Chancellor suspended a few leaders of the team including Rohith Vemula that made the assault, pending an enquiry. Naturally, the local MP and Union Minister of State, Bandaru Dattatreya also urged the authorities to ensure justice to the thrashed ABVP leader.

Now, events made an ugly turn. Rohith Vemula committed suicide rather than facing the enquiry and prove his innocence. It is evident that he was a coward who feigned courage when being a part of the group. Coming from a very humble background, it should have been his paramount duty to complete his studies and find a job. After all, he was 27 and most of India’s working men would have found a job by then – however small – and thinking about settling down. Vemula had no compunction about letting his family down and go organizing spurious protests and thus forfeiting his stipend.       He was totally uncommitted to anybody and his sympathies lay not with his aging parents, but with terrorists who killed hundreds of people and tried to wreck the Indian state. Even leaving aside all these, what kind of a leader was he, who was afraid to face an enquiry which is an ‘occupational hazard’ of campus politics? If you didn’t have balls to stand up to allegations and accusations, what right do you have, to lead others? Unfortunately Vemula realized it rather too late, and to his ruin.

What is incomprehensible is the magnitude of outcry his death generated. Leftist organizations are like crickets – they make noise disproportionate to their size. Even making allowance for this factor, a section of the students wanted the Vice Chancellor and Union Minister to be charged for abetting the suicide of Vemula. A case was registered against them making a mockery of the process to ensure discipline not only in higher educational institutions, but anywhere. If an executive who initiates disciplinary action against a subordinate stands to face prosecution if the disciplined official commits suicide, the entire fabric of society will be unwoven in no time.

Such is the background of the renewed unrest in Hyderabad University campus when the Vice Chancellor who was on leave, rejoined duty a few days back. The students demand his removal, as if they have the power to hire and fire their teachers! Such irresponsible movements must be dealt with an iron hand to make a model for other delinquents, like what we saw in the Film and TV Institute in Pune.