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It seemed like some new law or standard required them to do it that way.


That would be Chip and PIN. UK issued cards now have a chip in them and when you use them for most purchases you have to enter your PIN, hence the need to bring the card terminal to you and therefore the sudden rise in wireless card terminals in the UK.

There is a downside to this though, in the past the only time the bad guys got a chance to peek at your PIN was at the ATM. Now they can do it in shops, restaurants etc as well.

Apparently the chip system isn't as secure as they made out at first. When the card terminals are in offline mode, i.e. when handling a small purchase say under £50, they pass the PIN to the card in plaintext, meaning it in theory possible with a compromised terminal to snoop the PIN. The same issue also means it is possible to clone the card once you have the PIN as long as the cloned card is also only used in terminals operating in offline mode.
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Remind me to change my signature to something more interesting someday