GMo Blog - personal

About debit cards in the Netherlands

Guillaume Mouron — Thu, 10 May 2007 23:46:00 +0200

I've just recently open a bank account in the Netherlands and with it comes a debit card. in this entry, I will talk about the differences with my french debit card, and especially about the security involved for internet banking and also with the french banking system.

So this is it :

First thing, it belongs to the Maestro network. Not very common in France, for instance, you can't pay the highway toll with it but very often shops take it (not online sites though). Hopefully I've kept my French VISA card.
Talking about VISA cards, in the Netherlands, if you want a VISA or EuroCard/MasterCard, you can't have it as your regular debit card, but as another, separate one. It works completely differently : it is a credit card, so you will be charged for a transaction (and lots of shops don't take them because they also pay a fee, so I can't use my French VISA card either), the money will be retrieved one month later, and you can have your credit card with bank A while you have your bank account in bank B (without having any bank account in bank A).
It appeared to be a bit strange to me as I'm used to the fact that my VISA card is also my Carte Bleue, so my regular debit card, that the amount is directly taken from my account (which, surprises everybody here in the Netherlands) and that I don't pay any fee (but French shops do as far as I remember). I think this is here a French specificity and I find it much more convenient.

Now let's continue with differences between French and Dutch cards :). You can see that there is a chip. You (if you are French) might think that this is for the security stuff. It's not. Actually, it's a bit like the Moneo system, you can transfer money from your bank account to the chip and use it for paying the parking or in the supermarket. I'm not sure if I will use it, I still have to see some scenario where it could be convenient.
So if I want to pay with my card, I have to use the magnetic band. Basically I slide the card in the device, then I have to type my pin code and press ok. And that's it. So it's a bit different from the French system where the verification is made with the chip. However, when I use my French card here (for instance for paying at the gas station), I also have to use the magnetic band. But I do not type my pin code and I just have to sign the receipt. That's what I will have to do if I want to use my Dutch card in France.
It's really strange to see that even with Europe, euros and things like that, the bank card system is different and that when you change from a country to another, you kind of "swap" the way you have to use your card ...

So, let's talk about internet banking. When I opened the account, they gave me a small device, similar to a calculator (but it isn't, which is a bit silly, they could have added that ...). I've been told that this system is not used by every bank in the Netherlands, but Rabobank does it so ...

This device is necessary for internet banking. I have to go on my bank website, enter my card number. Insert my card in the device, press "I", enter my pin code, then a token is generated by the device and I have to enter it below my card number. Then I can login.
According to my colleague, I can do "everything" with internet banking (and there is an English manual, but not a direct English translation). We'll see but at least, I can do more than with the Société Générale internet banking system as I can move money from my bank account to an international bank account whereas I can't do that with Société Générale (I have to send a fax).
Talking about money transfer, if I want to do one, I have to reuse the calculator. I have to press S this time, enter the pin code, then enter another random (?) code displayed on the web site and it gives me another number that I have to enter to confirm the transaction.
The login procedure with my French bank account is just to put my bank account number, then a flash numeric keyboard is displayed with the digits being randomly placed and you have to enter a code that you chose when you opted for internet banking. This can be logged by a malicious program so the randomness of the keyboard is useless, and the fact that YOU choose the code is bad thing in my opinion. Especially because it's limited to 6 digits.
See what Serge Humpich thinks about it on google video :D

OK so that was the description part. But I'm wondering exactly how secure this is. The device doesn't communicate with the web site, so it means that this can't be completely random (I know it can't anyway but I mean not even pseudo-random) even if the device is called "random reader".
So I guess one could find the algorithm. What do you think is taken into account as input parameters ? Probably the card number, the pin code. Maybe another code stored into the card. There is no info on the product page concerning that topic. You have to know also that this random reader is not personal, so I can use someone else's reader for authenticating meaning that all the input parameters are related to the card.

What do you think of such a system ?

Back to this bookmarks thing ..

Guillaume Mouron — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 02:22:00 +0100

I've been thinking again of my bookmarks manager (see my previous post) and came to two different ideas ...

The first solution came during yesterday's night. Use a blogging platform and add a new blog entry for each bookmark, with tags associated ... That might seem a bit "overkill" but it has several advantages that I will detail further.

The second solution is, of course, the DIY solution. But I've been thinking of a specific one I would do. It's not necessarily the one best suited for this task but it would involve some technologies I'd like to work out.
It would be a quite simple xml file, one entry per bookmark, with a <taglist> containing the tags, a <state> tag to mark it as read or unread (very often I keep some bookmarks to read them later, and very often I forget to do so ), probably another one to know if it's a personal bookmark or a professional bookmark (to be able to keep both at the same place, but separated), a field to keep the date and probably one for a title and a last one for a description (which will mostly remain empty as I am to lazzy to fill it :).

Why use an xml file and not a database backend ?
Well, because there are several xml technologies I'd like to test or to reuse. The first one is the RelaxNG schema language. I've already used XSD schemas several times and I've read everywhere that RelaxNG is much simpler to use but does the task as well, so I want to give it a try.
The second one is xslt ... I've already used xslt but I want to continue using it and improve my skills. I would use xslt to build a complete set of pages from my xml bookmark files with corresponding queries when I select a set of tags, counts for each tags, etc etc ...
The third one, linked to the previous point, is I would like to minimize the use of a script language. And if possible, use python instead of php ... I'm not really fond of php but I'll use it if I have to. I would only use the script language to build a small interface for adding a new bookmark ... or maybe, why not, provide a webservice to do so ? With a nice WSDL file

Well, now, let's see the pros and the cons of each solution :

Blog Solution :
+ easy to set up and get it working
+ search integrated (by date, etc etc ...)
- is it possible to get the blog entries combining several tags ? (let's say I have a link tagged with java and "webservice", can I retrieve it by combining those two tags or do I need to browse through all links tagged as "java" or all links tagged as "webservice" ?). It mainly depends on the blog engine but does one with my requirements exist ?
- Need of a manual synchronization with your web browser (or maybe possible with an extension and the xmlrpc interface of the blog ? (I think dotclear and wordpress, at least, have one)

DIY XML Solution :
+ Will fit all my needs
+ Make me work different technologies
+ Possibility to make a firefox extension to synchronize with the firefox bookmark manager ? (maybe by tweaking some existing extension that let you upload on your ftp your bookmarks ?).
- Take time

So, it's still needs some thoughts and maybe some pieces of advice from friends ?

Premier billet

Guillaume Mouron — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 02:51:00 +0200

Et ben voilà ...

Et ben voilà ... J'étais plutôt réticent jusque là à me faire un blog, n'en voyant guère l'utilité ...
Et puis j'ai sauté le pas

Il y aura de tout et de n'importe quoi ... Et aucune promesse de mise à jour régulière n'est faite
J'espère qu'il y aura 2 ou 3 trucs intéressants quand même :p