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CBS News Announces StorefrontBacktalk Doing A Weekly Column

2:00 PM EDT 10/8/2010

The Coming Digital Sign Blitz: Help or Horror?

Retail Realities: The Day May Come When Suppliers Pay for Digital Signs at Retailers

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3:00 PM EDT 10/1/2010

Canada Delays Ultra-Secure Payment Card System

Retail Realities: Canada’s Move to Chip-and-PIN Still Nagged by High Glitch Rates

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8:00 PM EDT 9/24/2010

Maine Supreme Court: Consumers’ Time not Valued

Retail Realities: The Unanimous Decision Is a Very Temporary Piece of Good News for Retailers

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6:19 AM EDT 9/17/2010

Sears’ Web Goof: 5 Million Customers Blocked

Retail Realities: The Accident Was a Surprise at the End of Another Site Makeover

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1:30 PM EDT 9/3/2010

Could Chat Transcripts Be Security Minefields?

Retail Realities: Security Concerns Over Rite-Aid and Walgreens Idea for Pharmacist Chat

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2:30 AM EDT 8/13/2010

Next From Apple: A Privacy Nightmare?

Retail Realities: Apple Envisions Taking Secret Pictures-and Recordings-of People Using Their Phones

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1:00 AM EDT 8/20/2010

Data Breach Pits Police Against Processor

Retail Realities: Is Saying You’re Blameless Too Early a Bad Idea? (Hint: Yes, It Is)

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2:30 AM EDT 8/13/2010

Walgreens And Rite-Aid: Dueling Chat Strategies

Retail Realities: Pharmacies Divided On Safest Way to Offer Chats with Pharmacists

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2:30 AM EDT 8/6/2010

Another Bump in the Mobile Payment Road

Retail Realities: The Move to Shift Mobile Payments to Carriers is a Good One, but Politics Doom It

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12:00 PM EDT 7/30/2010

Down For 8 Days: American Eagle’s Site Disaster

Retail Realities: One of the Longest Site Outages Ever Hit a Multi-Billion-Dollar Retailer

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11:30 AM EDT 7/23/2010

Check Your Bill Next Time the Register Rings

Retail Realities: Technology to Automate Pricing Ringing Up More Errors Than Ever


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1:00 AM EDT 7/16/2010

When Thinking Mobile, Think Inside Vs. Outside

Retail Realities: What Works Inside a Store May Fall Flat Once You Step Outside

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1:30 AM EDT 7/10/2010

The Spy Who Shopped Me

Retail Realities: When Retailers Let Their Web Sites Transmit Secret Messages, We Should Ask Why

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1:30 PM EDT 6/25/2010

An Ice Cream Machine That Measures Smiles

Retail Realities: Unilever’s Testing a Vending Machine That Takes Smiles As Payment


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12:30 PM EDT 6/18/2010

Microsoft’s Catch-22 in Mobile Commerce

Retail Realities: For Impatient Consumers, Smartphone Services Remain a Work in Progress

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10:30 AM EDT 6/11/2010

The Paradox Posed by Mobile Commerce

Retail Realities: As Retailers Jump on Board, They Discover the Downside of Popularity

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12:05 PM EDT 6/4/2010

Time To Stop Mailing Fully-Activated Gift Cards?

Retail Realities: People Have Stopped Mailing Twenty-Dollar Bills in the Mail. To a Thief, a Gift Card is Even Better

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11:30 AM EDT 5/28/2010

Secure Credit Cards: Still a Pipedream?

Retail Realities: What Will It Take To Make Chip-and-PIN Happen In The U.S.?

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9:30 AM EDT 5/21/2010

Will Wal-Mart TV Cry When Your Team Loses?

Retail Realities: World’s Largest Retailer Exploring In-Store Video Ads That Change With The Weather, Sports Scores

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11:00 AM EDT 5/14/2010

Their Security Holes, Your Money

Retail Realities: How Glitches Let Strangers Tap Cash From Your Shopper Gift Cards

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5:00 AM EDT 5/7/2010

The Web’s Achilles Heel

Retail Realities: Try Searching For Anything Small And Specific

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9:45 PM EDT 4/29/2010

Announce A Data Breach And Say It’s No Big Deal?

Retail Realities: When a Web Site Started Accidentally Posting Customer Payment Card Numbers,Things Went From Bad to Worse

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1:00 AM EDT 4/23/2010

Amazon Bid to Make an (Expensive) Privacy Point

Retail Realities: Battling Over Online Sales Tax, the E-Commerce Giant Gets Personal

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11:00 AM EDT 4/16/2010

Consumers Changing Attitude Toward Web Savings

Retail Realities: Having Different Web/In-Store Prices Is No Longer A Big Deal

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1:00 PM EDT 4/9/2010

Get Ready for the Mobile Payments Era

Retail Realities: You May Soon Buy Your Coffee – and a Refrigerator to Store the Milk – From Your Phone

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11:31 AM EDT 4/2/2010

Flawed Assumptions in the Albert Gonzalez Case

Retail Realities: Whether it’s Stock Pricing, Consumer Apathy or Retail Cynicism, Lawyers Were Getting it Wrong

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12:00 PM EDT 3/26/2010

Amazon to Limit E-Mail Among Customers

Retail Realities: Setting Up Online Shopping Communities is Great, but Some Retailers are Getting Nervous

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11:00 AM EDT 3/19/2010

Cyberthieves Discover Bluetooth

Retail Realities: The Target is Gas Station Credit Card Data and the Bad Guys Are Getting Savvy

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9:30 AM EST 3/12/2010

Why Let eBay Have All The Fun?

Retail Realities: Best Buy Borrows a Page from the Giant Internet Retailer

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3:00 PM EST 3/5/2010

FTC: Web Site Security Seals Are Lies

Retail Realities: The Federal Trade Commission Proved What Most Suspected: There’s Nothing Behind Those Seals

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12:54 PM EST 2/26/2010

Target Thinks Little Bribe Will Do Wonders

Retail Realities: Target Is Getting Serious About Discounts for One Card Type: Its Own

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9:30 AM EST 2/19/2010

Will Retail Ever ‘Get’ Mobile Computing?

Retail Realities: Too Many Retailers Still Believe Mobile Technology is a Very Temporary Point of Convenience

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9:17 AM EST 2/12/2010

Saks Doing The Robotic Web

Retail Realities: What Can 700 Ultra-Strong Robots Do? Saks Fifth Avenue is Trying to Find Out

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10:00 AM EST 2/5/2010

How Slow Can Mobile Sites Go?

Retail Realities: Best Buy Does OK, Costco Tanks. Can’t Anyone Do a Good Mobile Site Anymore?

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5:00 PM EST 1/29/2010

Talk, Talk, Talk about Computer Security

Retail Realities: CEOs Still Have Not Internalized the Importance of Computer Security

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1:30 AM EST 1/22/2010

The Mobile Triple Threat

Retail Realities: Retailers Now Realize they Need to Support Three Distinct Mobile Strategies

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5:00 AM EST 1/8/2010

`IT’ Must Learn To Be Comfortable Failing

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Retail Realities: Take it from McDonald’s CIO: Retailers Must Learn to “Fail Really Small”

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5:00 AM EST 1/8/2010

Analysis: Best Buy Wrestles with Ethics

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Retail Realities – Chief Ethics Officer Helps Managers Think Beyond Immediate Profits

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12:00 PM EST 12/19/2009

7-Eleven Mobile, Ethics Questions

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Retail Realities:In A Test Of Mobile Coupons, The Convenience Chain Finds Underage Consumer Sensitivities

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3:30 PM EST 12/11/2009

Retailer Wants Breach Kept Secret

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Retail Realities: Major Chain Wants Court To Protect Its “Dignity,” Keep Shareholders In The Dark

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9:30 AM EST 12/4/2009

Google’s Clout Causing Retailers To Fret

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Retail Realities: The Slower A Retailer’s site, The Lower Its Google Ranking

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12:30 PM EST 11/28/2009

Bargains Despite Black Friday Gloom

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Retail Realities: A Weak Economy-Coupled With Strong Online Sales Growth-Means That Opportunity Awaits

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3:30 PM EST 11/20/2009

Bid Farewell To Coupon Clipping?

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Retail Realities: That Quaint Money-Saving Practice Is Fading As Consumers Increasingly Opt For High Tech

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10:30 AM EST 11/13/2009

Clock Winding Down On Patent Scams?

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Retail Realities: Supreme Court Seems Ready To Snuff Out Frivolous Patent Applications

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9:30 AM EST 11/6/2009

Will E-Commerce Catch The Flu?

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Retail Realities: A GAO Report Paints A Nightmare Scenario, But Is It Realistic?

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7:30 AM EDT 10/30/2009

Going Back In Technological Time

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Retail Realities: After A Data Breach, One Retailer Got Off The Grid

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10:00 AM EDT 10/23/2009

Behind The ‘Governator’s’ Surprise Veto

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Retail Realities: California Governor, No Fan Of Data Breach Rules, Delivers Thumbs Down Decision

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1:00 PM EDT 10/16/2009

Open Season For Retail Cyber Thieves?

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Retail Realities: New Questions As Details Of Past Retail Data Breaches Come To Light

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2:00 AM EDT 10/9/2009

Holiday Hints: Sales Down, Crashes Up

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Retail Realities: The Economy Will Impact Sales, But Mobile Is Going To Rewrite Everything Else

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1:30 PM EDT 10/2/2009

Starbucks’ Mobile App Can’t Buy Anything

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Retail Realities: Starbucks’ iPhone Application Is Beautiful, Stable and Virtually Worthless

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10:30 AM EDT 9/18/2009

New Privacy Question For Social Networks

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Retail Realities: New Technology Lets Retail Sites Siphon Off Names Of Friends And Contacts Without So Much As a Password

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10:30 AM EDT 9/11/2009

New Hurdle For Mobile Commerce: Success?

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Retail Realities: Companies Are About To Find Out It’s A Double-Edged Sword

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10:30 AM EDT 9/4/2009

Is E-Commerce Due For Cosmetic Makeover?

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Retail Realities: Demands Of Makeup Retailers Sparks New Use Of Interactive Tech

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2:00 PM EDT 8/28/2009

A Cyberthief Conundrum For The Cops

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Retail Realities: Is The Hacker Detained by the Feds A Master Criminal Or Pawn In A Larger Scheme?

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3:00 AM EDT 8/14/2009

Phone Shopping? Not Any Time Soon

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Retail Realities: Phone Sales Soaring But Mobile-Commerce Just Can’t Seem To Make A Connection

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3:00 AM EDT 8/14/2009

Retail Versus Privacy: New Questions

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Retail Realities: To Protect Privacy, A Retailer First Must Understand It. Does Wal-Mart?

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5:30 AM EDT 8/7/2009

When Thieves Order Off The Menu

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Retail Realities: A Glitch In The System Threatens To Become A Huge Problem, Especially With Fast-Food Chains

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7:00 AM EDT 7/31/2009

Data Breach Bill’s Flawed Assumptions

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Retail Realities: Sen.Patrick Leahy’s Data Breach Bill Likely To Boomerang

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7:30 PM EDT 7/24/2009

The Credit Card Reform Backlash

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Retail Realities: Bottom Line Is That You’ll Be Feeling The Pinch

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7:30 AM EDT 7/17/2009

When States Attack, Retailers Relax

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After 41 Attorneys General Tried To Punish $19 billion retailer TJX, Guess Who Came Out On Top? (Trick Question Alert)

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7:00 AM EDT 7/10/2009

Trusting Wal-Mart to do the Right Thing

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Retail Realities: How Data from a Wal-Mart Test May Wind Up Determining How Consumer Information Gets Used

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10:00 AM EDT 6/26/2009

An E-Commerce Survival Plan

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Retail Realities: In A Recession, E-Commerce Needs To Start Listening To Consumers

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7:30 AM EDT 6/19/2009

The License Plate Loyalty Card

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Retail Realities: A Science Fiction Scenario Is About To Come True

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11:30 PM EDT 6/16/2009

Still Trust Your Web Site? Don’t

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Retail Realities: Is A Product In-Stock? The Web Site May Have No Clue

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3:30 AM EDT 6/5/2009

Beyond Ice Cream And Hamburgers

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Retail Realities: Dairy Queen’s Bold Mobile Coupon Experiment With RFID

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12:30 PM EDT 6/1/2009

Does Data Impose A Duty?

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Retail Realities: A Case Involving Lead And Childrens’ Necklaces Heads To Court

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12:30 PM EDT 6/1/2009

Credit Cards’ Unintended Security Hole

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Retail Realities: Why Zero Liability Programs Are a Wonderfully Early Holiday Gift to Cyber Thieves Everywhere

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2:00 AM EDT 5/22/2009

The Diabolical Duplicate Debit Debacle

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Retail Realities: How A Debit Card Glitch Can Turn You Into An Inadvertent Debtor

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Weekly, Monthly Newsletters

Quickly catch-up on the latest in E-Commerce and Retail Tech with our free weekly report, with urgent bulletins as news merits—along with our monthlies on Mobile, Security, In-Store, E-Commerce and CRM.
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Most Recent Comments

"I have strong reservations about the 'individual' certification and posting of that information for merchants. Can you imagine the potential employee poaching that might occur? The implications when competitors can look up how many are certified with each of their competitors? " -Christine

Should Forensic Tools Be Sold To Anyone?

A reader
Computers with FireWire have long been known to be vulnerable, since it has DMA access. Password interception via FireWire is not a new trick. Making these tools commercially available should put more of them in the right hands, where the overall level of benefit to society goes up. Assuming it doesn't further enable a corrupt Police State, of course. Read more...

Yes, Virginia, We Really Do Need A QIR Program

Michael
We are a Fortune 500 retailer. Our leadership applauds this new program. It's a good thing. Read more...

Big Data Is Exactly What You Think It Isn't

Thad Peterson
I agree that it's going to completely change the way retailers deal with their customers (and their suppliers), but there's going to be a whole bunch o' garbage out there before people really understand. Read more...

MasterCard Aims To Take Mobile Wallet Rivals Apart

Adrian Lane
Could you please validate the use of tokenization in the wallet's payment scheme? I'm looking at the wallet API and there is no mention of tokenization, only OAUTH identity tokens. Read more...

P2PE: No Cakewalk for Merchants, But There May Be No Alternative For Reducing Scope

Jaime
Walt, what are your thoughts on the applicability of P2PE to merchants who process using a mobile phone application with a swiper? I've asked a few QSA's this question and feeling seems to vary on whether a compliant POI device connected through the phone to a compliant gateway, etc. would allow the merchant to qualify. The crux of the conflict seems to be whether the phone remains in scope as part of the processing environment, or if it can be considered removed because the data is encrypted while being passed to the gateway through an app or the browser. Read more...
Andrew Jamieson
If the swipe device is PCI PTS certified, AND also compliant tot the SRED requirements of that standard, then it should be possible for the phone to be out of scope. This is basically the crux of the new PCI guidance on mobile payment acceptance, and the whole point of the SRED module (ie to help secure data through encryption to assist with scope reduction). Read more...

Considering An Operations Person For An Open IT Position? Don't Do It

Chris
I have an ops mentality but have worked directly or indirectly in IT for over 30 years. I think, naturally, young people and/or go-getter personality types are, by nature, "operations" types. However, as responsibility, experience, and maturity increases, people who may even be naturally "ops-oriented" can and should make the transition to an "IT" mentality like that you describe above. My boss is, by background, an "operations" person who never had a strong technical background or interest. Very smart, and capable when focused, but not that turned on by learning the intricacies of "how stuff works." In other words, despite over 20 years in the "IT" industry, still fixing tractors in the field. Read more...
Todd Michaud
I think that the more that both sides understand where the other is coming from, the better off everyone will be. I find that taking the time to ask someone "why" (is something being done that way, is that decision made, is this project important) can at least provide a good starting point. Read more...

Walmart's Online Cash Creates New Fraud Problem

ed
Wal-Mart pay-with-cash for online orders is a big benefit for resellers and suppliers versus reselling their products through eBay or Amazon.com. A startup supplier or product manufacturer no longer need to meet Wal-Mart strict specifications and minimum order requirement to stock products for sale in-store. They can now market throught Wal-Mart.com to a bigger crowd that can also pay with cash and use Wal-Mart expansive logistic system to deliver just-in-time. Read more...

"Careless" Systems Integrators Now Directly Under PCI DSS

Kat Valentine
This exact issue has been bothering me for years, and I was JUST talking about it with someone only yesterday. This may well be my favorite article, mostly because I'm biased and have hated this particular problem forever. Read more...
Nathan
Good article, but how does this have anything to do with the DSS? Read more...
Walt Conway
Actually, the QIR program has a lot to do with the DSS (or PCI). Since merchants rely on their reseller or integrator to implement their PA-DSS validated application, these resellers and system integrators play a critical role in merchants achieving and maintaining PCI compliance. As far as I can tell, the QIR program is designed to help merchants stay compliant by making sure their payment applications are installed according to the PA-DSS Implementation Guide, for example ensuring default passwords are changed (and protected), that the data encryption keys are properly set and secured, that the merchant's data retention policy is set, that no sensitive cardholder data are stored, and often that a firewall is in place and properly configured. Read more...
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