I think of "Big Brother" as the aggregate tracking information (locations, stores, things I buy regularly) from all my bankcards. Like it helped that my purchases in Arizona on one card fit the pattern created by information from others, so it wasn't tagged.
I think the easiest tagger though (and it shows the fraudster was a total amateur) is that "small followed by large" thing. You just don't do that if you're going to use a stolen card. iTunes is something else that seems extremely amateurish, since Apple cross-checks CC numbers in the payment database. I would think the chances of a stolen CC number being already registered on iTunes would be fairly high, and Apple's system would only allow a number to be used twice as a way of "flagging" possible stolen numbers to the banks, especially if only one song is purchased subsequently...
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-05-27 03:42 pm (UTC)I think the easiest tagger though (and it shows the fraudster was a total amateur) is that "small followed by large" thing. You just don't do that if you're going to use a stolen card. iTunes is something else that seems extremely amateurish, since Apple cross-checks CC numbers in the payment database. I would think the chances of a stolen CC number being already registered on iTunes would be fairly high, and Apple's system would only allow a number to be used twice as a way of "flagging" possible stolen numbers to the banks, especially if only one song is purchased subsequently...