Use two fingers to put in your PIN

One actually presses, the other one doesn’t

You could generate an absurd amount of possible PINs that could work on your card, giving any PIN peepers a seriously hard time, should they somehow have the intent to get ahold of your card and PIN through spying and pickpocketing

Safes, doors, etc. same principle

Even better tip: commit your false finger movements to muscle memory so not even a recurring stalker can bypass it

This will be totally overboard, and totally unnecessary, most of the time. But like any kind of security, it’s good to have it even if you hopefully never need it

  • Ydna@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    If somebody steals your card, wouldn’t they run the transaction as credit? They wouldn’t need your PIN.

    • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 days ago

      this feels like a very american thing to me, everyone here has debit cards where you can at most get a couple hundred dollars per month from making purchases where you simply tap the card to pay, before it starts requiring you to enter the PIN

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      3 days ago

      My workmate used to do this 30 years ago.

      I started copying him - same funny fake password - when I moved on. Then I left that job after 8 years. I came back to that crew 10 years after that, to where most of them had moved en masse after a calamity, and my casual workmate from back then was doing it a decade later – same funny fake password. I laughed so hard.

  • krakloskewm@lemmy.zip
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    3 days ago

    Something that is potentially helpful for stuff like this:

    Every nuneric keypad ive eever seen is laid out in the same way and therr is usually a little bump over 5 which is the middle number.

    If you can orient yourself by touch with the bump then the numbers will always be in thr same place and you can use this trick and cover the pad with your hand to be extra discrete.

    Its really not hard. Like. Blind people can function in the world.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      3 days ago

      I learned to use the numpad by touch in high school typing class.

      Still probably the most useful class I took in high school

      • naticus@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        We had very different experiences in typing classes. My teacher would regularly show up drunk (it was my first class of the day, so he was likely drinking until early morning hours), and eventually we just got all our instruction from his student teacher.

  • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    3 days ago

    Sometimes I’ll do like jazz hand fingers on the keypad so it looks like I’m just jamming a bunch of random numbers.

    Or I’ll mimic something like this but without actually pressing the buttons

  • AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    My method is to put four fingers over the four digits, and keep them in place while moving all of them for each press.

    Assuming a four-digit code, your method generates 24=16 possibilities; mine generates 44=256.

  • hiddenuser420@feddit.dk
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    3 days ago

    you can hold your other hand over while typing. I know the numbers and dont have to look, thats how I do it.

    • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 days ago

      if my debit card is out then it means i had to pull out the wallet, so just holding the wallet over is both convenient and obstructs a bit more

    • tburkhol@slrpnk.net
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      3 days ago

      Thermal camera will reveal the buttons your fingers lingered on and in roughly what order as they cool.

      • betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        That’s why I spend a few minutes afterward licking the keypad to lay false heat signatures and promote faster cooling due to saliva. Attackers/observers are temporarily stunned with confusion and disgust, giving me a brief window to escape unnoticed.

      • Aqivex@fedinsfw.app
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        3 days ago

        Easily defended against: Upon finishing your transaction, simply press every single button on the machine in quick succession, with roughly equal firmness.

        • socsa@piefed.social
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          3 days ago

          One of the keypad locks I have on my door requires you press two random numbers after your pin, which I always thought was pretty clever. The one my parents have rotates the numbers, which also works but is reallllly not compatible with being drunk.

      • mmmm@sopuli.xyz
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        3 days ago

        What if I use something else to press the buttons with one hand and covering with the other hand?

      • tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 days ago

        Did you learn that from the game Splinter Cell? I remember using that trick, I feel like the odds of it working reliably IRL are extremely low though and also requires a thermal camera.

        • tburkhol@slrpnk.net
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          3 days ago

          Somebody, maybe a youtuber, demo’d it on a checkout, maybe at a Target. I can definitely see fingerprints with my thermal camera, even after brief touches, and there’s phones now with built-in thermal cams. You do need a pretty cool and uniform temperature keypad, so not one with electronics close behind it, and you have to image the keypad pretty close due to low resolution and pretty soon after the victim leaves - waiting for a receipt would normalize the temps. So, yeah, not a very practical attack.

          But I feel like this whole thread is topic is pretty high on the improbable and unrealistic scale.

  • welfare_wizard@lemmy.zip
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    3 days ago

    You can do the same on a keyboard. Use your left hand to lightly tap the 1234 keys while actually typing out the characters with your right. Saved me when I had to sit next to some nosy kid once.

  • burido@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    my pin is 12 digits, I could say it out loud and no one would still be able to get in

  • Victor@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Do people not use fingerprint? Doesn’t just make it harder, but eliminates the peeping aspect altogether.