Word: cards
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Since Bill and Hillary swept into the White House six years ago, American Greetings has proudly trumpeted the First Family's annual holiday card as its greatest prize. Of late, though, some artists at the Cleveland-based company have been itching to lampoon their most famous customers, but worry about offending retailers. Sighs one illustrator: "We won't be doing any cigar gags, that's for sure...
...real losers in this situation are the U.S. residents who are forced to use relatively weak software. In January, a graduate student at Duke University took only four hours to break a code similar to those Web browsers use to protect credit card numbers. Netscape and Microsoft offer strong-encryption versions of their browsers to U.S. residents who ask for them, but because of export restrictions, the weak version is the standard. Many other products are similarly affected. Also in January, two private organizations, using $250,000 in computer equipment, cracked a code standard for government agencies and financial institutions...
...secret that the U.S. needs better encryption. The electronic age may claim to be founded on openness, but in fact, it's founded on keeping things hidden. You can't have e-cash if people can duplicate their electronic dollar bills, or credit card Web purchases if a third party can listen in and collect the numbers. You also can't do anything important over e-mail if it can be intercepted or if you have no guarantee of whom you're talking to. The ability to keep our bank accounts safe from intruders is more important to national security...
REVOLVING CREDIT Credit-card companies have been going on a shopping spree lately--and you may get stuck with the bill. Industry leader Citibank just purchased 800,000 accounts from Mellon Bank, part of an industrywide consolidation that last year saw 20 million accounts worth an estimated $32 billion change hands. A new owner can jack up rates and fees when it buys your account, except in a few states that let you keep the old terms. So make sure you watch out for the fine print detailing any changes...
...rush hour, Chen spent several minutes fumbling with a dollar bill that she could not make slide into the fare card machine...