I have always been a fan of one-time use credit card numbers. Certainly, for someone who shops on a number of web sites, they are a nice way to not get “too much” information stolen. It is not that I do not trust proprietors of smaller internet ventures, but… Well, I do not necessarily trust their information transmission and retention policies. Recently, I had just the excuse to the use a one-time number myself. I was buying something on a foreign website, hosted in a country known better for gathering information that securing it. “Perfect”, I thought, “I will be safe with my citibank visa!”
And now we can talk about how companies shoot themselves in the foot when their marketing gets ahead of their capabilities. Citibank, for example, runs a series of hilarious commercials warning of the dangers of Identity Theft. Despite the message saturation; however, it is impossible to find out how to generate one-time numbers for citibank issued credit cards from the site. At least my searches revealed no obvious way of doing so. A number of blog entries alluded to the fact that Citigroup (parent company of Citibank, N.A.) indeed provides a generator, but no links were posted. Luckily, I have friends who are much better at web sleuthing, and soon I had in my hands the link. (more…)
