Someone in an alley rummaging through the garbage poses a greater credit card threat than an online fraud artist. For one thing, most Web transactions are encrypted, scrambled to unintelligibility with a complex mathematical code. We have an expression for that in the news business. Two university students made headlines last year when they found a flaw in the Netscape Web browser's encryption feature, a problem that was quickly corrected. Kevin Mitnick's data-theft spree made quite a splash.
Truth is, nothing is totally secure.
Not Wall Street. Not credit cards. I once left my card at the cleaners in the pocket of my pants. The shop owner held it for me safe and sound. Another time, I dropped my card on a busy street in Washington, D.C., and a good Samaritan tracked me down to return it.