On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 16:27:32 +0200, Brad Knowles wrote:

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It is the same way credit reporting works: you mess up, you get no>> credit. Except then you can generate yet another fake credit card and go on with your life. Do that a few thousand times a day, even -- no >problem. The credit reporting scheme only works against people who are willing to play by the rules. Even then, it only hurts the legitimate credit card holders who don't know how to fight the system. Come on guys, you are all smart engineers. This is not rocket science.

See above. Credit card fraud is a multi-billion dollar business. When the credit card companies have figured out this problem, maybe we can apply similar techniques to the spam problem.

Please, this is trivial. You have to prove your personal identity. What many firms do is to require a bank to certify it. The credit card thievery to which you refer is done anonymously; not relevant here