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英国科学家研制更安全信用卡

The recent news that data from 40 million credit and debit¹ cards used at Target department stores was hacked² has raised concerns about the security of plastic bank cards. These contain financial information on a magnetic strip or a memory chip embedded³ in the plastic. A new method of storing encrypted data is in its early stages, but the company developing the technology says some credit card companies are paying close attention.

最近有报道说，美国目标百货公司4千万美元的信用卡和借记卡消费数据遭黑客窃取，这引起人们对安全使用银行卡的担心。塑料银行卡的磁条或芯片上存有消费者的财务信息。英国科学家现在正在试验把这些信息存入塑料本身，而不是存在一个芯片里。这种方法还处于早期试验阶段，但开发这个技术的公司说，一些信用卡公司已经表现出兴趣了。

Most credit and debit cards today use magnetic strips that hold the data about the owner’s bank account and personal identification number called a PIN.

大部分信用卡和借记卡将持卡人的银行帐号和个人密码等加密数据存在此条中。

Other credit cards hold the data in memory chips that communicate wirelessly⁴ with card readers. Both systems are vulnerable. Criminals can steal the data by hacking⁵ into the banks’ or retailers⁶' computer systems or, as in the case of Target, tampering⁷ with card readers in stores.

还有一些信用卡是将数据存入芯片，通过无线方式与读卡器相通。这两种系统都可能遭破解。犯罪人能够通过进入银行或零售商的电脑系统，或者像目标百货商店一案那样，通过篡改店内读卡器，盗取相关数据。

Now, scientists in Britain say they are developing a way to make encrypted data more secure by storing it in the plastic itself.

英国科学家说，他们正在研发一种将加密数据存入塑料本身的方式提高信用卡等银行卡的安全性。

Gordon Smith, a professor emeritus⁸ at Warwick Manufacturing Group, at the University of Warwick, said researchers are manipulating a plastic molding machine to use the colors of the card to encrypt data.

华威大学华威制造集团的史密斯教授说，研究人员正在改进一个注塑机，通过塑料卡片的颜色来加密数据：

“As it's making that plastic from a molten plastic into a solid component⁹, we are moving the pigments¹¹ such that they form specific images,” he said.

“用这个机器将熔融塑料变成固态形式，我们调整颜料，让它们形成特定的图像。”

The way the pigment¹⁰ is configured inside the plastic ensures the security of the data. When the card is passed through a special scanner, similar to magnetic strip readers, the software reads the embedded image containing the data.

用塑料卡内颜色的变化确保内存数据的安全。当这张卡片通过一个类似磁条读卡器的特制扫描器时，就可以显示出存有相关数据的图像。

“When we first developed the images within the plastic, it looked as though it would just be an aesthetic¹² aspect to it, but then we've realized that once we could make it covert¹³, we could color the plastic so that the image was hidden, then it became something a lot more special," said Smith.

史密斯说：“我们最初开发塑料卡内的图像时，它看上去就是让这个卡片漂亮了一些。后来我们意识到，可以把这些颜色图像隐藏起来，让它更具有自己的特性。

Smith admits the system could be compromised if someone discovers how the card was made, though he said that's unlikely. The counterfeiter¹⁴ would need to have access to an injection molding machine that costs more than $300,000.

史密斯教授承认，如果有人发现了卡片的制成方法，这个系统就可能被破坏，不过他说，这种情况不大可能发生，因为伪造者需要有一台价值30多万美元的注塑机。

The patents for this new method are pending¹⁵, and it has not been used commercially at all. Smith said some credit card companies, however, already have indicated they are interested in the technology.

这种新方法的专利还在审批过程中，而且尚未用于商业用途。但史密斯表示，一些信用卡公司已经对这种技术表现出兴趣了。