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On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 10:09 AM, Philip Hudson wrote: > Here's an interesting sub-topic: does GCHQ know your PIN? Their haystack probably contains some PINs, but I doubt they actually "know" people's PINs. They may have access to the bank's systems where PINs are stored, which, unlike "knowledge" of PINs, is resilient against people changing their PIN. > If they do, does it matter? Well, it's private information, so it would be bad in principle, even if they might not be able to do much with it. > If they do not, are there any credible reasons why and plausible scenarios > where they should? I don't think it's of interest to GCHQ. There must be cases where it's in their interest to know when and where how much money was taken out using a certain card. But you don't need the PIN for that, just the logs of the banks. In some limited cases, 'real life spies' may want to take someone's identity, including being able to take out cash on their behalf. To them, PINs could be useful. (I'm guessing here, I don't know much about spies.) Martijn. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq