新奇事件簿 信用卡的身份盗窃（在线收听）

Even the President of the United States of America has embarrassing moments with credit cards. Barack Obama had one last month. A restaurant cashier told him she couldn't accept his credit card. He was having dinner at an expensive restaurant in an upmarket area of New York. The President told reporters: "I went to a restaurant during the U.N. General Assembly, and my credit card was rejected….It turned out, I guess, I don't use it enough." He added that the cashier thought his card was being used for illegal purposes. He explained that he did not have enough cash to pay for the restaurant bill. Luckily, his wife paid the bill using her credit card and they could leave the restaurant.

甚至美国总统也有用信用卡的尴尬时刻。巴拉克.奥巴马上个月有一次很尴尬。餐厅收银员告诉他,她不能接受他的信用卡。他是在纽约高档区的一个豪华饭店吃晚饭的。总统告诉记者，他在联合国大会期间去了一个餐馆。但是他的信用卡却被拒绝了…结果他猜测是因为自己使用信用卡不够频繁。他补充说,收银员认为他的信用卡是用于某种非法目的。他解释说,他没有足够的现金来支付餐厅账单。幸运的是,他的妻子用她的信用卡付了账单,他们才得以离开饭店。

Mr Obama told his credit card story on Friday while he was signing a new law to protect consumers from identity theft. In particular, the new law tightens the controls on credit cards. Obama said: "Even I'm affected by this." Identity theft is a growing problem all over the world. Officials in the USA think that 100 million people have been affected in the past year because someone stole their private information online. The new law is called "BuySecure". It wants the credit card industry to change from cards with magnetic strips to those with microchips and PIN numbers. Magnetic strips are old technology. It is easy for hackers to read them and put the information on other cards.

周五,奥巴马在讲述他的信用卡故事时，他正在签署一项新法律,以保护消费者免受身份盗窃。特别是, 新法加强了对信用卡的控制。奥巴马说，即使我受到了这种影响，身份盗窃在世界各地也是一个日益严重的问题。美国官员认为,在过去一年中有1亿人受到影响,因为有人偷了他们的私人信息。新的法律被称为“BuySecure”。它希望信用卡行业能够将磁条信用卡变成带有微芯片和密码的卡片。磁条技术已经过时了。黑客很容易阅读,并将卡片的信息复制到其他的卡片上。