
Protean Echo – Fuse All Your Cards into One - X4
http://getprotean.com/
======
jchung
Is this really a problem? Too many credit cards make your wallet uncomfortably
large? Let's get back to solving problems that matter. I can't believe we have
three companies on the front page today reducing the number of credit cards in
your wallet.

~~~
mmastrac
Actually, I might have this problem. I don't use a lot of credit, but I carry
around a primary CC, a backup CC (that is never used unless the primary CC is
stolen), a corporate CC, four debit cards for various accounts, and a myriad
of other things.

My kingdom for a solution that gets me down to one card.

~~~
thomaspaine
Why do you need to carry around four debit cards and a backup credit card? I'm
not saying this works for everyone but my wallet contains $20, a driver's
license, and a credit card.

If I'm going to be somewhere where I might need a business CC or debit card
then they're temporarily added. Otherwise I store all my CC info in 1password
anyway which I can access on my phone.

~~~
IgorPartola
I carry three: two Amex cards and a debit card. The Amexes are for different
cashback situations and one of them is a Costco membership card too so I have
to carry both. I would actually like to add a backup Visa or MasterCard as
well since lots of places do not accept Amex.

~~~
thomaspaine
I have the Costco Amex too, but how often are you going to Costco that you're
carrying it around everyday?

------
Amadou
Combine this with something like BoA's ShopSafe "disposable" credit card
numbers and POS credit card fraud could be practically eliminated. Consumer
privacy would also be increased because it will become much more difficult to
cross-reference purchases across different merchants. (You'll still have to
worry about Visa selling your purchase records, but one step at a time.)

[https://www.bankofamerica.com/privacy/accounts-
cards/shopsaf...](https://www.bankofamerica.com/privacy/accounts-
cards/shopsafe.go)

[http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abu/y205/m02/abu0137/s02](http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abu/y205/m02/abu0137/s02)

~~~
chx
Disposable credit card numbers in the USA? Inconceivable! An actually secure
feature that is widespread in Europe found its way into the US? What has the
world come to.

Any Canadian implementations?

~~~
dangrossman
PayPal started offering virtual one-time-use MasterCard cards linked to your
PayPal balance in 2004.

~~~
RyJones
but they stopped offering them years ago.

[https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/PayPal-Extras-
MasterCard...](https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/PayPal-Extras-MasterCard-
Archive/Single-use-PayPal-credit-card-numbers/td-p/84161)

------
guyht
These guys have been around much longer than Coin. I think this goes to show
how much hype being part of YC can generate.

Kudos to both products.

~~~
pathikrit
Also, [https://walla.by/the-wallaby-card](https://walla.by/the-wallaby-card)
\- they have been around even longer.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
I think Wallaby works differently by being a new plastic card you use and they
dynamically route your charges to which ever registered card will give you the
best return (cash back, airline points, etc).

------
scotth
13% of Americans have 10 or more credit cards? Wow, that sounds serious.

They should probably pass on the Protean Echo purchase, and figure out how to
manage their money better.

~~~
tertius
More credit lines give you a higher credit score. Yes it has relatively low
impact, but the more lines you have, the better it is for your credit score.
That's just the system.

~~~
scotth
I only have one. My credit is excellent. I've never had a problem with
anything.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but clearly it isn't the only way.

~~~
tertius
Like I said, it's a low impact factor, but it still is. And I'm not saying
this is "my experience" it's just one of the factors.

Also credit lines could be anything from retail credit, mortgage, car loan
etc. All apply.

Compared to paying every month, utilization, past default etc. it's a low
factor, but it still is.

------
zxcvgm
When two dynamic magstripe products appear on the front page of HN, I just had
to find out how it works.

Protean provided a link on the front page FAQ but unfortunately that link
doesn't work, so here's the working how-it-works entry[1] and a history of
reprogrammable card technologies[2] from their blog. The "magstripe" is
essentially an electromagnet that is able to sense the reader's swipe head and
start the "playback" along the entire track. If you'd like to build a simple
one, you just need to playback a waveform into a coil placed at the swipe head
[3].

And regarding their answer on the card skimming bit, it's most likely just a
form of software protection. If they can so easily duplicate a card's
magstripe, what's stopping anyone from being able to do it (with their
product)?

I would definitely buy one though.

[1] [http://blog.getprotean.com/?p=124](http://blog.getprotean.com/?p=124)

[2] [http://blog.getprotean.com/?p=396](http://blog.getprotean.com/?p=396)

[3] [http://hackaday.com/2008/08/04/magnetic-stripe-card-
spoofer/](http://hackaday.com/2008/08/04/magnetic-stripe-card-spoofer/)

------
beloch
"Q: Will Echo facilitate card skimming?

A: No. Echo users can only mimic payment cards (debit and credit) registered
under their name. Sorry skimmers!"

I'd like to hear more about how this card is designed not to allow skimmers to
use it. My suspicion is that the app will, in fact, be easy enough for
skimmers to hack so that they can put anyone's card they want on it, turning
it into a pocket skimmer for waiters or anyone who can get their hands on a
customer's card for a few seconds.

"Q: What happens if I lose Echo? Is it secure?

A: Yes, Echo is secure. You can set Echo Card to lock down when out of range
of your mobile app. "

Again, more information would be nice. Is card data stored in encrypted form
and decrypted only at the moment of use via a key provided by the app? If so,
are keys securely broadcast to the card? Is card info uploaded to the echo
card securely for that matter? This is important to ask, since you might wind
up transmitting card data on a public channel repeatedly.

There are some pretty big cryptographic concerns here that are completely
glossed over. I absolutely would not use this card without knowing more.

~~~
iancarroll
To answer your first question, I gather they would be grabbing the name hard-
coded in your mag stripe. Can't use multiple cards with different names.

~~~
monkeyspaw
Unless the software that enforces this is compromised. If the iPhone can be
jailbroken by hobbyists, you can bet there will be resources greater than the
Protean dev team devoted to hacking this device to bypass their checks.

Credit card skimming is big money. A cheap, innocuous device like this could
be very interesting.

------
ForHackernews
Wait, isn't this exactly the same as "Coin" which got a lot of buzz today?

~~~
wmf
It's interesting to see two similar projects come out around the same time. Is
there some new technology that only makes this possible now?

~~~
dangrossman
This one was announced in August 2012. Several others have tried the same
thing over the past few years.

------
Mister_Snuggles
It already seems obsolete as it won't work with chip cards. Most POS debit and
credit transactions in Canada are now done via chip-cards, so emulating a
magstripe isn't helpful.

Debit cards:
[http://www.interac.ca/images/PDFs/interac%20infograph_ENG_FI...](http://www.interac.ca/images/PDFs/interac%20infograph_ENG_FINAL_V3.pdf)

~~~
X-Istence
Europe has been doing that for years!

------
gmjoe
I'm sure there are going to be plenty of places which refuse to accept
anything but an actual credit or debit card.

I mean, there's no signature to check. What do you do when 10% or more of the
places you go refuse to take this?

Heck, a lot of places used to require the cashier to type in the last 4 digits
of the card visually, to make sure the physical card matched the stripe. I
haven't seen that in a while, but that would also be impossible with this.

Are the credit-card companies on board with this, instructing retailers to
accept these?

~~~
X-Istence
Best Buy still requires the physical card to type in the first four numbers
...

~~~
dingaling
First four? That's two-thirds of the Bank Identification Number ( BIN ),
offers no security at all. After all the bank's logo is plastered over the
card and reverse BIN lookup is easy.

What an odd thing to capture.

~~~
X-Istence
I might be mistaken, but they are required to type in 4 numbers, last time I
asked the clerk he said it was the first 4 numbers...

------
devindotcom
"Q: When will Echo be available?

A: A year ago, we estimated a 2013 availability. We’re still working on
perfecting the technology. We haven’t released a revised availability date."

I'm all for several kinds of these things, just as we have different kinds of
watches and phones. It's a matter of taste more than anything once the basics
are established, as they clearly are. And, of course, of getting it to market.
Hopefully the Coin I preordered today isn't still in preproduction a year from
now.

------
avalaunch
I like that this works with loyalty cards too. Unfortunately my early beta
card got destroyed after the fifth or sixth time I took it to the Pizza Hut
buffet and had them punch it.

------
ChuckMcM
Interesting to see them in the same space. I wonder if someone makes the
'dark' version of this card, connected via your phone to carding networks
dynamically becomes a stolen ATM card for you to get cash quickly and then
deletes the data after use. Leaving you with only cash and the disguise you
used to hide from the ATM camera.

Well at least that is what I _think_ the bad guys are thinking right now.

------
sciguy77
Well isn't this awkward with coin and all…

~~~
jm3
Is it? Not sure, but the Coin team went gangbusters on the promotion and it
seems to have worked great for them. I couldn't visit any social site today
without someone talking about Coin. But I've a feeling that payment cards are
far from a winner-take-all business.

The Protean Echo, OTOH, has been in development for some time. Thiago first
gave me the demo at the Tech Brewery in Ann Arbor, MI and it blew the doors
off anything we'd ever seen that was remotely similar. The form factor of the
card itself — clear “Gorilla glass”, like the iPhone screen, with embedded
circuits — and the whole user experience are beautiful. I just wish they'd
hurry up and release it!

------
conductr
Guess they should have made a video, like Coin

------
lurkinggrue
For fun you can even scan friends cards.

------
mattholtom
I actually don't want a card. Or a wallet. I'd like my keys and phone and
wallet to merge into one blob. This would cause my "oh s$%t I lost X" anxiety
to go from 3 points, to 1 point.

~~~
IgorPartola
Would you then hand your cards/keys/phone blob to a waiter at at a restaurant
when you pay for your meal?

------
vezzy-fnord
The problem I have with this, is that its greatest strength is also its single
point of failure. One card to rule them all, and one card to lose them all.

------
aaronpk
well, not quite "all", looks like this one has a limit of 3 cards at a time on
the Echo card, where the Coin has a limit of 8 at a time.

~~~
fishtoaster
More or less:

"Q: Echo mimics just 3 cards?

A: No. Echo mimics an unlimited number of cards with the help of our free
mobile app - simply drag and drop any card you’d like Echo to mimic within the
app."

~~~
aaronpk
It sounds like you'll have to launch the app to change which three cards are
stored on the Echo. This is actually too low of a number for me, so it would
end up being more of a hassle to launch the app all the time than it would be
to just carry 5 cards everywhere.

------
NKCSS
I declare today to be "Merge All Your Cards Into One" day.

------
beachminter
the CEO is pretty legit.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiago_David_Olson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiago_David_Olson)

------
zobzu
Man that's so trendy now ;-)

------
skadamat
this is a parody site right?

------
monsterix
Your card looks sexier than the coin one (to me!). And suddenly we have two
competing hot-shots in a day that would bring out the best in each other. Wish
you guys and the coin guys ALL THE BEST! Screw all the naysayers, go prove the
world really needs lesser cards to carry!

