Re: Visa, HNC Inc. develop neural network as a weapon to fight fraud

[Peter Wayner <pcw@access.digex.net>]

My impression is that the companies will use the Neural Network
to detect strange spending habits. For instance, a friend with
an American Express card had a strange occurance when he was on
a business trip. His spending was way up and when he tried to make
a purchase, the card reader said, "Dial Amex." The clerk did and
the friend found himself talking to an Amex representative. They
said, "We've noticed that you've had more purchases than usual lately
and we just wanted to check in to see if you're who you say you are."
I think they asked him his mother's maiden name or something like that.

In the end, he felt that this intruision was a feature and touted it
to me as a great reason to get an Amex card. All these guys are out
there protecting you. 

Privacy advocates might have a different opinion. 

-Peter