🚀 go-pugleaf

Greetings.  On-card encrypted PINs have been used for some purposes.
They have become increasingly uncommon in recent years, with a
definite move toward centralized verification.  

At a major California bank, for example, their original ATM system
would instantly ack a card as soon as you finished entering the PIN.
At that time, they were using encrypted PINs on the card.  A point
came when they issued all new cards, and required that everyone come
in once to set the PIN.  This involved running the card through a
reader for ID and then letting a modem at the bank dial up the
central system to set the PIN in the system.  It was at the same time
that PIN acks started taking a considerable period of time (usually
several seconds--though you're told to go ahead and start entering
your first transaction instead of waiting for the ack--but you'll be
bounced later if the PIN is incorrect).  Also, the ATMs no longer
worked at all when the central system was down (previously simple
withdrawals had gone ahead anyway).

In any case, it seemed likely that the bank had switched to a centralized
verification system, and I later confirmed this with the bank while in 
the process of clearing up some card problems.

--Lauren--