He's quite right, however, when he points out that even those customers who are reimbursed, pay a grave price in inconvenience and stress.

In Australia at least, the stress is worse than he suggests, because the first thing banks and credit card companies will do, in these cases, is try to pin the blame on their customers. The effect can be shattering.

As Schneier says, "The actual problem to be solved is that of fraudulent transactions. Financial institutions make it too easy for a criminal to commit fraudulent transactions, and too difficult for the victims to clear their names. The institutions make a lot of money because it's easy to make a transaction, open an account, get a credit card and so on. For years I've written about how economic considerations affect security problems. They can put security countermeasures in place to prevent fraud, detect it quickly and allow victims to clear themselves. But all of that's expensive. And it's not worth it to them."

And it isn't just our legislators that are letting us down. So are the media. Most journalists seem to actually believe what the financial institutions are telling them.