Giving away the store

On the way home from work I stopped at the supermarket to buy dinner. I used to buy for weeks at a time but my habit changed living in Uruguay.

The person in front of me was buying wine. It's faster at that time of day to use the "self" check-out... and the guy tried to show his ID to the woman in charge of the four lanes of "self" check-out.

I noticed there was an out-of-order sign on the terminal used to control the four check-out lanes where she would ordinarily do whatever on that touch-screen to "authorize" his wine purchase. (Those outside the USA - we have stupid laws that set the legal age at 21 and huge penalties for stores and the employees themselves that sell to someone under 21.)

She told him she would come back when he was ready to pay.

Um, he had two items... but she disappeared to go do something else and the "self" checkout lane terminal said it required authorization to complete the transaction. She finally came back over after a minute or two and did the "employee override" button.

The size of the screen made it very easy to shoulder-surf the all-numeric user-ID and password which was something ludicrously easy to remember that corresponded with the company's internal store number (which prints on all receipts).

I doubt that I will try to use that user/password combo for myself but I can't believe that's their plan B. I bet that most of the stores in that chain use something equally guess-able given that most technology deployments have the user ID and password as the weakest link. The screen changed colors and one could do price adjustments or whatever before resuming as the "customer" and completing the transaction.