What do the 16 digits on a credit card mean? [infographic]

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What do the 16 digits on a credit card mean? [infographic]

Posted Jan 21st, 2011 at 11:00 AM and seen

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Annie Colbert

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over 1 year ago Phil Earnhardt responded:

If the final sum is not divisible by 10, the CC number is invalid. If the sum is divisible by 10, the number MIGHT be valid. It's a low-level check that is trivially spoofed.

over 1 year ago Andy Hall responded:

This is not right. I tested that with all of my credit cards. this is not right.

over 1 year ago Jack Baker responded:

This doesn't work for my credit card. I checked 3 times.

Perhaps only for American credit cards?

over 1 year ago Bilal Khan responded:

why are you having 5 adsense units on one page...............................

over 1 year ago Cole responded:

For you guys who said it doesn't work, the Luhn algorithm is how credit card numbers are validated. It's even a built in function in many programming languages. You might have misread the explanation, but it definitely works.

@Phil the Luhn algorithm is not meant to prevent malicious attacks it is meant to help protect against accidental mis-entry of information and typos. There is a solid wikipedia entry on all of this http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luhn_algorithm

over 1 year ago Tom responded:

Only works for US credit cards.

over 1 year ago Phil Earnhardt responded:

@Cole, I get it. I was pointing out the obvious error in the article: the correctness of the check digit does NOT imply that the credit card number is valid.

Unfortunately, the computation of the check digit is significantly obscure that people generally don't do it in their heads. If a computer is available, the computer is almost always online and can do a true validity check on the CC#; there is no value in verifying the checksum under such circumstances. In short, the value of this kind of checksum has pretty well outlived its usefulness.

over 1 year ago Stephanie M. Cockerl liked this post.

over 1 year ago Vampire responded:

This is sweet =D

about 1 year ago farr responded:

stupid!

about 1 year ago Vampire responded:

is gay

about 1 year ago Cloverr responded:

It worked for me :)

about 1 year ago Jimmy responded:

I tried this, and it seemed like it didn't work, but I was missing the part where you add the digits of any double digit products (when you double every other number). Once I fixed that, it worked perfect.

12 months ago andrewfmertes (Twitter) responded:

Are you sure it doesn't work Andy Hall? Here, give me your credit card numbers. I will double check for you.

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What do the 16 digits on a credit card mean? [infographic]