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Do U.S. retailers get it?

Do they understand the need to move more rapidly toward chip-and-PIN technology?

If they didn't understand before, they should now in light of the massive data breach at Home Depot.

Speeding up the transition from old magnetic strip cards is particularly urgent after 282,000 Wisconsin debit and credit card numbers were stolen by cyber thieves from the home improvement giant and offered for sale on an underground website for a combined asking price of more than $8 million.

Journal Sentinel reporters were able to gain access to this black market in less than a minute — it's the same nefarious group that sold millions of card numbers pilfered from Target last year. Home Depot estimated that about 56 million payment cards were at risk. Reporters found that cards were compromised at all of the company's 26 Wisconsin locations.

Cards embedded with a data chip, already widely in use in Europe and Canada, might thwart such attacks. Many Americans already carry the new cards, but many retailers don't yet have the technology that allows them to be used.

New credit card standards go into effect in October 2015 that should push most retailers to take the step, but in light of the recent cyber terrorism, that strikes us as far too slow. Retailers should move now to accommodate the safer cards. Target is spending $100 million on cyber security, Bloomberg reports, including loading its own credit cards with "chip-and-PIN" technology.

When a consumer swipes a traditional card, information on the magnetic strip is downloaded into a retailer's computer system. When a chip-and-PIN card is swiped, the consumer also must enter a PIN to complete the purchase. Experts say that cards with chips are harder to copy than cards with magnetic strips.

Though chip-enabled cards are considered safer than the old magnetic strip technology, thieves, like viruses, will adapt. The BBC recently reported how a gang in the United Kingdom had enlisted the help of clerks to steal customers' money when they used their chip-and-PIN cards.

But chip-and-PIN cards make it harder for criminals to operate; retailers should make it as hard as possible. And the massive data breaches at Target and Home Depot should prompt them to move faster to protect consumers — and themselves — from the contagion of cyber theft.

Thousands of Wisconsin customers wish the retailers had already done so.

•••

Wisconsin voters will get a chance to have their say on a variety of races on Nov. 4, but there also is an important statewide referendum in which we urge voters to say "yes":

A constitutional amendment to prevent future raids of the state transportation fund.

The amendment asks if the state constitution should be amended so "that revenues generated by use of the state transportation system be deposited into a transportation fund administered by a department of transportation for the exclusive purpose of funding Wisconsin's transportation systems and to prohibit any transfers or lapses from this fund?"

The amendment has been approved by two consecutive sessions of the state Legislature and only needs approval by voters this fall to go into effect. It stems from a series of transfers out of the state's transportation fund during the administration of former Gov. Jim Doyle to help shore up the state's general fund. About $1.4 billion was siphoned off over a six-year period.

That practice, while understandable considering the depths of the state's fiscal problems during some of those years, created uncertainty for Wisconsin infrastructure projects and set a precedent for poor fiscal management. The state had to borrow more money to backfill the holes left after the transfers.

While a constitutional amendment is strong medicine, we think it's warranted. Taxpayers were told that money generated by the gas tax and registration fees would be used for the transportation fund. They have a right to expect that will be the case.

Vote "yes" on Question 1.

On, Wisconsin is produced each Monday by the Journal Sentinel's Editorial Board