Of the dozen times i've tried it i've been prompted once to sign - and in that case the card had no signature on it and the merchant waived it away.
I'm in the process of figuring out the scope of this issue and how to fix/report it - I think the solution will be for terminals to enforce prompting for ID/signature
Don't bother, the merchants and card issues are well-aware of this. You're supposed to reconcile your card statement with your expected transactions, and dispute irregularities. If you attempt to fraudulently claim that you didn't perform a transaction, the issuer goes to the merchant to get a copy of the signature & uses it as proof you authorized the transaction.
If a fraudster forged your signature, you simply assert that the signature is not yours. If you attempt fraud here (sign in an unrecognisable hand), the fraud investigations will try to put you at the scene with CC TV recordings/handwriting matching/etc. Hopefully you have not signed any affidavits that the signature is not yours, because then you'll be up for perjury as well as fraud.
I believe that the magnetic strip can still be used for certain low-value transactions by stable merchants (e.g. street parking meters) but such exceptions are rare. Certainly never the case in a normal retail situation.
https://www.cnet.com/au/news/australian-credit-cards-boost-s...