Category Archives: Uncategorized

Although it will be a while until we get the 2017 figures, the 2016 figures were unequivocal. Card fraud is worse than ever, and in the UK it’s now worse than when chip and PIN was introduced. Card fraud losses for 19 European countries hit approximately €1.8 billion, a new high. The UK saw theContinue reading “POST Champions league for card fraud”

There’s a fascinating article int he archives of The New York Times. It’s from July 1992, and it’s all about the future for “personal wireless communicators” or what we now call “smartphones”. While John Sculley, then head of Apple, is enthusiastic about the coming “mother of all markets”, the idea is poo-pooed by Andrew Grove,Continue reading “The Executive Computer – ‘Mother of All Markets’ or a ‘Pipe Dream Driven by Greed’? – NYTimes.com”

Other countries have a more robust approach to banking regulation and less sympathy for poor behaviour by bank management. The former head of a major Vietnamese bank has been sentenced to death for his role in a fraud case involving millions of dollars of illegal loans. From Vietnam fraud trial: Death penalty for ex-head ofContinue reading “Vietnam fraud trial: Death penalty for ex-head of OceanBank – BBC News”

xxx Contemporary artists are increasingly turning to vellum – the prepared animal skin sometimes known as parchment on which Britain’s Acts of Parliament have traditionally been printed – to insure against the risk of copies of their work being passed off as originals. But while the use of vellum goes back to the classical age,Continue reading “Artists turn to vellum to beat the forgers copying their work”

xxx Take, for example, Roomba, the adorable robotic vacuum cleaner. Since 2015, the high-end models have created maps of its users’ homes, to more efficiently navigate through them while cleaning. But as Reuters and Gizmodo reported recently, Roomba’s manufacturer, iRobot, may plan to share those maps of the layouts of people’s private homes with itsContinue reading “The ‘internet of things’ is sending us back to the Middle Ages”

xxx when it comes to the big three areas covered in the research – payments, securities settlement, and central bank-issued digital currency – the Bundesbank experts are wary. The authors “see little prospect of DLT being put to widespread use in the field of individual and retail payments given the current state of the art”.Continue reading “German central bank flags DLT weaknesses”

xxx There are technical factors that explain why cybersecurity is so weak, but the underlying reason is political, and it’s pretty simple: Big corporations have poured large amounts of money into our political system, helping to create a regulatory environment in which consumers shoulder more and more of the risk, and companies less and less.Continue reading “Equifax’s Maddening Unaccountability – The New York Times”

xxx blockchains are not super-computers or AI machines – neither Freenet nor Skynet – they’re databases From Monax | Blog | Smart securitisation, or: why it’s time to stop talking tokens and start talking smart contracts xxx

xxx What these naysayers don’t understand is the fact that the lack of cryptocurrency regulator has already been addressed by the blockchain technology. From Adam Vaziri: Blockchain is the future regulator xxx

xxx Three of the country’s four largest parties – the Five Star Movement, the Northern League and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia – have proposed introducing a new currency following an election scheduled for next year. From Three Of Italy’s Top Four Political Parties Seek A New Parallel Currency | Zero Hedge AContinue reading “POST Think global act local, currency edition”