Snippings

xxx

Money launderers surreptitiously introduce more than $2 trillion in proceeds from illegal enterprises to global financial systems every year, according to estimates. International airplane passengers likely ferry hundreds of billions of dollars worth of that in cash, according to figures from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental agency that develops anti-money-laundering standards for countries.

From: Billions in Dirty Money Flies Under the Radar at World’s Busiest Airports – WSJ.

xxx

 

In December 2020, Clarke was arrested with around $9 million worth of gold on a private plane in Zanzibar

Given that record-breaking heat means that ice cubes now cost more than bread in parts of Mali, I wonder if any intrepid New England entrepreneurs are rethinking about rebooting the ice trade that brought so much prosperity a couple of hundred years ago?

The ice trade? Yes.

If you are worried about AI coming for your job, spare a thought for the sex workers complaining that Meta is letting adult chatbots roam free while strictly policing humans and over-enforcing rules about adult content. Also spare a thought for the poor influencers who will be sidelined by TikTok, which has been talking to advertisers about using AI-powered avatars to compete with human creators for advertising deals.

xxx

Criminals are deliberating uploading child abuse material to rival hacking and fraud related Discord servers to have them shut down.

From: Criminals Are Weaponizing Child Abuse Imagery to Ban Discord Servers.

xxx

xxx

Visa has launched open banking in the US, using technology from recently acquired Swedish vendor Tink. Available via a single console, user can currently access financial data to confirm bank account data, run real-time balance checks and fetch transaction data from thousands of banks across the US.

From: Visa launches open banking with Tink in the US.

xxx

xxx

European Central Bank (ECB) executive board member Piero Cipollone has called for changes to tech firm Apple’s payments system.

Cipollone said Apple must change its approach in a letter sent to Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner for the internal market, on April 19. He warned that its current approach could be incompatible with making offline payments in any future European central bank digital currency.

“Apple’s proposed commitments would not give third parties full access to the secure element (SE), but only allow for the usage of the host card emulation (HCE),” Cipollone said. He added this would not be “at par with the user experience offered by Apple Pay when it comes to authentication and transaction speed”.

HCE-based payment solutions allow banks to build their own apps which could compete with Apple Pay. But they would be at a fundamental disadvantage with Apple Pay, as they would be unable to hold the card’s details in the secure element.

Most importantly, the current solution would be incompatible with plans to create a possible European central bank digital currency (CBDC). “Access to the SE is vital for mobile device based offline digital euro payments,” Cipollone added.

From: ECB says iPhone is currently incompatible with digital euro – Central Banking.

xxx

xxx

(One bright note on that front is that the injection of AI into the smart glasses, a metaverse-related project, has suddenly made that product much more viable.)

From: Meta’s Big AI Spending Turns Off Investors — The Information.

xxx

xxx

“payment transactions whose sole apparent purpose is to obtain award miles” are also prohibited.

From: How the “mile carousel” from DKB and Revolut worked – and who paid for it.

xxx

xxx

For example, an account screenshot of a Revolut customer who had accumulated more than 3 million “award miles” within six months – through dozens of “top-ups” and simple transfers – was circulating in relevant forums over the weekend. In the frequent flyer scene there was the term “miles carousel” for such practices (especially since money was probably transferred back and forth).

From: How the “mile carousel” from DKB and Revolut worked – and who paid for it.

xxx

xxx

Four dangerous contactless scams

Skimming Devices
Fraudsters install skimming devices on legitimate payment terminals to capture card information when users make transactions. Trevor said: “These devices can covertly steal card details, including the card number and expiration date, enabling criminals to clone cards or make unauthorised purchases.”

Shoulder Surfing

Trevor explained that this tactic involves criminals lurking near individuals making contactless payments and secretly observing or recording their card details. With this information, fraudsters can easily access the victim’s accounts or make fraudulent transactions.

Card Cloning

Criminals utilise sophisticated techniques to clone contactless cards, replicating the data stored on the card’s chip. Once cloned, these cards can be used for unauthorised transactions, posing a significant threat to users’ financial security.

RFID Readers

Trevor explained that RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is a technology that uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects. He continued: “These tags contain electronically stored information that can be read remotely using RFID readers or scanners.

“In the realm of contactless payment scams, criminals may exploit RFID technology by using illegal RFID readers or scanners to intercept data from unsuspecting individuals’ contactless cards or devices without their knowledge.”

From: New contactless card warning to every person paying this way at any type of checkout – Daily Record.

xxx