Snippings

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Britain sorely needs a secure digital-id system, and needs to decide what kind it wants… The government says that by the summer of 2029 everyone must use digital id to prove they are allowed to work. It also says that the police will not demand to see digital ids. It has said nothing about what kind of identity system the country should build. Britain has many options, but one big question: how much should the state try to do by itself?

From: Britain is trying to create a digital identity system, again.

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Assets of all kinds could one day be bought, sold and held through a single digital wallet.

From: Larry Fink and Rob Goldstein on how tokenisation could transform finance.

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DoorDash says it banned driver who seemingly faked a delivery using AI
DoorDash seems to have confirmed a viral story about a driver using an AI-generated photo to lie about making a delivery.
As reported by Nexstar, Austin resident Byrne Hobart said he experienced this very thing, writing in a post on X: “Amazing. DoorDash driver accepted the drive, immediately marked it as delivered, and submitted an AI-generated image of a DoorDash order (left) at our front door (right).”

From: DoorDash says it banned driver who seemingly faked a delivery using AI | TechCrunch.

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Riley Hughes “Default Disbelief”

 

NSA | Zero Trust Implementation Guideline Primer
The guiding principles of ZT, outlined in NIST SP 800-207, are the core of a ZTA:
• Never trust, always verify – Treat every User/PE/NPE, device,
application/workload, and data flow as untrusted. Dynamically authenticate and
explicitly approve all activity, adhering to the principle of Least Privilege.
• Assume breach – Operate and defend resources under the assumption that an
adversary already has presence within the environment. Plan for deny-by-default hell yeah

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As I said in The Economist back in 2019, the Apples and Facebooks and Googles want the banks to do the manufacturing while they take over the distribution.

From: No One Cares Which Bank Provides Their Apple Card.

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— Rain, the enterprise-grade infrastructure for stablecoin-powered payments, today announced a $250 million Series C funding round led by ICONIQ, with participation from Sapphire Ventures, Dragonfly, Bessemer Venture Partners, Galaxy Ventures, FirstMark, Lightspeed, Norwest, and Endeavor Catalyst. The round values Rain at $1.95 billion, brings the company’s total funding to over $338 million, and comes just four months after its Series B and 10 months after its Series A.

Stablecoins have rapidly evolved from a speculative corner of crypto markets into one of the largest value-transfer rails in the world. The next phase of adoption is about making tokenized money the default way that businesses move funds and consumers get paid, save, and spend. Crossing that chasm requires infrastructure that lets enterprises shift to onchain payment rails while preserving the familiar experiences their users already trust. Rain’s technology is built to do exactly that.

“Stablecoins are quickly becoming the way money moves in the 21st century, but adoption by users worldwide requires cards and apps that just work,” said Farooq Malik, CEO & Co-founder of Rain. “In the last year, our active card base has increased 30x and our annualized payment volume has increased 38x, but we’re still in the early innings. This funding lets us bring that infrastructure to new markets and help additional enterprises go live and scale quickly everywhere.”

Rain’s end-to-end payments platform allows companies to work with a single partner to launch compliant stablecoin cards that work everywhere Visa is accepted, offer rewards, convert fiat into stablecoins, power secure wallets, and facilitate payouts. Today, Rain’s technology facilitates more than $3B in annualized transactions for over 200 partners, including Western Union, Nuvei, and KAST. Programs built on Rain can reach over 2.5 billion people and power everything from everyday consumer purchases like a morning coffee or airline tickets, to critical business expenses such as cloud services and digital advertising.

From: Rain Raises $250M Series C to Scale Stablecoin-Powered Payments Infrastructure for Global Enterprises.

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As I said in The Economist back in 2019, the Apples and Facebooks and Googles want the banks to do the manufacturing while they take over the distribution.

From: No One Cares Which Bank Provides Their Apple Card.

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Police are warning people to be wary of fraud after a woman in Guelph, Ont., was scammed out of life savings totalling approximately $800,000.

The woman, in her 70s, contacted police Wednesday to report a scam that began in March.

She told police her computer “began making strange noises and flashing,” and she called a phone number that popped up on the screen, said Guelph police release Thursday.

“She called that phone number, ends up speaking to someone that she believed was a representative of her bank,” Guelph police spokesperson Scott Tracey told CBC News. “And that person informed her that her accounts have been compromised and essentially enlisted her to supposedly try to catch those who are responsible.”

3 victims gave a stranger their bank and credit cards, prompting a warning from Guelph police
OPP investigate computer scam after victim handed over $320K in gold bars
Over a series of phone calls, the woman was told to withdraw all funds from her account and deposit the cash into cryptocurrency ATMs.

She was also told to cash in her life insurance policies, and on three different occasions, she met with men near her home and handed over gold bars she had purchased.

Police say the victim was repeatedly told she would receive all the funds back once the bank had completed its investigation. After she didn’t hear anything for several months, she contacted police. The victim believes she lost approximately $800,000.

From: Guelph senior loses $800K to scammers pretending to be bank representatives | CBC News.

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Donald Trump called for credit card interest rates to be capped at 10 per cent as his administration seeks to address Americans’ concerns about the cost of living ahead of closely watched midterm elections later this year.

In a post on social media on Friday evening, the president called for the cap to come into force on January 20, the anniversary of his inauguration, and said it should remain in place for one year.

“We will no longer let the American Public be “ripped off” by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump said. “I, as President of the United States, am calling for a one year cap on Credit Card Interest Rates of 10%.”

It was not clear whether Trump would take any regulatory steps to enforce a cap. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

US credit card debt is about $1.1tn, with an average interest rate of roughly 20 per cent, according to data from the St Louis Federal Reserve.

From: Donald Trump calls for credit card interest rates to be capped at 10%.

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Just ahead of Maduro’s capture over the first weekend of January, a newly created account on the prediction market Polymarket put $30,000 on his exit. It was a lucrative move: the bettor made over $400,000. It also raised some eyebrows. Was this a lucky bet, or did someone have inside information on the US government’s plans? It’s not the first time activity on prediction markets — which let people bet on the outcomes of events, from sports games to elections to wildfires — has prompted questions about people using private knowledge to hit it big.

From: Fight Over Insider Bets on Prediction Markets Like Polymarket, Kalshi – Business Insider.

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Press Gazette today names more than 50 apparently fake experts who have offered commentary to the British press in recent years and featured more than 1,000 times in newspapers, magazines and online titles.

Our PR Hall of Shame is a live document highlighting brands and spokespeople who should be treated with a high degree of caution by journalists.

For this list we have focused strictly on cases where the ‘expert’ does not appear to exist, rather than the many other cases where the expert does not have the knowledge they claim.

From: Named: 50 ‘experts’ and linked brands publishers should treat with caution – Press Gazette.

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