Snippings

I was thinking that after I pull off a major cryptocurrency scam (I haven’t decided whether to launch a bogus token or run a scam art market or get into ransomware big time yet) and manage to get out of the consulting business for good, then Fiji might be an idyllic bolt hole from which to enjoy my ill-gotten gains to the end of my days. So you can imagine how upset I was that the government of Fiji is proposing a new Police Bill to give the forces of law and order the ability to “seize any digital currency that has been derived from a criminal activity”.

Fortunately for the Fijian thin blue line, the blockchain makes it easy trace the provenance of Bitcoins to see whether they have been “derived from a criminal activity”. So if they examine my stash and find cryptocurrency that originates from an Iranian bitcoin mine or a mixer, they’ve got me bang to rights. But how would they “seize” the virtual loot?

My meager cryptoscraps are stored on my new BitBox2 USB-C hardware wallet with microSD backup. The hardware wallet is wrapped in old socks inside an empty baked bean can that is hidden in my garbage can. The microSD backup is sown into the seam of a Mötorhead 1978 UK tour sweatshirt that remains one of my prized possessions. I think my coins are pretty safe from the long arm of the law, but supposing crack teams of detectives working around the clock do get hold of one or the other of these repositories, then what?

If they ask me for the password then I’ll tell them I’ve forgotten it (which will almost certainly be true by then). How will they know whether I’ve really forgotten it or whether I’m not telling them or whether I wrote it down and hid it in a fishing rod that is lost or whether I got someone else to look after the password for me?

At first, this may seem straightforward. After all, if you get arrested for something and tell the police that you forgot the PIN for your phone then you can be sent to jail.

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Europe Struggles to Defend Itself Against a Weaponized Dollar
Despite warm words from Biden, U.S. secondary sanctions against Iran, Russia and others punish European companies and prompt new calls for strategic autonomy.

From Europe Struggles to Defend Itself Against a Weaponized Dollar – The New York Times:

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Last year, the European Council on Foreign Relations (a think tank on European foreign and security policy, co-chaired by former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt as co-chair) put forward a “tool kit” for European policymakers to make Europe more 

One of these was a call for digital currency. The ECFR suggested that a digital would deliver “greater resilience from economic coercion” and to reduce third-country insights into European financial transactions.

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EA makes most of its FIFA money from the game’s Ultimate Team mode, where fans spend real money in attempts to unlock elite players. Today, it’s being alleged that these lucrative items are being sold privately to users by employees within EA Sports.

Using the hashtag #EAGATE, complaints have been made that someone within EA has been selling FIFA’s Prime Icon Moment players for huge sums of cash, like €1000 (USD$1190) for two players.

From EA Investigating Claims An Employee Has Been Selling Rare Items:

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A facial recognition algorithm was applied to naturalistic images of 1,085,795 individuals to predict their political orientation by comparing their similarity to faces of liberal and conservative others. Political orientation was correctly classified in 72% of liberal–conservative face pairs, remarkably better than chance (50%), human accuracy (55%), or one afforded by a 100-item personality questionnaire (66%). Accuracy was similar across countries (the U.S., Canada, and the UK), environments (Facebook and dating websites), and when comparing faces across samples. Accuracy remained high (69%) even when controlling for age, gender, and ethnicity. Given the widespread use of facial recognition, our findings have critical implications for the protection of privacy and civil liberties.

From Facial recognition technology can expose political orientation from naturalistic facial images | Scientific Reports:

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According to the research, cash payments for in-store purchases are forecast to slump from 8.3 per cent in 2020 to just 2.1 per cent in 2024, making Australia the fourth most cash averse country behind Sweden (0.4 per cent), Denmark (0.8 per cent) and Hong Kong (1.6 per cent).

From Australia on track to be almost cashless by 2024 as digital payments soar – Tech Guide:

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Crypto grifters will talk about “digital ownership.” This is meaningless… Christie’s auction of an NFT is a fabulous worked example. There’s a 33-page terms and conditions document, and if you wade through the circuitous verbiage, it finally admits that … you’re just buying the crypto-token itself:

From NFTs: crypto grifters try to scam artists, again – Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain:

You can see why my good friend David Gerrard quite rightly calls this a scam. But in some circumstances, when you need to prove ownership of that crypto token in order to do something (eg, access a concert) then NFTs provide a means to create an efficient market in that access.

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Holders of an American Express Centurion card will soon be able to make purchases by linking their card to a wearable contactless payments chip embedded in a leather bracelet created by Italian fashion house Prada.

From Amex to offer Prada payments bracelet to Centurion members • NFCW.

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The San Francisco-based company will spend about $22 million to acquire Golden Pacific Bancorp Inc., which has three branches in and around Sacramento and about $150 million in assets. SoFi plans to contribute an additional $750 million to capitalize the bank for a national, digital expansion should regulators approve the transaction.

From SoFi Is Buying a Community Lender to Speed Up Banking Expansion – WSJ.

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Founded by a team from McKinsey, EY, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, HSBC and XiaoMi, Fintern skips traditional credit scoring techniques by applying AI, Open Banking and transparent affordability testing to make lending decisions.

From Fintern taps AI and Open Banking to enter consumer loans market.

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States like Pennsylvania, Virginia, Idaho, Florida and Wisconsin have passed what are considered to be liberal rules permitting robots to operate on sidewalks — prompting pushback from cities like Pittsburgh that fear mishaps.

From Sidewalk robots get legal rights as “pedestrians” – Axios:

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