Snippings

xxx

“Marcus said… Facebook will not integrate third-party wallet software into its own apps, just Calibra”

From “Libra: Senators ask why Facebook can be trusted to make cryptocurrency – Business Insider”.

xxx

xxx

“First, it is unclear how parties will ensure that the user or beneficial owner of a currency or wallet is accurately identified – especially forthose without verifiable identity – and that transactions can be tied to that individual or entity.”

From “Washington insiders and Waters’ memo: Here’s what Congress wants to know about Facebook’s Libra next week – The Block”.

xxx

xxx

“A poker-playing bot called Pluribus recently crushed a dozen top poker professionals at six-player, no-limit Texas Hold ’em over a 12-day marathon of 10,000 poker hands. Pluribus was created by Noam Brown, an A.I. researcher who now works at Facebook, and Tuomas Sandholm, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.”

From “Facebook’s Poker Bot Shows How A.I. Can Adapt to Liars”.

xxx

xxx

“Blockchain sanctions resistance is a long-term strategy for U.S. adversaries. None of the blockchain platforms currently operational could support the volume and speed of financial transactions moving through the conventional banking system. And most importantly, because blockchain ventures currently depend on real-world fiat currency and conventional bank accounts, U.S. sanctions pressure for now can reach businesses in the cryptocurrency and blockchain tech space.

However, the U.S. position of influence is not necessarily permanent.”

From “FDD | Crypto Rogues”.

xxx

xxx

When a manufacturer builds a new product that plugs into an existing one despite the latter’s manufacturer’s hostility, that’s called “adversarial interoperability” and it has been around for about as long as the tech industry itself, from the mainframe days to the PC revolution to the operating system wars to the browser wars.

From Interoperability: Fix the Internet, Not the Tech Companies | Electronic Frontier Foundation.

xxx

xxx

The reason why German banks are dropping support for SMS OTP is because of legislation that the EU passed in 2015, set to enter into effect on September 14, this year.

From German banks are moving away from SMS one-time passcodes | ZDNet.

xxx

xxx

“Staff will develop a procedure for issuing and using market SDRs following currency board rules and backed 100% by official SDRs or by an appropriate mix of sovereign debt of the five basket currencies.”

From “Proposal for an IMF Staff Executive Board Paper on Promoting Market SDRs | The Bretton Woods Committee”.

xxx

xxx

“As the papers describe it, the Reserve portfolio sounds like a government-bond money-market mutual fund. It is to hold only short-term government bonds and cash equivalents. The bonds are all to be low in default risk, highly liquid, and low in duration risk.”

From “Libra’s Unresolved Puzzles – Alt-M”.

xxx

Science and Technology Select Committee report on “Digital Government” 10th July

 

xxx

“Rt Hon Norman Lamb MP, Chair of the Science and Technology Committee, said:

‘The potential that digital Government can bring is huge: transforming the relationship between the citizen and the State, saving money and making public services more efficient and agile. However, it is clear that the current digital service offered by the Government has lost momentum and is not transforming the citizen-State relationship as it could.

‘Single unique identifiers can transform the efficiency and transparency of Government services. The Government should ensure there is a national debate on single unique identifiers for citizens to use when accessing public services along with the right of the citizen to know exactly what the Government is doing with their data. In the UK, we have no idea when and how Government departments are accessing and using our data. We could learn from the very different relationship between citizen and the state in Estonia.

‘As well as a lack of leadership, we also heard of skill shortages and legacy systems, which increase the risk of cyber security attacks. But addressing these challenges requires money and the Government must be willing to invest to save in the future.

‘The Government must re-address its approach to digitisation quickly if it wants to retain public trust and its envied position on the world stage.’”

From “Government’s digital approach has lost momentum – News from Parliament – UK Parliament”.

xxx

xxx

Facebook itself does not have access to any payment credentials information, though it does collect other information affiliated with a transaction, such as the merchant, the transaction amount, the date and time and the purchased good.

From Facebook to Senators: Libra Crypto Will Respect Consumer Privacy – CoinDesk.

xxx