A library of snippets
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Britain’s Royal Mint has frozen plans to launch a digital gold token after a partnership with U.S. exchange group CME failed and the government vetoed a plan to have the tokens trade on a cryptocurrency exchange, three sources told Reuters.
From Wary of crypto, UK government blocks Royal Mint’s digital gold | Euronews.
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Which?’s survey found that over 75% of low-income households rely on cash, as well as over 80% of elderly households.
From Move to Cashless Society Will Disproportionately Affect Pensioners & the Poorest in UK.
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Victoria Police earlier this month warned against falling for a scam that saw four people lose a total of AU$50,000 after depositing funds into a bitcoin ATM.
The Maribyrnong Crime Investigation Unit said the four victims from the eastern suburbs were told that they owed a tax debt and that if they did not pay up, they would be arrested.
From Australian woman arrested over AU$450,000 Ripple theft | ZDNet.
It’s easy to dismiss people as being victims of their own stupidity
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Fraudsters are now using ‘contactless skimming’ machines to read credit card information right out of your pocket, then use a merchant account to make contactless payments. In a 2013 study published by the University of Surrey, a team managed to ‘successfully receive contactless transmission from distances of 18 to 31 inches’ using a skimming device.
From Contactless payments hit record levels as contactless fraud follows | The Paypers.
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According to a number of press report, the Abu Dhabi police are warning local residents that money may be stolen from their bank balances through “electronic magnetisation” and “exploitation of contactless payment technology”. I’m pretty sure that I would be concerned about electronic magnetisation too (if I knew what it was) so I will take this warning to wary to heart the next time I visit. The magnitude of the problem must be such that there is general panic amongst the contactless crazy residents of the… oh, wait. It turns out that Colonel Amran Ahmed Al Mazrouei, Abu Dhabi’s director of criminal investigations, has said that “although such thefts were possible, none has so far been recorded in the emirate”.
To the best of my knowledge, none have so far been recorded anywhere else either. When I went to look for evidence of criminal enterprise, I came across yet another alarming statement. According to The Paypers, fraudsters are now using ‘contactless skimming’ machines to read credit card information “right out of your pocket” and then use a merchant account (not sure what they mean by this) to make contactless payments. The article goes on to note that “in a 2013 study published by the University of Surrey, a team managed to ‘successfully receive contactless transmission from distances of 18 to 31 inches’ using a skimming device”.
Wow.
That sounds amazing. I’m astonished that banks could be irresponsible to issue contactless card at all if they are so prone to fraud and they must withdraw them… oh, wait. It turns out that of you read to the end of this paper, you will see… “This work was funded by EPSRC and Consult Hyperion“.
Ah.
Indeed it was. And it was a brilliant piece of work which included some innovative engineering. You’ll particularly like the bit about using a shopping trolley as an eavesdropping device. But if you read our Tomorrow’s Transactions blog about this in detail, you will find that “Just as when we did the original risk analysis on contactless in 2007, the conclusion is that contactless bank cards are fit for purpose”. Sorry to disappoint, but the sky isn’t falling in, no matter what the papers (or the Paypers) say!
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“This isn’t anonymity in the sense of real names versus fake names. The names we use are irrelevant. This is about a mental detachment from physical reality. The design of our devices acts to transport us into an alternate universe.”
From “A Unified Theory of Everything Wrong with the Internet”.
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“Digital forms of identity systems, when fully developed and deployed, are expected to be more powerful and efficient tools of identification than legacy paper systems. The power and efficiency proffered by such tools, both pose and mount a great urgency to identify, and to mitigate modern risks associated with system breach and the compromise of vital information in those identity systems, and to ensure that digital identity systems do not become tools of suppression, oppression, exclusion, or discrimination.”
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“A repeat of the failed attempt to roll out the Australia Card threatens to follow Coalition efforts to create digital IDs for web-users, unless the government makes changes protecting privacy, a defence think tank warns in a new report.”
From “Govpass on brink of becoming the next Australia Card debacle: report”.
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Age verification (AV) regulations presented to parliament by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) last week do not include websites on which less than a third of content is pornographic material and where it is provided free of charge.
From Millions of porn videos will not be blocked by UK online age checks | Technology | The Guardian.
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More startling is that the demand for $100 bills has exceeded that for all other denominations, growing at an annual rate of about 8 percent since 1995, double that of most other notes. In 2017, the $100 bill passed the $1 denomination as the most widely circulated Federal Reserve note.
From Cashless society not here yet, with $100 gaining | Coin World.
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Snippings 