A library of snippets
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The only means of barring UK citizens from using the service would be a Chinese-style “great firewall”, cutting Britain off from the rest of the internet. In 2015, before entering the cabinet, Brexit Secretary David Davis warned of ending encryption: “Such a move would have had devastating consequences for all financial transactions and online commerce, not to mention the security of all personal data. Its consequences for the City do not bear thinking about.”
Walls just don’t work.
BBVA, for example, use the same model that Consult Hyperion has been using with its clients to help them think through their strategies. The “Three Domain Identity” (3DID) model maps “real”, virtual and digital identities to identification, authentication and authorisation processes. BBVA describe these as follows:
Identification: definition of the attributes that confirm, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the user is who they say they are and not someone different pretending to be them.
Authentication: verification through credentials that the user is the customer they say they are (username and password, OTP, digital certificates and others).
Authorization: the financial service providers (TPP) with a license to operate must be given authorization by the customers before they can access their accounts. They need to have proof of consent, which can be obtained through access tokens. “
via BBVA: How does PSD2 affect bank customers’ digital identity?
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“‘Because Apple doesn’t allow access to the NFC chip in its handsets, we’re using Bluetooth Low Energy technology as a method to connect the terminal to the phone, which results in the exact same experience as any other NFC handset payment,’ he said.”
Has Denmark cracked the code to the mobile wallet? | American Banker
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Writer, cyberpunk progenitor, very nice guys and genius social commentator, once said:
“You know what’s truly weird about any financial crisis? WE MADE IT UP. Currency, money, finance, they’re all social inventions.”
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I’m sure you’re all familiar with the famous “Turing test”. It is named after Alan Turing, one of the greatest ever Englishman, a pioneer of computer and a man who Winston Churchill himself said did more to defeat the Nazis than any other single person. Turing devised his test as a thought experiment to see whether a person could tell whether they were talking to a computer or not. The idea is that if the computer passes the test, then it’s intelligent.
I think about the Turing test all the time, especially when I’m using the chatbots to talk to my mobile phone provider or my bank. On the one hand I don’t really care whether I’m talking to a person or to a bot so long as they can tell me whether my data package will work in the Ivory Coast or what a SWIFT code is in general and what my account’s SWIFT code is in particular (although they were unable to explain why someone needed a SWIFT code to send money to and couldn’t just use my e-mail address). Anyway, I think about the Turing test when I’m doing that sort of thing. But I do find myself wondering from time to time whether I am talking to a person or not since in most cases the scripts that they have to follow are so narrow that they might as well be a machine.
I wonder if it is going to work the other way round in the future? I wonder if the chatbots will set up a HAL test to try and find out if they are talking to a robot or a human being? Whereas in order to pass the Turing test computers have to answer questions like “how are you feeling” and “what’s the weather been like where you are recently” and “isn’t always the same with Arsenal, trying to walk the ball into the net”, to pass the HAL test people will have to answer questions like “how many different ways will this protein molecule fold given that catalyst” and “if Elon Musk leaves for Mars tomorrow and it takes him nine Earth months to get there then how much older will he be when he lands”?
Frankly, we have no hope of passing this test whatsoever. So while computers will be able to fool us that they are human, there’s no way that humans will be able to fool their computers. I anticipate anti-human discrimination just around the corner: we’ll get shunted into the infobahn’s slow lane will the chatbots accelerate away to infinity in the overtaking lane. Next time you want to find out how much it costs to post a Christmas card to Malta by second class mail, you will undoubtedly be better off getting your chatbot to talk to the Post Office’s chatbot than trying to talk to it yourself.
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On a panel about the supply chain, Brian Iselin, president of Slavefreetrade.org took off his pants to make a point about how blockchain could potentially remove slave labor from the supply chain.
From ‘Spiritual Experience’: Hot, Wild Ethereum Summit is Sign of the Times – CoinDesk
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“Adam Bialy, head of payment technology at Sainsbury’s, revealed at an RBTE 2017 panel discussion that retailers currently see mobile payment vendors as a ‘threat’.
The retailers’ perspective is that many people have joined the payments industry just because they want a piece of the data,’ said Bialy.”
RBTE 2017: Sainsbury’s throws down gauntlet to mobile payments industry – Essential Retail
This is a very interesting perspective. As I mentioned in an online discussion about this the other day, it isn’t the loss of transaction fees that bothers the incumbents (because they all have ideas for value-added services that will replace the missing income) but the loss of data (because without the data they can’t make any value-added services). These are real fears.
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“According to a 2011 GAO study, the replacement of dollar bills with dollar coins would save an estimated $5.5 billion in costs over 30 years[4].”
One Way or Another: New Legislation Seeks to Change America’s Circulating Coinage
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“Three Chinese citizens who traded on insider information by hacking into the systems of two New York-based law firms have been fined $8.8 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission… The three defendants gained access to all e-mail accounts at the unidentified firms “
Chinese hackers made $3 million trading on confidential M&A dat…
Well, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Lawyers who use e-mail to exchange confidential data with clients should be censured by their professional bodies. If you want to send important documents to a client, or send an important message, or pass on some information, then use Signal or Telegram or WeChat or for that matter WhatsApp.
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“Last year there were 22,525 cases of ‘facility takeover fraud’, where criminals steal their victims’ details and impersonate the innocent party to withdraw money from their accounts, make payments in their name or upgrade products or contracts.”
‘How did a fraudster impersonate me at a Lloyds branch and withdraw £8,000?’
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“More than 50pc of account takeovers recorded were carried out over the phone, typically to call centre staff. Just 30pc of attacks occurred online and rest of the cases involved tricking employees face-to-face”
‘How did a fraudster impersonate me at a Lloyds branch and withdraw £8,000?’
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Snippings