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24-10-2016: Alipay gains acceptance in US and Europe
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With Alipay being increasingly accepted in retail stores in US and Europe,
- European banks continue to lose market share to big technology
- providers.
- With GNU Taler, we could establish an open standard with a level
- playing field preserving the independence of national economies
- by establishing a commons that protects critical infrastructure
- from domination by a handful of global players.
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Source
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21-10-2016: Indian banks warn 3.2 million customers
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A major data breach of Indian banks forced these institutions to warn 3.2 million
- customers that their accounts might have been compromised and that they need
- to obtain new bank cards and PIN numbers.
- With GNU Taler, banks can implement privacy by design and minimize data collection,
- minimizing the impact of security breaches and satisfying GDPR regulations in Europe.
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15-10-2016: Thousands of online stores found skimming
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Security researchers found evidence of adversaries targeting online shops offering credit cards
- to steal and resell credit card credentials.
- With GNU Taler, shops would never receive sensitive personal information such as credit cards,
- thus hacked online shops would not create such hassles for consumers.
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23-07-2016: How banks are refusing to shoulder responsibility for fraud
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Banks are naturally unhappy about shouldering the cost for fraud, and use
- various tricks to impose the costs on their customers without providing
- adequate help to minimize fraud.
- With GNU Taler, cryptography ensures that identity theft and many related
- types of fraud are no longer possible, allowing banks to offer customers
- a payment experience where neither side needs to worry about fraud.
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24-10-2016: ApplePay starts in France
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With ApplePay starting in France, pressure on
- European banks increase as they are set to
- lose market share to big technology providers.
- With GNU Taler, we could establish an open standard with a level
- playing field preserving the independence of national economies
- by establishing a commons that protects critical infrastructure
- from domination by a handful of global players.
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Source
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22-12-2015: Sicherheitsforscher hacken das EC-Bezahlsystem
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Security researchers found serious security flaws in the German "electronic cash" system
- which enable criminals to withdraw funds from merchant accounts based on the information printed
- on receipts and other information obtained from public sources or point-of-sales terminals purchased
- online.
- The German "electronic cash" system is based on the "Poseidon" protocol, for
- which there is no publicly accessible specification or reference implementation. This has allowed
- such major security holes to persist for decades.
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30-4-2015: 1970 Researchers Predicted Debit Cards Would be Great for Surveillance
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"Suppose you were an advisor to the head of the KGB,
- the Soviet Secret Police. Suppose you are given the
- assignment of designing a system for the surveillance of all
- citizens and visitors within the boundaries of the USSR. The
- system is not to be too obtrusive or obvious. What would be
- your decision?"
- The think tank RAND essentially answered this question with
- a blueprint for modern payment systems. Taler offers an
- escape from the financial panopticon.
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Source
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17-3-2015: Pointing Fingers in Apple Pay Fraud
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Apple Pay may be easy to use, but the simplistic
- user identification creates opportunities for fraud,
- resulting in much higher fraud rates than even with traditional
- credit card systems.
- Taler does not require user identification, enabling
- ease of use while also being effective against fraud.
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6-12-2014: Visa and MasterCard's uncompetitive business practices
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The Visa and MasterCard duopoly has eliminated competition among
- banks, setting fees that take away a significant share of profits from
- small merchants.
- Taler is an open standard with free software
- implementations, so merchants do not have to fear a lack of competition.
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5-12-2014: US judge rules banks can sue merchant for bad security
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Merchants taking credit card data from customers now have to additionally
- fear banks suing them for losses. It is not suggested that the merchant
- in question was not in compliance with PCI DSS security audit procedures.
- With Taler, merchants never handle sensitive personal credit data, and
- thus neither customers, exchanges nor governments would even have standing to
- sue merchants in court. Thus, if a merchant system were to be compromised,
- the damage would be limited to the merchant's own operations.
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10-9-2014: PayPal accounts hacked with a click
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Yasser Ali reports a now patched vulnerability in PayPal that would
- have allowed him to reset other user's passwords and take over their
- accounts. This is unlikely to be the last vulnerability found in
- account-based payment systems.
- In Taler, customers do not have accounts with usernames, passwords
- or associated e-mail addresses. Instead, Taler uses reserves which
- are represented by a private key on the owner's computer. Users
- create a reserve by depositing currency at a Taler exchange, and can then
- withdraw digital coins from that reserve using the respective private
- key. There is no limit on the number of reserves a user can have, and
- even hacking the Taler exchange would not provide an adversary with access to
- user's reserves (as the Taler exchange does not have the private keys).
- Stealing in Taler requires breaking into each customer's computer to
- extract the reserve keys or the coins from the digital wallet.
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Source
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13-11-2014: Visa and MasterCard's to move from passwords to biometrics
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Visa and MasterCard are planning to "simplify hated verification
- systems" by moving from passwords to security codes on mobiles
- and biometrics. Continuing their flawed insistence on verifying identity,
- Visa and MasterCard will thus build a very personal picture of their
- customers, from shopping habbits down to their cardiac rhythm.
- Taler does not require a customer's identity to verify a payment, as the
- payment system cryptographically verifies the coins. Thus, Taler does
- not have to intrude into any personal detail of a citizen's life, and
- certainly not their private medical data.
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Source
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15-9-2013: NSA follows the Money
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Despite the EU allowing the NSA access to financial transaction data to
- track terrorists and organized crime, the NSA saw it necessary to
- target international payment processors including SWIFT and Visa.
- As terrorism and organized crime are covered by legal means, industrial
- espionage to improve the US economy is the only remaining US national
- interest within the NSA's mandate that would explain this illegal activity.
- With Taler, exchanges will only learn the value of a merchant's transactions,
- not who paid or for what (governments may learn what was sold). Thus,
- the Taler exchange is a significantly less interesting target for industrial
- espionage.
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