Cellphones to commlinks, They're coming.... Options

[Crowley]

Mobiles hope to be 'smart wallet'

"Mobile phones are closer to becoming smart wallets, following agreement among mobile operators on an approach to near field communications (NFC).

NFC is a short-range wireless technology like RFID tags, which are used to track stock by retailers.

The tags inside phones could have personal information stored in them and so could act as car keys, money, tickets and travel cards."

And on we go.

[BrianL03]

I was just reading that and posted the link itself to my group's forum on another website as an example of what they could expect with the Wireless Matrix Initiative I'm introducing ~_^

[Kyoto Kid]

...ahhhh nothing like good ol' fashioned cash

...no data trail

...no junkmail

...no hidden interest charges

...no telemarketing survey calls as you are sitting down to dinner

...nobody snooping into your lifestyle

...nobody selling your personal info to XYZ Corp

...and a lot faster at the supermarket checkout.


Now that's freedom.

[laughingowl]

[Blade]

A strange thing in SR4 is that the money you have on your commlink is more or less like bills. You can exchange them directly from commlink to commlink without having to connect to your bank. It's good because it allows untraceable money transfer, but the question is : why would corps allow that kind of thing ? There's nothing for them in that.

[Fortune]

[Kyoto Kid]

[laughingowl]

Hmm,

I wouldnt be so sure about that.

Even now adays palces are starting to be reluctant to accept cash. (refusing bills over $20 dollars) or not accepting 'cash' at all via the mail.

After credisticks and then the wireless revolution. I could easily see most 'legitimate' stores do not accept cash at all, and/or the ones that do take a very high notice of any pushing any amount.

You likely COULD buy your pack of gum or a coffee with 'cash' (though perhaps not at Starbuck™ ;-).

Unless going to 'blackmarket' dealers you very likely COULDNT buy that ¥500 nuyen comlink, a weapon (even legal), travel arrangemetns (bus tickets, plane tickets, etc)..

Hell by the rules it is even stated it is effectively illegal to be walking around with out a commlink in active mode. (by the rules airports, high security areas, etc).

[Snow_Fox]

In RL the federal government in the US requires any purchase in cash of $10k or more must be reported. in Finance if you see a client making repeated purchases of stocks or bonds or funds just under the $10k level it is suspicous and must be reported. (this is something that base ball palyer Barry Bonds is also being looked into.)
In theory the government could encourage the use of credit card/sticks by lowering that threshold to say $500.
smaller businesses would need an insentive. remember every time you use your credit card the card company gets a portion, so a :nuyen: 2 loaf of bread paid for by cash gives more money to the mom and pop store.

[lorechaser]

[Grinder]

People purchasing for 9k only are obviously trying to avoid being reported and must be reported! :D

[PlatonicPimp]

I just report everybody. People who pay with credit cards are trying to aviod being reported for using cash and must be reported!

If you report everyone, they'll have a harder time tracking the real cheats. Bury them in paperwork, I say!

Honestly, with the amount of people there are in a given city, and the amount of data they will generate, what we have in SR is a Data glut. Even if half the population was employed to trakc this, they still couldn't pay attention in real time to the data being generated.

Instead, these logs, camara clips and other data collected are never checked at all unless there is good reason. So in practice, you'll never be caught thanks to the suspicious activity of using cash, or whatever. Rather, after you HAVE been caught, the prosecuter will go back in the logs and use the data they find to fill out their case. So long as you don't get caught in the first place, you can be relatively certain no one will bother looking for data on you, even public data.

I was under the impression that the curent version of cash was the certified credstick, like a universal gift card that has all the anonymity of cash without the problem of physical money. I don't think that actual hard cash exists at all in SR.
Actually, that makes for an interesting run. Who's seen the movie Millions? A run set to hijack a shpment of hard money on the way to the incinerator during the transition from hard currency to electronic money. After you hijack the cash, you run out and exchange it for new electronic money. YAY!

[lorechaser]

[eidolon]

[De Badd Ass]

[hobgoblin]

the one thing that keeps me worried about these NFC payment systems is that none of them seems to have a 2-part identification in place.

as in, you only have to wave said device to pay, no code, nothing. so how do you know that the info used to pay belongs to the person doing the actual purchase?

its already been shown that its all to simple to have a antenna in your hand and just read data of someone pocket by moving close to them. the actual reader will be concealed in a inside pocket and a wire run down the arm.

take a trip on the subway and presto, 1001 credit "cards"...

[Kyoto Kid]

...need to explain something here

the original comments in the "good ol' fashioned cash" post was an RL parallel.

In many ways, what is happening today with plastic vs. hard currency is echoed by the Commlink vs Credstick debate. In todays world, if you don't carry plastic of some sort (credit or debit) it is nearly impossible to do such things as...

...book a hotel room
...book an airline reservation
...cash your paycheque (without going to one of those cheque cashing sharks)
...get cable or satellite plans
...get a cell phone plan (without paying a horrendous deposit)
...rent dvds or videos
...rent or lease a car (see *cell phone* above)
...rent or lease appliances
...in some places, rent an apartment or flat

...so, in a way it's getting closer than we may think.

The Federal Government (particularly that criminal organisation known as the IRS) along with the marketing industry would be more than happy if cash disappeared tomorrow & everyone was required to use plastic.

I wouldn't be surprised if in the near future (should the government succeed in eliminating cash transactions) it would also be a crime if you were caught without your nationally licensed Cred/ID Card.

...welcome to the [RL] shadows chummer.

[SL James]

[fistandantilus4....]

How about explaining why you don't like the idea instead of just dropping in for an angry ball of light with a hurt brain comment. I can think of a few myself, but it's more helpful than just anger.

[Crowley]

The vitriol isn't exactly unwarranted- I'm taking hobgoblin's word for it, but it wouldn't surprise me if these were easy to hack. I recall reading elsewhere (probably on these forums) that they're having problems with passports that have a RFID tags. The US gov't wanted to make the transmitter stronger, even though that means that anyone could be standing around with a reciever and pick up the data, rather than having you need to bring the ID within a very small distance of the reader.

The signal strength thing probably helps to avoid hacking. Beyond that, perhaps a similar system to credit cards could be used. If someone swipes my credit card, they've got as much cash as they can spend before I cancel the card. No one asks me for my signature anymore, except at the supermarket where I put my never-the-same-twice scrawl on the electronic screen and no human being will ever see it unless I report the card as stolen. The consumer never takes the cash hit if a credit card is stolen, as I recall (although I heard that money lost when debit cards are stolen is pretty much gone due to the banks being jerks). The company takes the loss, and thus has systems in place to prevent huge amounts of cash from being spent at once.

In other words, someone could hack/steal my cellphone with all my info on it, but it only works until I get to another phone and tell the company what's happened. Worst case, some wierd charges start showing up and, again as with credit cards, the company either notices the out-of-character purchases or I do when I get the monthly bill. The consumer doesn't suffer more than inconvienience. Is this any worse than the current system?

[kzt]

For real world examples of not so good RFID security systems

http://www.leftlanenews.com/2006/05/03/gon...-to-steal-cars/

http://slashdot.org/articles/06/05/03/1928256.shtml

And article I have seen (and can't find now) suggest that most of the vulnerability of car alarm remote controls is due to the weak cryptography used. The problem is that good cryptography requires a significantly more expensive processor and significantly reduces the battery life of the control.