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Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders

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Re: Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders

#81

Post by vkou »

coffeemug wrote: post #66
vkou wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In their non-defense, they also promised accountability and transparency. If you are one signature away from bankruptcy, you may want to be transparent about that, before taking un-refundable preorders. Or you could do the responsible thing and keep preorder money in escrow. Madoff was also only a few signatures from having his Ponzi scheme staying afloat.

Don't judge them until you walk a mile in their shoes. When you worked on something for years, you still maintain hope, and you're wrestling with doubt every day being "transparent" isn't so easy. You literally can't say "hey, we might go out of business" and then walk into a VC office and make a pitch. Having to wrestle with this was the hardest part of my job at RethinkDB, and any time I hear of someone who had to…

There are alternatives to what they've done. They could have opted to not use the pre-order money to fund their operations (Until more funding could be secured). They could have protected it, as soon as they realized that they are in deep financial trouble. Compare this story to that of Lily - where when the party ended, it seems like the company has plans to give customers partial refunds. [1]

Instead, from all external appearances, they did everything they could to do right by themselves - not their customers.

[1] https://www.recode.net/2017/2/28/14766780/failed-drone-lily-...

Re: Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders

#82

Post by X-Istence »

hocuspocus wrote: post #63
abalone wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everywhere that accepts cards Given the shift to chip-and-PIN, which can't be emulated like this -- Plastc claimed they could but never demonstrated it (because it's impossible) -- they were way too late to market with this idea even 3 years ago. And if merchants are going to roll out new POS hardware they might as well jump to NFC as it leapfrogs cards on convenience. And security, if your device implements tokeni…

I don't know what was promised by Plastc exactly but I assume you need to register your card numbers somewhere (like with Apple Pay) and then when you use your Plastc card to pay (with chip and PIN or not), their back-end issues a payment transaction using the selected card. Am I wrong? Over here in Europe we have Curve that does exactly that, without the fancy hardware: https://www.imaginecurve.com

Yes, that is not what Plastc was. Plastc was like copying the data from the front of your card and displaying it on a different one (mag-strip included).

Re: Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders

#83

Post by bigiain »

thecosas wrote: post #42
reubensutton wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes it impossible to emulate?

https://squareup.com/townsquare/why-are-chip-cards-more-secu... "To rip it off, someone would have to get into the physical chip circuit and manipulate things to get your bank information. Not only is this level of data surgery really difficult, but it also requires a set of high-tech equipment that can cost north of $1 million."

That's presumably " … cost north of $1million in 2016, rumoured to have been done in 2017 by Bunny with $10 worth of decapping acid and a borrowed STEM revealing implementation details and flaws, then with a demonstrated contactless remote exploit working on a RaspberryPi with a $12 USB TV tuner and a hand-wound antenna at CCC or DefCon in 2018"...

Re: Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders

#84

Post by bigiain »

slavik81 wrote: post #76
xiaodown wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, for reference, I'm a guy who has multiple cards. I have two debit cards and a credit card. The credit card is a credit card (and I mostly use it for company purchases that get reimbursed). The two debit cards correspond to two different checking accounts. I have a "main" checking account that my check gets deposited into, and another account that I use for, mainly, online purchases or recurring subscriptions like…

It's a good idea to carry a couple cards. About a decade ago, I took a sudden flight to a small airport in Colorado due to an emergency at work. When I arrived, I had nothing but a Visa, and a few dollars Canadian. I was frustrated to find that I couldn't get food or call my work, because Visa wasn't accepted anywhere. The highlight was trying to make a call on a payphone and talking to the operator. When I asked if…

This. I ride not-particularly-reliable motorcycles. My personal philosophy is to always have access via at least two different financial institutions and their computer networks to sufficient debit/credit funds to get myself and a possibly broken bike home from the most remote place I could possibly end up on a trip.

(I did once end up having a tremendously fun weekend in Melbourne thanks to a broken down bike and a weekend long outage of my then only bank's ATM network - but it would have been even more fun with more than the cash in my pocket and relying on friends for somewhere to sleep until a branch opened on Monday morning...)

Re: Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders

#85

Post by defen »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #72
tacostakohashi wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was always bemused about this idea that putting multiple credit cards on a single physical card is some great feature that a lot of people want and would pay money for. In my experience, having many credit cards is a complete pain to manage, because for each card you need to monitor the statement, set up the automatic payment (or do it manually), change the address when you move, etc, etc, and no sane person is goi…

> having many credit cards is a complete pain to manage, because for each card you need to [...] change the address when you move Why? I did that once, and it was a huge pain. But the cards work just as well no matter what they think your address of record is. Now I just don't change it.

So you use your old address as your billing address? Aren't you worried about the new resident of your old address receiving official communications intended for you?

Re: Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders

#86

Post by icelancer »

coffeemug wrote: post #66
vkou wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In their non-defense, they also promised accountability and transparency. If you are one signature away from bankruptcy, you may want to be transparent about that, before taking un-refundable preorders. Or you could do the responsible thing and keep preorder money in escrow. Madoff was also only a few signatures from having his Ponzi scheme staying afloat.

Don't judge them until you walk a mile in their shoes. When you worked on something for years, you still maintain hope, and you're wrestling with doubt every day being "transparent" isn't so easy. You literally can't say "hey, we might go out of business" and then walk into a VC office and make a pitch. Having to wrestle with this was the hardest part of my job at RethinkDB, and any time I hear of someone who had to…

>being "transparent" isn't so easy

It isn't about being easy. It's about doing what is right. I don't care that it's not easy. Why would I, if I was a backer and you took my money?

Re: Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders

#87

Post by pacaro »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #73
srssays wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you pay for tickets in Vienna then? I kind of like the barriers, if you are on the station platform, then you have definitely paid. For me, the stations that don't have barriers are more stressful, as you run the risk of forgetting to tap your card (or the tap not registering) and incurring a maximum fare.

Maximum fare?? The fine for fare evasion should be well above the maximum fare.

Or, looking at it from a different perspective, the fine is maximum fare by definition. Then you can pay the posted fare or decide whether the expected fare based on fine x probability of capture

Re: Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders

#88

Post by sveiss »

recursive wrote: post #70
Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chip & Pin is an interesting beast. Canada went straight to Chip & Pin, skipping over Chip & Sign. Since credit cards generally didn't have PINs at the time, there was a little work on the part of the issuing banks to assign PINs. One of my cards came with a letter that said "Use the same PIN as you use with your regular bank card", another came with one that said "Here's your new PIN, you can change it at any of our…

Personally, I cannot remember PINs. At all. That means I can never use debit cards. If chip and pin were a thing, I guess I would have to get a tattoo or something.

It's a per-card setting. Issuers here in the UK default to PIN for both credit and debit, but both are available with signature for those who need it.

Re: Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders

#89

Post by icelancer »

vkou wrote: post #81
coffeemug wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't judge them until you walk a mile in their shoes. When you worked on something for years, you still maintain hope, and you're wrestling with doubt every day being "transparent" isn't so easy. You literally can't say "hey, we might go out of business" and then walk into a VC office and make a pitch. Having to wrestle with this was the hardest part of my job at RethinkDB, and any time I hear of someone who had to…

There are alternatives to what they've done. They could have opted to not use the pre-order money to fund their operations (Until more funding could be secured). They could have protected it, as soon as they realized that they are in deep financial trouble. Compare this story to that of Lily - where when the party ended, it seems like the company has plans to give customers partial refunds. [1] Instead, from all exte…

>They could have opted to not use the pre-order money to fund their operations

Exactly. Sequestering pre-order money - at least some fraction of it - should have been one of the first orders of business for any company who cares about integrity.

Re: Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders

#90

Post by bitexploder »

bigiain wrote: post #83
thecosas wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://squareup.com/townsquare/why-are-chip-cards-more-secu... "To rip it off, someone would have to get into the physical chip circuit and manipulate things to get your bank information. Not only is this level of data surgery really difficult, but it also requires a set of high-tech equipment that can cost north of $1 million."

That's presumably " … cost north of $1million in 2016, rumoured to have been done in 2017 by Bunny with $10 worth of decapping acid and a borrowed STEM revealing implementation details and flaws, then with a demonstrated contactless remote exploit working on a RaspberryPi with a $12 USB TV tuner and a hand-wound antenna at CCC or DefCon in 2018"...

So, not $10 if you needed a borrowed, expensive piece of equipment. It is not possible for most of us to jaunt out and borrow a fancy microscope. That only underscores the "expensive equipment required argument". The contactless payment hack is much more practical, though. (Oh you also need far beyond average hardware hacking knowledge and skill, which itself is generally more difficult to acquire and learn ).
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