131–140 of 174 posts
>"The Secret Service alert says ATMs still running on Windows XP are particularly vulnerable, and it urged ATM operators to update to a version of Windows 7 to defeat this specific type of attack." I had no idea ATMs ran Windows!
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OpenBSD would be perfect for the job, wouldn‘t it?
An OpenBSD machine still running unpatched from the XP era would be every bit as vulnerable.
But on the other hand, it only takes one.
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The way that Sweden did it was in small steps, some which other nations has already done. Encourage companies to only pay employees through banks by making it practically impossible to pay through cash. Expand money laundering laws so that banks are liable if they give out or take in physical cash, with short and hard limits to ATM's. Make it acceptable to have police confiscate money if a person carry more than a fe…
I actually think this is fundamentally an attack on the right to transact anonymously. Trends towards the confiscation of large sums of cash, increasing restrictions on moving money relating to KYC/AML, and the further emphasis on digital forms of payment give governments and, more worryingly, banks the ability to exert incredible influence over the day-to-day lives of individuals. Here's a good Canadian example - ba…
I people didn't need cash this problem would go away. I think of this occasionally when I visit our local bagel shop, which like many bagel shops in the area does not take cards and has an atm onsite.
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> banks now refuse accounts to "high risk" businesses We have/had that in the US too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point In this case the federal gov't (FDIC and DOJ) pressured the banks. They even attacked a Constitutionally-protected activity (firearms)
It's simply not possible to carry on business without a bank account. For that reason I'd like to see legislation which makes it illegal to refuse customers on the basis of their business model, so long as it is legal.
If your car ever gets towed away on a private-property parking violation, good luck getting it back paying in anything but cash.
My barber takes cash only.
It's not as uncommon as you might think.
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The gaming commission also regulates how much each machine must pay out over a given period with a given take. Any machine not in compliance is removed, and the casino can be fined. Continued non-compliance can result in the termination of the casino gaming license. This was true even before electronic slot machines.
Sounds better but still defeatable. I could track individual players throughout the casino (which is already common practice, I think) and decide on payout depending on how much money I already made through them. E.g., if someone already dumped a lot of money into other games, I can give them above-average odds of winning and be sure I still make a profit (and they make a loss), otherwise I'll give them below-average…
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Your comment is coming from a good place but it’s rooted in ignorance. Most ATM machines are made by NCR and not financial institutions. Majority are also quite old (runnning windows XP old). NCR is focused on profits not security, even though they sell POS (point of sale), ATM machines, and airport kiosks. From my personal dealings with NCR, I can confirm that they care very little for security, regardless of what t…
Their losses are just write offs...until they aren't, and something major happens. Maybe it will take a company completely going out of business due to poor security standards for others to wake up.
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Sounds better but still defeatable. I could track individual players throughout the casino (which is already common practice, I think) and decide on payout depending on how much money I already made through them. E.g., if someone already dumped a lot of money into other games, I can give them above-average odds of winning and be sure I still make a profit (and they make a loss), otherwise I'll give them below-average…
Except that that is not allowed. It's individual machines tested in isolation that should perform exactly as legally mandated. The only kind of remote interaction there is is logging to make sure they can prove that the machine performed as advertised and to know when to empty the coin box.
If you, like me, were wondering what the Secret Service (widely recognized for their duties as presidential bodyguards) has to do with ATM fraud, there's a comment below the article from the author: > I didn’t mention it in the story, but perhaps I should have: The original mission of the Secret Service when it was created in the 1800s was to safeguard the U.S. currency from counterfeiters. Only after a few president…
I found it interesting that this was not widely known. I am from the UK and was fully aware that this was their other role but it seems many in the US are unfamiliar with this information. I am pretty sure that I have just picked up that information from US film/TV which is why it is surprising to me.
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I actually think this is fundamentally an attack on the right to transact anonymously. Trends towards the confiscation of large sums of cash, increasing restrictions on moving money relating to KYC/AML, and the further emphasis on digital forms of payment give governments and, more worryingly, banks the ability to exert incredible influence over the day-to-day lives of individuals. Here's a good Canadian example - ba…
In the USA also, there is a not-small number of hard-core Christians that would view mandated digital payments as "the mark of the beast" and refuse on that basis.