Facebook Novi and Surveillance Finance • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Novi and Surveillance Finance

#41

Post by cameronbrown » Sat, Jun 06, 2020, 10:42 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #18

Maxion wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget that due to increasingly heavy financial regulations adopted by FATF require financial institutions to have extreme surveillance data on all financial transactions and to report anything they themselves deem to be suspicious to the authorities. This includes things such as cross-border activity (logging in from a foreign ip) to using a VPN.

> This includes things such as cross-border activity (logging in from a foreign ip) to using a VPN. This is a thing? I don’t get the point of reporting cross border logins. Cross border transactions makes sense, but what’s so nefarious about me paying my water bill while in Mexico?

Stupid laws will always be a thing.

Re: Facebook Novi and Surveillance Finance

#42

Post by ethbro » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 12:21 AM UTC

ve55 wrote: post #23

Maxion wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget that due to increasingly heavy financial regulations adopted by FATF require financial institutions to have extreme surveillance data on all financial transactions and to report anything they themselves deem to be suspicious to the authorities. This includes things such as cross-border activity (logging in from a foreign ip) to using a VPN.

Yup, and of course there's also FinCEN, the IRS, the BSA which includes reporting of currency transactions, suspicious transactions, FBAR where you have to disclose all foreign holdings, and many other reports. I think similar regulations will hit cryptocurrency eventually, requiring holders to report their addresses they have the private keys of, sadly.

> requiring holders to report their addresses they have the private keys of, sadly.

This might become the law, but how would it be enforced?

I thought the world leaning on Swiss banks for data was effectively an admission that anonymous accounts were unlinkable from the client side.

Re: Facebook Novi and Surveillance Finance

#43

Post by ethbro » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 12:23 AM UTC

the-dude wrote: post #17

ve55 wrote: post #10

It is worth remember that the current state of finance is already surveillance finance. Credit card records are sold and purchased, all large chains and stores do significant customer tracking on their own, more than just every item you purchase, when, and where. Even services like Gmail scrape information from your email for every receipt that you receive, although they purchase CC data either way.

In the US. In the EU local bankcards are used much more than CC and these are not mined. In NL shops are prohibited to build customer profiles based on their purchase history.

My general impression was that non-US credit card rewards kind of sucked.

In the US, 2-5% is the base level of cashback from credit cards.

So, a little bit of "we mine and monetize your transactions, but pay you for doing so."

Re: Facebook Novi and Surveillance Finance

#44

Post by dntbnmpls » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 12:38 AM UTC

justicezyx wrote: post #15

This is an open secret when Chinese government started heavily pushing for digital currency on top of blockchain. But everyone is smart enough to not talk about that... Edit: Interestingly enough, the sensitivity surrounding block-chain (and AI, in the context of mass surveillance) is showing the effect of significantly slow down the mass adoption of the technology. AI mass surveillance has already become an mass mar…

A thread having nothing to do with nice. Oh lets see if I can squeeze some silly propaganda into it. You could have just as easily made your point without the old trite propaganda about china. The propaganda gets boring and ineffective after a while. Why not try something different?

Re: Facebook Novi and Surveillance Finance

#45

Post by cinquemb » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 1:46 AM UTC

ethbro wrote: post #42

ve55 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, and of course there's also FinCEN, the IRS, the BSA which includes reporting of currency transactions, suspicious transactions, FBAR where you have to disclose all foreign holdings, and many other reports. I think similar regulations will hit cryptocurrency eventually, requiring holders to report their addresses they have the private keys of, sadly.

> requiring holders to report their addresses they have the private keys of, sadly. This might become the law, but how would it be enforced? I thought the world leaning on Swiss banks for data was effectively an admission that anonymous accounts were unlinkable from the client side.

> This might become the law, but how would it be enforced?

By a few token measure that wont scale, just like current existing income tax structure. The main enforcement mechanism now is heavily reliant upon employers withholding on the behalf of employees and banks reporting on their accounts (the same entities that consider fines for felonious dealings just a cost of doing business); without it, existing tax enforcement would be toothless to most.

Re: Facebook Novi and Surveillance Finance

#46

Post by jfoster » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 3:55 AM UTC

z3t4 wrote: post #5

Cant wait for facebook to disrupt fintech with zero fee micro transactions. Been waiting for Mozilla/Firefox to do it as they are in a better middleman position.

Are you looking forward to it as a consumer or a business?

I think it will be great for businesses that are struggling with revenue due to the internet. Newspapers that don't have paywalls are going to re-evaluate considering that paywalls could now feasibly have a "day pass" option. Even sites like Reddit could adopt this model.

Could get a bit more annoying for consumers, though; constantly making purchase decisions when trying to browse the web.

Re: Facebook Novi and Surveillance Finance

#47

Post by salawat » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 4:42 AM UTC

aritraghosh007 wrote: post #21

Crypto finance should be, in general, run as open source, non-profit if it really wants to bring any societal change and democratize establishments. For-profit corporations running these programs under the garb of friendly deceptive branding can at most influence a behavior which is the only real positive.

It cannot be run as any traditional incorporated entity if it doesn't want to get essentially turned into one of the already existing financial services companies.

Re: Facebook Novi and Surveillance Finance

#48

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 6:31 AM UTC

ethbro wrote: post #43

the-dude wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US. In the EU local bankcards are used much more than CC and these are not mined. In NL shops are prohibited to build customer profiles based on their purchase history.

My general impression was that non-US credit card rewards kind of sucked. In the US, 2-5% is the base level of cashback from credit cards. So, a little bit of "we mine and monetize your transactions, but pay you for doing so."

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Novi and Surveillance Finance

#49

Post by dgellow » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 6:44 AM UTC

baby wrote: post #26

Barrin92 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wechat has been doing free transfers forever. Venmo too. Personal transfers on Paypal and Square cash are free too I think. Not too sure where the big disruption is.

Do this worldwide and you indeed have disruption.

Isn’t PayPal worldwide?

Re: Facebook Novi and Surveillance Finance

#50

Post by z3t4 » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 8:57 AM UTC

jfoster wrote: post #46

z3t4 wrote: post #5

Cant wait for facebook to disrupt fintech with zero fee micro transactions. Been waiting for Mozilla/Firefox to do it as they are in a better middleman position.

Are you looking forward to it as a consumer or a business? I think it will be great for businesses that are struggling with revenue due to the internet. Newspapers that don't have paywalls are going to re-evaluate considering that paywalls could now feasibly have a "day pass" option. Even sites like Reddit could adopt this model. Could get a bit more annoying for consumers, though; constantly making purchase decision…

First i have to pay up to 5% to receive the money, then I have to pay 5% again to get the money out of the platform. And if that wasn't enough, my purchase info and metadata is then sold to Google and Facebook. Now Facebook will get that for free and in return they can afford zero fees. With micro transactions the fees can be 90% of the total. With all social data Facebook has it will also be easier to deal with fraud and credit.