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Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

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Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#411

Post by HWR_14 »

josephg wrote: post #344
jon-wood wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On at least one of my cards magstripe is officially considered a legacy feature, I have to explicitly request that it's enabled if I'm travelling to a place likely to make use of magstripe payments, and it will only remain enabled for one or two weeks.

I had no idea if the magnetic stripe on my (australian) credit card worked until a recent trip to the USA. I’ve had that card for years and I don’t think I’ve ever swiped it before. Australian POS terminals won’t let you use the magnetic strip on a card when chip & pin is available. Even inserting your card seems old fashioned now - PayPass (contactless payment) is by far the most common way to pay in australia. Each…

I'm far more likely to have my wallet on me than my phone. Credit cards have infinite battery life, 100% waterproofing, no real-time tracking/spying and low to no cost to lose. Cash trades out the low cost to lose for anonymity.

Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#412

Post by monkeynotes »

anonymouse008 wrote: post #393
sabjut wrote: post #14

Clarification due to a somewhat confusing title: This is about the merchant using an iPhone to accept credit cards and other Tap to Pay devices. The customer was able to pay with Tap to Pay with their iPhone for a while now.

The real news is Apple specifically took a non competitive stance — making the API available to third parties like Stripe - rather than building in house, leveraging Apple Card connections, or similar

I am surprised Apple didn't make this a closed system and compete with Square for small businesses.

Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#413

Post by yccs27 »

dash2 wrote: post #337
Medowar wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

..just dont go to Germany. We are not very advanced in that regard. Of course huge amounts of stores offer contactless paying, but generally Cash is still dominant around here. Change is slow, and currently, Cash is still king, especially with small or street merchants.

I always found that so weird! The Exportweltmeister, producing some of the most advanced equipment... and in many places you can't pay with a card at all . Why do you think it is?

We Germans seem to love our cold hard cash, so the incentive to get a card reader is lower. There are even automatic coin counting machines in some self-checkout desks...

Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#414

Post by lxgr »

imnotrick wrote: post #361
praseodym wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Pay only tokenizes card information once when the card is added to the Apple Wallet on a device, not for every transaction. This means that usage for an on-device tokenized card can still be tracked until the card is removed and re-added.

I think you can also tap a button in the Wallet app that lets you generate a new token

Are you possibly mixing this up with the Apple Card "request new card number" feature? In general, creating a new token requires deleting and re-adding a card.

Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#415

Post by dathinab »

MikeKusold wrote: post #289
throwaway22032 wrote: post #224

Hacker News is such a bizarre place. On the one hand, we have threads about how browsers are fingerprintable and some app is using telemetry and endless discussions on theoretical zero-knowledge protocols and the importance of cryptography and Snowden saying this and that that get voted up to the top. On the other hand, something like this comes up which is basically another step along the "no-one accepts cash" funne…

Paying with your phone is actually more secure than the old mag-swipe method. Your phone will tokenize your credit card information, which makes it significantly harder to track credit card usage across various merchants. Of course it isn't as private as cash, but it is a step forward from mag-swipe. Square has a good explainer if you want to read more: https://squareup.com/us/en/townsquare/what-does-tokenization...

> secure than the old mag-swipe

Though at least in the EU the mag-swipe method was phased out and replaced with a chip based method years ago. (A chip with secure module, requiring PIN if you pay for more then a small amount, or otherwise unusual.)

And as far as I know that method is still more secure then Apple pay and similar.

Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#416

Post by dagmx »

frb wrote: post #240
dagmx wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do that when they're concerned about bad actors or want to prove out the API first with a controlled set of people who are willing to experience breakage

Isn't that what the AppStore review process is for? Or why not provide an extra approval process for the NFC API? On the other hand they were not so concerned with bad actors when releasing AirTags. Feels more that it's about control than safety and like that kind of decision that got them into all the antitrust probes in the first place.

App store review can only catch so much, and isn't able to analyze the actual code. It's one way for them to gate malicious code.

And providing extra approval process for the NFC API is exactly what they're doing here.

AirTags actually have a lot of design in them to thwart bad actors so your comment there is incorrect or ignoring all the anti stalker measures in there.

Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#417

Post by dumbfounder »

TIPSIO wrote: post #47

I would really like to see it become normal for tipping people this way (that isn't at a cash register / tap) but with AirDrop. For example, I recently had movers. I went out of my way to get a cash tip for them earlier. It would have been nice to skip that and just ping it at them somehow without awkwardly saying "Hey friend do you have Venmo? Apple Pay? CashApp? I'd like to tip you. What's your phone number?! Let m…

I have seen this solved at a bar with a QR code linked to venmo.

Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#418

Post by glial »

steadyready wrote: post #405

Man, I swear sometimes I feel like I’m on a forum full of wanted criminals, state actors, and/or felons. I’m not saying I’m against privacy. I am all for not being tracked, but we are approaching absurdity. I really want to see all of you who praise “privacy” go fully offline and use only cash. No cards. No bank account. Nothing. Salary? Cash, because earnings could also be sold and used for advertising. Groceries? C…

Agreed. I'm all for privacy too. But trying to solve social problems with technical solutions seems optimistic at best. Even if everyone on this website uses cash only, the issue of data privacy still exists for the other 99.999% of society - and we should try to solve it for them too.

Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#419

Post by ninkendo »

dhritzkiv wrote: post #359
praseodym wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Pay only tokenizes card information once when the card is added to the Apple Wallet on a device, not for every transaction. This means that usage for an on-device tokenized card can still be tracked until the card is removed and re-added.

I believe while the token is generated once, each transaction is signed with a unique signature (I believe that's the term) that only the payment processor can decipher. The merchant doesn't get any stable/identifiable information that can be used to track you across purchases/sessions/stores.

A signature doesn't hide information, it only tells you that it hasn't been modified. All the information that's being signed is by definition already in the payload given to the merchant.

If it's actually encrypting information (not just signing it), then that's another thing entirely, but signatures don't hide data.

Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#420

Post by Santosh83 »

steadyready wrote: post #405

Man, I swear sometimes I feel like I’m on a forum full of wanted criminals, state actors, and/or felons. I’m not saying I’m against privacy. I am all for not being tracked, but we are approaching absurdity. I really want to see all of you who praise “privacy” go fully offline and use only cash. No cards. No bank account. Nothing. Salary? Cash, because earnings could also be sold and used for advertising. Groceries? C…

Cash decentralises power to the extent possible. E-currency centralises it to an absurd degree. That's the point. The slope of convenience though is gradual and slippery indeed. Institutions we've had for centuries crumbling in a matter of decades is a matter of concern. They worked more or less. There is no guarantee what is replacing them will work but we seem to have blind faith they will, since we're throwing the baby & the bathwater very gleefully out the window.
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