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Introducing Snapcash

blog.snapchat.com

121–130 of 207 posts

Re: Introducing Snapcash

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also aren't currently sending each other money. I hate to be a naysayer to what I think is a pretty cool product, but Snapchat's terrible security reputation is well-deserved. But also this isn't very much differentiated from sending money with Gmail, Square, etc.

I think the point is that they ARE sending eachother money, just in less efficient ways. Looking at how people use snapchat it isn't as much about ephemeral as it is about speed. It's much easier to send a picture to someone in snapchat as the flow is better, and it doesn't leave a stupid photo on your phone (and on several cloud backups) that you didn;t want to stick around forever (e.g. check out this awesome car,…

How are they able to transact with Visa and Mastercard without fees?

Re: Introducing Snapcash

#122
1. Look over someone's shoulder to get their phone password 2. Take phone discreetly 3. Enter phone, add self on snapchat, put money in Swiss bank account 4. Put phone back in person's pocket

Re: Introducing Snapcash

#124
Unless they have changed something under the hood I would NOT trust this service due to the insecure nature of the Snapchat API.

There are many 3rd-party API clients for Snapchat that can access all parts of the API (send message, send picture, get picture, etc.). I even wrote one for Java. They are easily accessed from a console with a username/password combo.

Considering how many password dumps are out there, it's reasonable to assume that many people have had their Snapchat login credentials compromised. Now I can use that info, log in from a command line, and start "snapping" myself money.

I know that getting someone's username/password is a pretty high barrier, but not high enough for the ability to send money instantly. Maybe there are more security details, but I wouldn't put my info into this just yet.

Re: Introducing Snapcash

#125
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the users of snapchat were particularly concerned with the security of this feature, they alleviated that concern in the post by stating that all of the financial security will be handled by Square which is building it's reputation of security in mobile payments.

I'd like to see a venn diagram of Snapchat users and people who actually know who/what Square is

I'd like to see a venn diagram of Snapchat users, people who actually know who Square are, and people who don't trust snapchat's security. I'm willing to bet that people who wouldn't trust snapchat would also know enough about security to have heard of, and (possibly) trust Square.

Re: Introducing Snapcash

#126

Meanwhile, everybody outside the US is trying to figure out how it's taken so long for easy person-to-person payments to happen there. Here in NZ, you've been able to pay directly to someone's bank account number for free for as long as I can remember, and my bank introduced payments to mobile numbers, facebook accounts, and email addresses 3 years ago. (Oh and it's totally safe to broadcast your account number to ev…

the global issue, in theory, is easily solved with a cryptocurrency like bitcoin. if bitcoin could ever get a better user experience (don't have to go through the pain of setting up a wallet, etc.), these type of services would be much less attractive.

Re: Introducing Snapcash

#128
post #73

I think the primary challenge is convincing users that it's secure. Snapchat has a relatively poor reputation in security (whether that's deserved or not), and everyone I know just uses Venmo. Venmo has Facebook integration, so if you're Facebook friends, it's really easy to send money. It seems like integrating into a platform that's supposed to be ethereal is a weird fit, but who knows -- maybe it'll catch on.

It's deserved. Gotta give it to them though, pretty bold move considering. http://www.wired.com/2014/10/the-snappening-is-not-your-faul... http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/12/27/snapchat-ignored-secu... http://gibsonsec.org/snapchat/index.html

almost every major internet company has security issues nowadays. In my opinion, they should be judged on what the ultimate consequences to the users ended up being.
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