31–40 of 101 posts
> https://www.eff.org/cases/facebook-v-power-ventures While it is bad and unethical to encourage sharing credentials, I really hope we don't continue to criminalize intermediary services that act on the user's behalf. User's should be able to use whatever product and services they want. If you don't want consumer's to use third party tools then either improve your own tools or implement better security. On the bright…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ugh, this is how POLi Payments works in Australia, used by some businesses here and there and mostly by airlines. To do payments there, you literally give them your internet banking username and password , and they impersonate you to transfer money out of your account into the seller’s account. There are multiple bald-faced lies in their marketing (such as calling it a proxy like Opera Mini, and stating that they do…
That's terrible. I've never used it though, as an Australian. The name does sound vaguely familiar though. Are there any businesses that actually require you to use it? I've never seen one. I usually pay for airlines with my credit card, now they aren't allowed to charge as large fees as they used to. Before that, I'd used BPay instead (which I still use for a lot of bills).
The fact that Plaid even exists, and that their core business will probably continue to thrive for another decade makes me almost certain that the US will lose its stranglehold on innovation soon. In the US, I have to pass through so many rent seekers to move some digits over (Plaid, Stripe, and Visa/MasterCard). Meanwhile Europe has PSD2 now and China AliPay/WeChat Pay. Even India, which in the past 3 months has unf…
I think the problem with forcing financial companies to develop interoperable systems is that the rules governing the standards are often set by the regulator who really don't have any skin in the game. If you take UPI, for instance, it's a fairly robust standard that has been developed by a non-governmental body that has been ruined by the regulator insisting that banks charge 0 transaction fees even for individuals…
On the consumer side I can’t imagine ever giving my bank credentials to Plaid or any other company. Super unnerving that this is even a thing, it’s like the number one rule of passwords.
I agree. I really wanted to use mint, but couldn't bring myself to give away my bank password. I resorted to writing my own tooling using puppeteer running on my machine to automatically login to my bank accounts and download the CSV exports of my transaction data for each bank. I then normalize that transaction data, and import the data into Lunch Money. It was a pretty big hassle to write and get working reliably(i…
I have been playing with the idea of doing something like this for a long time. But it seems like a huge job and I haven't been able to motivate myself towards it yet.
My bank even supports showing a lot of those spending stats as in Lunch Money, but it is entirely on their end and I'm not in control of it at all. I can look at the graphs and numbers in the app but I can't export or store it in any way.
The fact that Plaid even exists, and that their core business will probably continue to thrive for another decade makes me almost certain that the US will lose its stranglehold on innovation soon. In the US, I have to pass through so many rent seekers to move some digits over (Plaid, Stripe, and Visa/MasterCard). Meanwhile Europe has PSD2 now and China AliPay/WeChat Pay. Even India, which in the past 3 months has unf…
I kind of feel like China has already passed us. The US defines "innovation" as patents but in reality innovation is so much more than that. The US feels like its slowly grinding to a halt, and when I see how China is growing, I think we're already behind. I have been shopping for machine tools, and the stuff in China isn't just cheap knock offs anymore. It's good enough for them to use in country to build bullet tra…
I'm hopeful we'll see all countries converge onto a similar pace of innovation and progress. Large countries/regions (as a simple proxy for population and access to raw resources) will hopefully reach this parity sooner than later. At that point, I also hope that 1 country/ideology will never be able to pull far ahead of another - short of some fluke breakthrough that can be kept secret.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ugh, this is how POLi Payments works in Australia, used by some businesses here and there and mostly by airlines. To do payments there, you literally give them your internet banking username and password , and they impersonate you to transfer money out of your account into the seller’s account. There are multiple bald-faced lies in their marketing (such as calling it a proxy like Opera Mini, and stating that they do…
That's terrible. I've never used it though, as an Australian. The name does sound vaguely familiar though. Are there any businesses that actually require you to use it? I've never seen one. I usually pay for airlines with my credit card, now they aren't allowed to charge as large fees as they used to. Before that, I'd used BPay instead (which I still use for a lot of bills).
> https://www.eff.org/cases/facebook-v-power-ventures While it is bad and unethical to encourage sharing credentials, I really hope we don't continue to criminalize intermediary services that act on the user's behalf. User's should be able to use whatever product and services they want. If you don't want consumer's to use third party tools then either improve your own tools or implement better security. On the bright…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I kind of feel like China has already passed us. The US defines "innovation" as patents but in reality innovation is so much more than that. The US feels like its slowly grinding to a halt, and when I see how China is growing, I think we're already behind. I have been shopping for machine tools, and the stuff in China isn't just cheap knock offs anymore. It's good enough for them to use in country to build bullet tra…
At best, being able to build things that are built elsewhere would indicate parity. Further, for passenger jets, the C919 is far from being 100% domestically built (e.g., the engine comes from an american/french venture). I'm hopeful we'll see all countries converge onto a similar pace of innovation and progress. Large countries/regions (as a simple proxy for population and access to raw resources) will hopefully rea…
Imagine two nations. A wealthy nation that used to innovate but has completely stopped innovation. It could continue to make advanced things using existing infrastructure and people, but could not improve beyond its current state. (This is the extreme, for illustration).
Then imagine a larger poorer nation that is rapidly advancing. Even before the poorer nation has surpassed the other in technological capabilities, it would be producing more total innovation per year. Growing requires lots of innovation. Stagnating... not so much.
So I am suggesting that the rate of innovation could be slowing in the US, and the rate of innovation could be higher in China. Even if absolute output is more advanced in the US, which would be a different metric. But the rate of innovation is important for projecting where each nation will be in the future, and I do believe intellectual property restrictions slow the rate of innovation.
Their motive may be different but their actions just help make this sort of behaviour on the vulnerable (ie. non technically/security literate) easier to repeat by the more unscrupulous.
On the consumer side I can’t imagine ever giving my bank credentials to Plaid or any other company. Super unnerving that this is even a thing, it’s like the number one rule of passwords.
It's another tax on the poor, same as advertising. No service targeting sophisticated, wealthy people would use this. But if you have someone desperate for liquidity, of course they'll hand you the keys to their kingdom.