Don’t Get A Mask To Rob A Bank – Just Buy The App
This is the title of an article in The Sunday Times.
It talks about an App called Blackshades, that can be bought for three hundred pounds, that enables a thief to seize control of a victim’s computer and steal their passwords.
Hopefully, I’m protected but it’s a frightening concept. My passwords aren’t stored on the computer, but in my Mark 1, 1947-vintage core store, which is the safest place for them.
It also says that infiltrating a smart-phone or tablet can be easier than targetting desktops, saying that many criminals set up malicious hotspots in public places.
For that reason, I only use wi-fi in trusted locations and usually have it switched off on my smart phone. I never use wi-fi that wants my e-mail address as giving it usually ensures, I’ll get marketing e-mails, which I class as spam.
I also check my bank account and credit cards every day or so, so that if I’m robbed, I know it first.
From what I can ascertain, I think that contactless payments are pretty safe, especially in London, where there are billions of transactions because of public transport.
So I use contctless wherever I can locally!
SBB To Sell Bitcoin
The title of this post is the same as that of an article in Global Rail News.
If you don’t know; SBB stands for Swiss Federal Railways.
It’s an interesting development to say the least!
Especially, when you read the last paragraph.
And you can’t buy SBB train tickets using your shiny new currency, it isn’t an accepted payment method by SBB.
I wonder how long it will be before, I can buy and use bitcoin on a UK rail station?
Threat Of UK Tax Cut Staves Off Hostile EU
This is the headline on an article in the Sunday Times, which suggests that the UK may cut corporate tax rates from 20% to 10% unless the EU grants the UK access to the single market.
I don’t know whether it is speculation on the paper’s part, but it does illustrate how Brexit means that it removes a whole set of rules from the UK Government.
It is an interesting suggestion!
I think it could have these effects.
- Companies like Apple, Starbucks, Google and Amazon would look at the UK favourably.
- If a company was spending fortunes on research, the UK would probably be more attractive, as if say they developed a world-beating drug, they wouldn’t pay as much tax on the large profits.
But I never heard it mentioned in the Referendum.
It probably shows how our politicians all think inside boxes and that those in Europe do even more so!
The Evil Devices In Our Midst
I recommend that my readers, if there are any out there, read this article on the BBC, which is entitled ‘Smart’ home devices used as weapons in website attack.
It would appear that last Friday, that a company called Dyn suffered a denial of service attack. The attack and its effects is described in on Wikipedia.
The reasons behind the attack are still not clear and it could be in support for Wikileaks or in my mind just to prove it can be done.
But I doubt it will have any repercussions for the average John and Jenny, unless they want to buy something on eBay say!
To me, as someone who believes that in his day, he was a world-class programmer, I think that we haven’t seen anything like the end of evil minds working their wicked spells on the Internet.
Suppose you use an App to access your bank account or pay for your taxi on your phone.
How long before you’re sitting in a coffee shop, library or railway station, happily surfing the Internet and a message comes up on your phone, asking you to download the latest Taxi App say? Except that it won’t be!
You innocently download it and within minutes your bank account has been emptied or your credit card has been maxed out.
For that reason, I and other programmers I’ve spoken to, will never load an App that needs any financial information to my phone.
Any web site with your financial information, should only be accessed from a totally private connection.
We cannot be too careful.
When I started to use my American Express card for contactless payments, I noticed some strange payments without any recognisable name on my statement.
So I challenged them with Amex and they refunded them.
But they kept coming, until I realised that they were for a branch of a well-known store that had setup its tills wrongly.
In all this, Amex had been puzzled too and one of their security experts had talked to me. He told me that the level of fraud on contactless cards was less than they had expected, something which seems to have been confirmed by the lack of hard stories of fraud on contactless cards.
A policeman told me, that the limit of thirty pounds is not enough for the average card criminal, who like to deal in thirty thousand pounds a hit.
He also felt that as many contactless transactions are on CCTV, that intelligent criminals think they could be a Get Into Jail Quickly card.
As other more reliable payment methods like face recognition become more common, I feel that in the future, there will be no need to store any financial details on your phone, that can be hacked.
But until that happens, there will be no obvious financial details on my phone.
Certain details like passport number are hidden in the phone, in case of loss abroard.
How To Annoy Customers
I just sent this message to John Lewis Card Services.
I shall be cancelling my card at the earliest possible opportunity.
I have a problem with my left arm, due to it being broken by the school bully and a stroke which didn’t help.
So for convenience, i don’t use any web sites that use the shift keys in passwords.
Why do people do this?
Passwords should always be able to be typed with one hand.
For instance, why couldn’t I use say “donald=13”?
No-one would guess that!
Old Uncle Tom Cobley And All Financing
This article from Railway Gazette is entitled Pension funds back Abellio East Anglia order for Stadler trainsets.
These details of the trains are given.
Stadler’s first major order for UK main line passenger rolling stock covers 58 Flirt UK trainsets to be built in Switzerland. There will be 10 12-car 25 kV 50 Hz inter-city EMUs for London – Norwich services with 628 standard and 80 first class seats plus a bistro, and 10 12-car EMUs for the London – Stansted Airport route with 710 standard class only seats. The 24 four-car and 14 three-car electro-diesel units for standard class only regional services will have the diesel engines in a mid-train power module car.
But the most interesting part of the article is about the financing of the trains.
Funding is being led by Rock Rail and SL Capital Partners, with additional co-investment equity provided by the GLIL infrastructure investment joint venture of the Greater Manchester Pension Fund and London Pensions Fund Authority. Debt was arranged by DC Advisory from Aviva, Sun Life, Barings Asset Management, Legal & General, Standard Life Investments and the European Investment Bank, which is providing a 28-year £60m loan using its European Fund for Strategic Investments guarantee for the first time in the UK.
A large number of reputable names seem to have their signatures on the deal.
I notice that the European Inveestment Bank is there, so they can’t be too bothered about Brexit.
A Contactless Card Explosion
According to Becky Barrow in the Sunday Times, it not yet ten years since contactless cards were introduced.
She says that during the first six months of this year, we spent £9.3billion using the cards.
In the same period of 2009, we spent just £315,953 and half of that was Patsy and Edina in Harvey Nicks.
That is some increase.
When contactless cards were introduced on London’s buses, after listening to quite a few idiot techophobe politicians, I set up a very tight Internet trawl about ticketing problems on London’s transport.
I have not found a single problem reported in a newspaper or web-site.
My problem with contactless cards, is that I can’t use them for small train or tram trips outside London. Every train company and local authority seems to be reinventing London’s wheel.
No wonder London gets all the tourists!
I also had a small problem where a branch of a well-known store set up their tills incorrectly and AMEX thought it was fraud and refunded my purchases.
The Bank That Keeps On Losing
This article on the BBC is entitled RBS blames legacy issues for £2bn loss.
This is the first paragraph.
Royal Bank of Scotland has reported a £2bn loss for the first six months of the year, which the chief executive blamed on “legacy issues”.
The only legacy issue that matters, is that Gordon Brown was stupid enough to rescue it with £45.5billion of the UK’s money, instead of let it go bust.
But then it was all about Scottish votes, as was the two aircraft carriers, that may not be what the navy needs in this increasingly dangerous world of terrorists and rogue states.
Thank you, Gordon!
How can I claim my share back, like I did with PPI?
London’s Bouncebackability
Some worry about the ability of the City of London to survive after Brexit.
I don’t and this picture gives a clue!
St. Pauls in the Blitz
London and the City periodically suffer disasters and annoyances.
- The Great Fire in 1666
- The Great Stink of the 1850s
- The Blitz of 1940
- The Great Smog of 1952
- The IRA Bombings in Bishopsgate and other London locations.
- The Tube Attacks of 7th July 2005
- The Financial Crisis of 2007-2008
After every one of these, London showed an impressive ability to bounce back from something that was unexpected. You coud argue that after all these events, London recovered to a higher level.
The first two, threw up two of London’s great creators; Christopher Wren and Joseph Bazalgette. Bazalgette was the grandson of a French Protestant immigrant.
Will London throw up another great creator and thinker because of Brexit?
I wouldn’t be surprised!
They might even be like Bazalgette and a descendent of a recent immigrant. London has always benefited from troubles in the rest of the world!
No-one can know what will happen to the City and its financial industry and expertise. A vindictive Europe could put in regulations to try to cut London’s market share.
But I doubt it will have much affect, as London has every expertise you could need, speaks English, is in the right time zone and quite frankly is London, where real and assimilated Londoners duck-and-dive for the best opportunity.
London will undoubtedly change, but is there any reason to suspect, that it won’t do things that make itself more successful and more powerful still?
London was the capital of the world in the Victorian Age and I can see this happening again!
Inaccurate Marks And Spencer Contactless Payments
I use contactless payments regularly in Marks and Spencer and I’ve never had a payment problem, but some of the transactions end up with very strange locations on my credit card statement.
I’ve found.
- Cambridge Station, Cambridge
- Birmingham New Street, Birmingham
- Reading Station, SSP Reading
- Euston Scot, Euston Station
- Piccadilly Station, Manc
- Heathrow Airport SSP
I know these are all Marks and Spencer despite no indication, as they are for between seven and eight pounds, which is a typical price for a pack of gluten-free sandwiches, a drink and perhaps a biscuit or fruit.
I also know, that in the last month, I’ve bought sandwiches in Marylebone station and I can’t find the transaction.
So did my credit card company reject it, as someone had put some total garbage in the contactless card system in the otlet in the station?
With contactless payments, becoming very much the norm for many customers, they must get this right.
I certainly, haven’t lost out, but I think there’s at least two payments, that seem to have gone missing in cyberspace.
I think the lesson of this tale, is that if you are a small owner-managed store or a large chain, you must set up your contactless system correctly, as it at one level might be an irritance to customers and at a higher one, it might cost you money.
The Anonymous Widower 