Technology and populism

One of the reasons why I love South by Southwest (or SXSW as we cool kids call it) is the serendipity. There’s so much going on at any one time that if you find your self in a talk that’s not that interesting or not that useful, you can just wander next door into something else. This was how come I found myself listening to a discussion about technology and populism with Samantha Dravis from Clout Public Affairs, Daniel Lippman from Politico, Robby Mook from the Belfer Center and Alex Slater from the Clyde Group.

The general thrust of the conversation

It’s my current fascination with authenticity and the link between digital identity and fake people, fake news and fake organisations that

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Financial Cryptography: Corda Day - a new force

Forum friend Ian Grigg, who I always take very seriously indeed on any such topic, wrote about Corda on his blog and concluded with a powerful statement. Bitcoin told the users it wanted an unstoppable currency - sure, works for a small group but not for the mass market. Ethereum told their users they need an unstoppable machine - which worked how spectacularly with the DAO? Not. What. We. Wanted. Corda is the only game in town because it's the only one that asked the users. It's that simple. From Financial Cryptography: Corda Day - a new force xxx It seems to me, however, what Ian is pointing to as the greatest strength of their approach is also the greatest weakness. A staple feature of unimaginative management consultants presentations about innovation is some variation on the statement by Henry Ford that if you had asked users what they wanted, they would have asked for faster horses coupled with some variation on the statement by Steve jobs that it was pointless ask...

Barclays slated after CIO takes a year to open a bank account

xxx The rigorous KYC procedures at US banks the New Jersey-based crime ring created more than 7,000 fake identities to get tens of thousands of credit cards From Woman Gets 3 Years for Role in $200M Credit Card Fraud Scam - ABC News xxx xxxx Barclays slated after CIO takes a year to open a bank account : "An adviser to a new charitable incorporated organisation that spent more than a year trying to open a bank account has blasted Barclays for its onerous demands and disproportionate due diligence." xxx In a recent survey for VocaLink, some two-thirds of respondents said that they saw value in the establishment of a central KYC utility. They are wrong. We don’t need a central KYC utility, we need a federated reputation infrastructure. Or, to put it another way, a financial services passport ( as I mentioned earlier in the year ).

We could fix mobile security, you know. We don't, but we could

Earlier in the week I blogged about mobile banking security , and I said that in design terms it is best to assume that the internet is in the hands of your enemies. In case you think I was exaggerating… The thieves also provided “free” wireless connections in public places to secretly mine users’ personal information. From Gone in minutes: Chinese cybertheft gangs mine smartphones for bank card data | South China Morning Post Personally, I always use an SSL VPN when connected by wifi (even at home!) but I doubt that most people would ever go to this trouble or take the time to configure a VPN and such like. Anyway, the point is that the internet isn’t secure. And actually SMS isn’t much better, which is why it shouldn’t really be used for securing anything as important as home banking. The report also described how gangs stole mobile security codes – which banks automatically send to card holders’ registered mobile phones to verify online transactions – by using either a Trojan...

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