Visa Check advertisement Nimmo post on Biometric Authentication

[Mr. Premise]

I was watching some college football this past weekend and Visa is running advertisements for Visa check cards where there is a super-efficient holiday shopping scene with everyone swiping their Visa cards at chekcout until one person (clearly a loser) tries to pay for a small purchase in cash and immediately everyone starts crashing into one another and the whole dance is messed up and everyone gives the cash guy dirty looks.

Kurt Nimmo has a good post on Biometric Authentication and RFID today: http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=685

Media Cranks Up Hard Sell of Biometric and RFID Microchipped Future
Saturday December 02nd 2006, 11:44 am

I don't watch a lot of television. But no sooner did I flip on MSNBC last night a coiffured talking head appeared gabbling about the insecurity of ATM machines.

If we are to believe Algorithmic Research, an Israeli company, there is a flaw in the average ATM regarding PINs, account numbers, encryption, and decryption, that is to say there is a window of opportunity to snatch this information-over the internet, of course-by an unscrupulous hacker.

Mind you, nobody has actually exploited this alleged flaw and stolen information, MSNBC admits, but it is conceivable, never mind the Secret Service, responsible for this sort of crime, and the American Bankers Association dismiss it as unlikely.

It is also conceivable "al-Qaeda" will attack, as we are told on a nearly weekly basis, but the fact they have not over the last five years never seems to get worked into the equation.

Not to worry, though. Biometric authentication, according to the MSNBC talking head, will save us.

Then there's this from George Ure http://urbansurvival.com/nl20061202a.htm:

Friday December 1, 2006

A Curiously Timed Warning

I don't like coincidences, and so when news items and things I hear from friends start to pile up, I start paying a lot of attention to that pile of data. That's the case this morning I read that the government is warning private financial services to be ready for a cyber attack, possibly starting as early as today. The reason the timing has me scratching my head a bit is that Steve Quayle has recently been talking about rumored meetings of bank tellers and such and reports about credit unions having systems down for reasons that weren't clear. It's a subject Steve and I talked about over the past two weeks or so. And then this warning comes out. It's all a bit too coincidental for my tastes.

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The alert from the feds brings to mind an important box that the financial industry has put Americans in. On the one hand, the only "money" that claims to be legal tender for all debts private and public is Fed-issued paper money. Yet, if a person is caught in possession of more than $10,000 in cash, there's a law enforcement (which is really paradigm enforcement) presumption that such a cash-laden person must be some flavor of nogoodnick; drug dealer, terrorist sympathizer, or other un-American, anti-social sort.

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I'm sure the deep thinkers have thought this through, but what would be the impact if Americans took such a warning seriously? A prudent person might respond by stashing a few extra dollars around the house in whatever passes for a cookie jar these days. But, let's face it: There's so little actual cash money in circulation today, because of the emergence of digidollars and webbucks, that if the public really got concerned about a cyber attack on financial institutions, and wanted to hedge by keeping a few thousand around the house, banks would quickly run out of actual cash. We've chronicled before how at most banks, a withdrawal of more than $2,000 of your own money from a bank can result in supervisory interest in your plans and telling a bank official "I'm going shopping and I don't want to use checks" doesn't play well. There's a presumption of guilt.

 

[Beau]

I was watching some college football this past weekend and Visa is running advertisements for Visa check cards where there is a super-efficient holiday shopping scene with everyone swiping their Visa cards at chekcout until one person (clearly a loser) tries to pay for a small purchase in cash and immediately everyone starts crashing into one another and the whole dance is messed up and everyone gives the cash guy dirty looks.

Yeah, I was disgusted with that commercial. I really saw how people are being programmed to stop using cash, how "it messes everything up". What a croc!, I thought. I always thought it was the other way around, that credit cards and the like is what is the problem right now, not cash.

For what it's worth, I'll always be the loser paying with cash instead of credit. I don't like having all my purchases stored in a database

 

[Nienna]

I saw this same commercial and immediately thought how they are trying to get people to look at cash as a bad thing. Yes, using check/debit cards is th answer to everything. Using cash just is not in fashion anymore, you dummies. I have to admit that I do use a debit card to withdraw cash from machines and such. But I also use cash and write checks. So I am guilty of the debit/check card thing. But I do use it only occassionally. But this commercial really ticks me off. Here goes the programming again.

 

[Mike]

Many credit cards are now offered where you get 5% rebate on purchases of gasoline and food and 1% for all other purchases (with a limited rebate amount per year). Seems like a no-brainer until you realize their is no free lunch.

 

[noise]

I like the freedom of cash big time. I don't even like going to the bank to get it. I see it as a form of "we know where you are." Joan Jones just made a purchase at macy's or it was her husband, both names are on the account -or they (husband and wife) were together. We of course have video evidence we can stream from the store itself and know if it was him or her. This could tie into several possibilities.

The NSA knows where you or your spouse were at what time on what day doing this or that specific purchase. Now regardless if you pay cash/bankcard/check/credit card is becoming more irrelevent. At Safeway you give them your Safeway card or phone number, same at Fred Meyer, that is if you want the 'club' discount. I see the possibility of some good in it. For example that could be evidence that you were or were not elsewhere (at the scene of the crime) on the night of some tragedy, but there is also the fact that even Joan Jones might know my phone number and could use it to get her 'club' discount, putting me or my spouse where she is when we aren't there.

So there is the one slight plus with the alibi and the negatives of being tracked and lack of privacy. If I were using a CC (credit card) I don't mind the issuer knowing but the government does not need to know my spending habits.

Another thing about the 'club' cards is I don't much care or desire for FredMeyer or safeway to know my eating habits. Everything is put on the reciept. What was purchased, did he she pay with a CC, bankcard, did they use their club card etc.. it seems alot like tracking to me.