Slashdot Mirror
Deutsche Telekom To Launch "MicroMoney"
XMLGuy writes: "Over on heise online there is news that the German Telekom will be launching a prepaid Internet payment card called "MicroMoney" this Fall. The idea is that you buy the card from places like a gas-station, scratch off the covering of the code number, then sniff the card (ok -- so no sniffing). You then use the code number to pay for whatever you happen to want to buy online. Up to now only a couple of merchants are listed -- so it will be interesting to see how this takes off. Oh, and as an add-on you can also use the card in public telephones. The cards will be available in units of 20, 50 or 100 German Marks." The Fish is your friend. These are supposed to soon be available at over 80,000 retail outlets across Germany, with 16-digit PINs. Think "phone card."
I deduce that iMoney and eMoney were already taken. Damn goodnamesquatters.
... a Beowulf cluster of these?
Thank you.
Patrick Bateman, Esq.
How boring, thinking of how much prepaid cards suck.
If I buy a 48 card, and use up 24, won't my secret number be compromised. Someone at site A, can use it to buy something without my knowledge, before I get to use the card again.
Electric money is quite simply, the work of Satan :) For anyone even vaguely concerned about privacy and Government intrusion (which should be you if you're reading /.), then opposing its introduction is somethng you should be doing.
If you were English (obviously you're not), you'd be aware of prepaid cards like this for mobile phones, and would know that they are WAY better for privacy than whatever you're probably using now.
I can walk into a shop here in London, buy a mobile phone for cash, then buy £5 cards from the newsagent (also for cash), and use them to make calls. 100% anonymous. Physically, it works exactly the same as is described here - the card has a long number on it, you scratch the silver crap off to reveal it, then dial a number on your mobile and type it in. Then you have more credit to make calls with.
They try to encourage you to register your phone, by offering some free credit if you give them your name and address, but you sure don't have to if you don't want to. It's a prank caller's dream! Now imagine that you can get a £5 card for cash and use that to buy pr0n online.
So how is this "a sneaky way for the Government to get your life on file" ? Or were you just trolling?
Can someone please mirror the DT-MiCrOMoNeY-Generator-1.0.rar please?
:)
Sorry, I had to pull this out of my bag of 'funny comments'
For German sites, yes. The beauty of e-commerce would be that you can order around the entire globe (I get my DVDs from Australia, my books from England and some geek stuff from the USA). However, if you want to do that, a creditcard remains a must.
Actually, your idea of free posting in the beginning would still give trolls and 'baits a free ride.
I would like to raise the barrier to make sure that people think twice before posting. To see their post as an investment (after all, it costs them initially but if it's good enough they earn karma etcetera) and thus make sure they post high quality.
And fortunately that never happens in real life? I did not claim that it was completely safe, all I said was that it's not unsafe compared to what happens in real life. _Especially_ not because of the reimbursements, indeed.
And there have not been "innumerable cases of credit card databases being stolen", it just makes a larger impact because it's big news. I am positive that in the same timespan just as many creditcards are being used fraudulently because they are physically stolen or copied, although since those are always stand-alone cases you hardly ever hear about it.
Of course, if you order a lot on-line then this won't be convenient at all. Think 'cell phone', the only people who do not have one do not make calls on the road often. So the only users who will use this will be the casual ones - still a huge market!
I'll stick with my creditcard though. Unsafe? I doubt it, I've been using it on-line for six years now and I have not encountered any false transaction yet. There's a bigger chance that some vague waiter at the restaurant copies your details when your card is out of sight than a cracker decrypting your SSL connection or breaking into your favourite e-shop.
No, here's the deal. It does cost one cent to comment (after all you are using Slashdot to punish your thoughts). However, if you are moderated up from your original score, your post is free. After all, your post definitely contributes to Slashdot.
Furthermore, users who have high karma no longer get bother with banner ads anymore, since all the trolls would generate enough income for /. to give the elite (and karma whores) a break.
Posting anonymously costs more because of the complications to scramble the connection between payment and post.
I think it would make the forum a lot more valuable. On the other hand, more reason to abuse the mod system.
... but getting there.
You're right about everything here...
except how the cards work. sorry these are scratch and sniff cards, not mag strip.
it's how europeans pay for the majority of their mobile phone usage.
-- need more time?
I hand over cash at a till, and get a key in return that allows me to buy online without having to use a credit card.
The D-T system actually ensures privacy. The best the government (if you're horribly paranoid - as you appear to be) can work out is that this card was sold at that service station and that good bought with it were delivered to this address. Or with soft goods this IP address.
And that's not to say that the card in question hasn't changed hands a number of times in between.
Should boost porn usage if nothing else. ;-)
-- need more time?
7-11 sells 2 prepaid American Express cards. One is only good for internet use and the other is good with any merchant. There is a $1K max limit, 4% up front commission, and the card can only be used in the USA.
Organization: alphabetical, sometimes numerical or messy
Here come's Telekom's Micromoney...
Buy that dress! Buy that beer! You've got money!
Hey, look a porn site! Key your code now!
Come on you got to scratch and sniff
And peel it right (I said, peel it right)
I say, yeah... yeah... yeah... yeah..
(Chorus)
'Cause I like to spend (Micromoney)
So much (Micromoney)
Too much (Micromoney)
Not good (Micromoney)
Not fine (Micromoney)
Where mine? (Micromoney)
It was mine, but I spent all night
They said, "Yeah..." (Yeah!) "Yeah..." (Yeah!) "Yeah..." (Yeah!)
They said I could spend it, Micromoney
Now I can't end it, no more Micromoney
I can't stop surfin' though I have no cash now
Can't stop now, no Micromoney
Need more (Yeah), I said, "More!" (Yeah!) Yeah! (Yeah)
(Repeat chorus)
I love my micro-micro-money...
I love my micro-micro-money... (Sure I do)
I love my micro-micro-money... (Yes, it's true)
I love my micro-micro-money... (Turnin' blue!)
I love my micro-micro-money... (Snifin' glue..)
I love my micro-micro-money... (Rent is due!)
I love my micro-micro-money... (Banks will sue!)
I love my micro-micro-money...
Yeah... Yeah... Yeah... Yeah... Yeah... Yeah...
Come on! Pay up!
Come on! I'm stuck!
Come on! What luck!
Found a card! I say, "yeah..." (Yeah!) "Yeah!" (Yeah!) "Yeah!" (Yeah!)
'Cause now I can spend (Micromoney)
Some more! (Micromoney)
You whore! (Micromoney)
I'm poor! (Micromoney)
My money's outa sight
It don't feel so fight
They say, "Yeah!" (Yeah!) "Yeah!" (Yeah!)
No more... (Micromoney)
I'm poor... (Micromoney)
I'm sore.... (Micromoney)
.
.
.
--
"May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"
Deutsche Telekom really came across a great idea when they decided to link "phone cards" with MicroPayment CC Numbers.
For those of you who think these are like American prepaid long-distance cards, or prepaid cellular cards, these are very different. Phone cards that can be used in public phones in Germany are thin plastic cards with a magnetic strip on one side. The closest I've seen in the states are NYC Bus/Subway cards. You buy them at a News Stand, and you generally *always* keep one with you. Even if you have a cellphone. The German ones are especially nice, because they tend to decorate them as many countries decorate their postage stamps. (I know people who have collections of used ones)
The great idea about it all is they have
1. a product that's already accepted by the public
2. built-in anonymity
3. a huge distribution network.
I see this method becoming a standard in Europe rather quickly. Now if only DT would exert more influence over VoiceStream in the US...
Micro-money has been around for a while- otherwise called a dot-com option.
Also called a dot-com paycheck.
You're right, it's been around in Denmark since 1991 under the name of Danmønt. I've tried it once and will never use it again. The lady at the till succeeded in convincing me that it was ever so handy and convenient, since with this card I never had to carry small change any more, and so I bought a card worth DKK 100.
It turned out that the place that sold me the card didn't accept the card as valid payment (!), nor did any other shop I use regularly, and when I decided to cash in the amount on the card -- since I obviously couldn't use it anywhere I wanted to -- I had to buy a stamp and an envelope in order to send the card via snailmail to PBS (who owns Danmønt) for them to transfer the remaining amount onto my bank account.
Danmønt sucks, if you ask me!
--
Unselfish actions pay back better
The advantage over credit cards is not that evident, except (possibly) that people can't steal over 100 German marks (at present, about $42 or 48) by stealing your number.
One word:
anonymity
Both of these seem like small amounts but trust me, they will add up. Pretty good proposition I reckon
Governments should license any attempts at printing currency like this, to prevent abuse.
The service is divided in prepayed and on-phone:
prepaid is working as described for Deutsche Telecom, while on phone is the possibility for customers to confirm transactions done with their credit card on the Internet with an SMS (which contains an order specific code) originated by their personal mobile telephone.
Here in Austria (and Germany) we have the Paysafecard. [http://www.paysafecard.com].
It seems to be similar somehow. Each card is an anonymous account. After you spent all your money the account is gone.
Another already working non-card system is bezahlen.at. [http://bezahlen.at] Here you get a pass-through bank account which is connected to your real bank account. If you buy something you give one authorization to bezahlen.at. They have full access to you bank account, but you have to confirm each payment.
Can this card be used to pay on any online merchant's website i.e. is it the same as a credit card number?
Or will it work only on those websites that support this card type.
Can the name MicroMoney be used legally by the Deutshe Telekom ?
It's already used by some company making a financial package for Palm - Something like quicken
nothing new .. they are doing it in Bulgaria for a year or so ...
http://www.7eleven.com/internetcard/
I've been using one of these to pay for my Earthlink account for several months now. It doesn't care what billing info you enter, the card will validate with anything.
This is essentially the same system, that a company from Vienna, Austria, tries to establish. You can find more infos here. But you'll need the fish there as well. I'm sure the web needs some kind of "small fee for the seller / small amount for the buyer" payment solution. Credit cards are good for big payments. E-Cash solutions are essentially dead.
-- "As a human being I claim the right to be widely inconsistent", John Peel
Oops! :0) I knocked off a few too many zeroes when converting from British billions (10^12) to international billions (10^9). It's still a lot of HTTPS transactions, though!
--
Key generators don't work by trying random numbers, they work because someone reverse-engineered the software and figured out how it validates its codes. If the codes are random, and are validated by checking them against some central list of valid codes, it will not be possible to build a key generator.
--
I'll stick with my creditcard though. Unsafe? I doubt it, I've been using it on-line for six years now and I have not encountered any false transaction yet. There's a bigger chance that some vague waiter at the restaurant copies your details when your card is out of sight than a cracker decrypting your SSL connection or breaking into your favourite e-shop.
Please, there have been innumerable cases of credit card databases being stolen and that's just the cases we've found out about (so no more over-abused waiter myth). The real reason credit cards are safe is that the credit card companies will reimburse you if the card has been used fraudulently. On the other hand this gives you zero privacy. The death of cash will be a great loss and so this new scheme sounds great and worth supporting.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
If you were English (obviously you're not), you'd be aware of prepaid cards like this for mobile phones, and would know that they are WAY better for privacy than whatever you're probably using now.
I believe such things are also available in America now, too. I know I've seen ads for prepaid cell phones (cash up front for the phone and n minutes, and you go back in and "recharge" the phone when you run out). It's possible they require you to give your name/address/etc anyway, but I really don't know about that.
(BTW, I think the original poster was just trolling, or he has some serious issues, or both)
You could always use your finger nail.
If this product proves popular, then this new form of currency could begin to impact the economy and some yet-to-be-quantified measure of the money supply.
Like banks of the 19th century that issued their own currency, I suspect that private organizations issuing electronic cash might eventually be regulated out of existence if the governments decided to preserve greater control over the money supply. Or, more probably, they would be subject to requirements such as having sufficient reserves to cover draws on electronic cash that they have issued.
So, then, would measures of the money supply that included micromoney or ecash constitute M6?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
It's impossible to crack this stuff. It's so impossible, my cow-orkers build a dozen of these systems a week, and they're absolutely rock-solid bulletproof. We already have the technology to do this, and it's even affordable to put them into consumers pockets. If you want them anonymous, we can do that. If you want them traceable, we can do that. If you want (and this is the clever one) them to be anonymous, yet irrefutable, we can even do that.
Book plug: Best text out there is Stefan Brands' Rethinking Public Key Infrastructures
Of course you're right - they're easily crackable. Some pointy-hair will misunderstand it, or an overworked contractor in a bank won't be allowed time to do it right, or (FFS!) someone will let M$oft implement any of it. It will be broken, and it will be some stupid trivial hole that does it.
1. Pay anonymously
2. (DM won't work, they will introduce Euro's!) Europe wide, a thing PayPal has problems with (I worked on a project to reintroduce PayPal into Europe, it failed!)
3. Trustworthy systems and E-Money could help the new economy out of their misery, dot.coms just need customers right?
4. European idea, somehow someway, Europeans like it in their own way, no offence to US citizens
This is a great idea!
--
Bizar technology?
Now I can subscribe to "Nuns In Chains" without getting funny entries on my credit card bill.
Old COBOL programmers never die. They just code in C.
Whilst I can see the appeal for people who're unwilling to give out their CC, I'm wondering how much of a profit they think can be made off such a venture before people stop buying the cards.
From living in the US I know this would never work there but I've been living in Germany for the last year and I think it could work. The Germans are very differant when it comes to money. They don't really use credit cards, they don't buy stuff unless they have the money first. My mobil phone that I bought in Germany works on the same princapal, when my phone doesn't work I can just go to about any store and buy a prepaid (about $25) phone card and re-activate my phone. I think pre-paid internet money is a better idea that spending money we don't have.
Napster is 1 cent a search and $1 the song. Google goes 20 searches a cent. The Fish costs you 0.2 cents the word and BritannicaOnline will charge 10 cents per search.
Anyone still remembers knows good old BTX (or teletex)? You had to pay certain small amounts per page, which havebeen charged to your phonebill.. HORRIBLE!
I hope this won't work out as most things by Deutsche Telekom do.
Cheers, Peter
KdenLive/PIAVE - non-linear video editing
This technology will fail.
While it is somewhat convenient, it isn't as convenient as credit cards. While it is somewhat anonymous, it isn't as anonymous as cash.
Besides anonymity is pretty much guaranteed under european law. Private mechanisms to ensure that aren't necessary in that kind of environment.
Disclaimer: My company sell equipment to Internet Cash, so I have a slight vested interest, but I still think that their technology is sound in a purely technical sense.
If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
As for these internet payment cards, I think they're a great idea. A little more anonymity never goes amiss (especially in the UK where it seems to be disappearing by the minute).
One billion = 10^9
One thousand = 10^3
Ten = 10^1
So, ten thousand billion billion would be:
10^1 * 10^3 * 10^9 * 10^9 = 10^22
10^16 = 10 million billion
So, if a billion cards were produced, then you'd only have to search through 10 million numbers, which is trivial compared to what you proposed.
--It burns! --It's loaded with wasabi.
I speak and read Dutch, English and German, and if I try really hard, I can read a bit of French.
En natuurlijk ook nog het plaatselijk dialect (ik woon in (Nederlands-)Limburg).
No we dont
And I have to correct myself: there is no chip on this card (I assumed that because German cardphones use chips), its just working with a toll-free access number like most prepaid calling cards.
So these prepaid cards are actually a way to stay anonymous, as opposed to credit cards, which can be tracked.
In Austin, TX a company called NetSpend is selling prepaid MasterCards. You put some cash in their machine and a card comes out. I think they're adding a fee of $1/transaction. I had one (they were giving them away for free for a while) and I wasn't able to use it at a store, but I did get some cash out of it at an ATM.
Almost everyone seem to be on their own personal crusade against micropayments, yet noone is satisfied with the way you pay for low-cost internet-services today (banners, spam etc). I say we should give these guys a break. What's so awful about trying to come up with a different way of doing things? It's not like anyone will force those cards on you anyway.
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
Well Proton is widely spread in Belgium, a small country with very high population density/shop density, and it`s surprising but allomost any shop offering a bank-card terminal has a proton slot on it. As a matter of fact I daily buy lunch with my proton, and 7 years after introduction it`s hard to find a shop not advertising Proton next to Visa, Mastercard and Banksys.
If I`m not mistaken Proton was a tied effort by Banksys and all major banks and shoppingmalls, giving it enough weight so the smaller shops could jump on the system too. It was first introduced in leuven, a typical university city where 80% of the population is a student. From there on it gradually came allmost unnoticed and now everyone I know here locally uses it. I think it`s a big success.
With great power comes great electricity bills.
Prepaid is much easier than processing small transactions in real-time. Bouncing a transaction off a database is the way to go... but all of you know that. Check out http://www.interactivcash.com if you want to see more about a similar technology.
Come fall there won't be any Marks in Germany. They're switching over to Euros real soon now.
No but, yeah but, no but...
At the gas station:
- What do you need all these for? You bought a dozen just yesterday...
- Uhmmm... I read a lot of news online?
sounds similar to a UK company, splashplastic. they're leveraging the established "debit phone card" structure here. you get a card, go to (almost) any news agent and put cash on it, then spend the money online. nice anonymous way to turn hard currency into digital cash anonymously.
problem is getting enough merchants to make it compelling, the cool thing about online shopping is price comparisons and niche markets. proprietary payment schemes don't work well there.
But how do we know that they're system is secure? I've heard of mobile phone card numbers being used before you've bought them and scratched the number off. Being anonymous, how do you prove that it wasn't you who spent it?
All kinds of net services become economical if you can convince a lot of people to pay a few cents as effortlessly as possible. The only question is how to develop and market a micropayment system successfully.
I think Deutsche Telekom has just found a good option with prepaid cards. Plus, I like the idea of anonymous web payments.
This sounds almost exactly like NetSpend (http://www.netspend.com), except that NetSpend allows you to use a debit card to access your account as well. Not only that, but the service aims to provide quite a bit of obscurity about who is making each purchase. I found out about it when I got a free $1 card at the local movie theater.
No kidding. How many phone companies are getting nailed due to cramming? And that's just for a few dozen random charges. Imagine a monthly internet use statement with literally hundreds, if not thousands, of transactions. Seems like fraud's dream come true.
---
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Look, first of all, you got it wrong: technically no Euro currency exists anymore on it's own...Technically seen, by spending my franks (local currency), I *am* spending my Euro's. My existing coins and bills are just placeholders for the Euro's. That is the way I see it, and so do banks: internally there is just a one-to-one mapping, new accounts are exclusively Euro etc...
Secondly, you forget the human part of currency. People are fond of their franks/marks/whatever, and don't want to change. Imagine advertising a new service that *only* uses the yet unknown Euro: that is simply not a good idea, because people won't buy it. My bet is that they just chose a certain amount in DM, and that actually internally the Euro representation will be used.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
At launch the Proton card, did cost money, so it really slowed down introduction. (Or it could have been the terminals that were expensive or so...) They changed that and with a good publicity campaign it became more wildely known. As for usage statistics: it's been a while since I was shopping in Belgium, so I don't really known. When I was there, I saw people buy bread using it. The proton card is available without the debet-card combo, and the MiniCash is not...which makes the two quite different. (Would give a proton to a kid, but not a MiniCash)
The whole thing is a bit sad, because the idea is okay...but the implementations are really crappy. The terminals should not cost a thing to the shopkeepers (which they do I think) because these would be shops where you typically use coins...the extra cost of a terminal is simply too huge. On the other hand, the consumer is not willing to pay to recharge his cards... It's a tie, unless somebody want to pay these systems are bound to stay unpopular. I don't mind the 0,2€ they ask for charging the card...when, loading the maximum amount of 50€, it's just 0,375%.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
I just see I screwed up the numbers:
0,15€ as recharge fee, on max amount 50€, is 0,2%. Sorry...
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
One of the big disadvantages is that those systems are not compatible from one country to another. This is especially frustrating for people like me (Belgian living in Luxembourg) who don't like to carry around cash. I use my MiniCash just to pay parking place, and that's it.
I don't think either of those two systems support online shopping. (At least it is not advertised) Homogenizing those systems all over Europe could be a solution and a primary step towards using these systems online, but unfortunately I don't know enough of the internals to think of a solution.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
I find that from my Bonn based DSL hookup, T-Online does not _block_ SMTP; instead, it redirects it through their own SMTP server that replaces my sender address with my T-Online address. This is not so nice when using multiple accounts, so I signed up for their SMTP relay, using it as smart relay host with Sendmail. It works like a breeze for me.
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
Well, this is yet another stab at Micropayments in Germany. This marketplace has seen quite a lot of those. Card based and software based. First there was the Geldkarte, a stored value card based system for the real world which never found real acceptance despite the fact that there are millions of users out there. Why? The added value was not there (besides paying ticketless in Parking garages or in public transportation). The private banks committees are nevertheless still trying to push it into the Internet market. Doesnt help, the require a class 3 card reader (_with_ a crypto pinpad and a display), that costs money (hardware, support, rollout logistics etc.) and the user doesnt like it. Then there were eCash and CyberCash. eCash was developed by DigiCash and introduced by Deutsche Bank (worlds largest bank) in 1996, CyberCash was the "enemies" response by Dresdner Bank, Hypovereinsbank and others. ...
eCash is a Cypherpunks wet dream. It is anonymous, you can send it to others, there are clients out there for all the real OSs (Linux, FreeBSD, HP-UX, Sun, etc.) and it had large support in the hacker community. It is going to be shut down in a month. Why? Deutsche Bank says in their letter it didnt meet their market expectations. It was another value stored system, it required a complicated subscription mechanism (say loud and slow Anonymity and Bundesbank (federal bank)).
Now Cybercash, developed by the now defunct Cybercash corporation (Verisign and FirstData just bought the assets). It should have been the consumers dream. Micropayment, Debit-Payment and CreditCard payment (not SET but C5) combined in one wallet. And the support of all the big banks in Germany but Deutsche Bank. So why did they fail? The software sucked (not all the beautiful OSs available that eCash had), was complicated and not marketed correct by the Banks. The consumer was not ready for a system like that. It is so convenient to enter your credit card number and shop online, isnt it? The consumer is protected when he shops online with his credit card. Protected by policies. The merchant has the risk. But, and here is the point of failure for all the systems described above, the Banks did _not_ give the merchant enough incentives to market the new systems (e.g. by giving rebates when you pay with eCash). And for the average consumer anonymity is nothing. At least nothing yet.
So what does Deutsche Telekom do different? From what I read these cards will be bundled with phone card functionality. The consumer can phone on public phones and can spend money on the Internet. The phone card market (stored value, wasted money) is already prepared. Everybody has one over there. Now bundle it, get enough shops and there you go. The only problem (in my opinion) will be the "Kreditwesengesetz" of the federal bank (see here). This says that everybody who creates so called netmoney has to be a bank (Telekom is no bank) and has to comply with the rules. Now this is going to be a lot of fun
If they could combine this with some sort of age verification (i.e. won't be sold to minors), this would also be a boost for internet porn sites. Imagine subcribing to an online porn site without telling them who you are...tempting, no? Even more so for those among us who aren't worried about the money as much as the potential for embarassment. Plus, most people could afford to lose the twenty dollars or so that is on the card to a dishonest porn site, whereas you wouldn't want them to have your actual credit card info.
I wish that my inferiority complex were as good as yours.
-RenderHead
They launch in fall card in Mark, and as soon as January, Mark is no longer valid. They should lanch them in Euro from the beginning.
(note : euro is already legal currency in euro countries)
Electric money is quite simply, the work of Satan :) For anyone even vaguely concerned about privacy and Government intrusion (which should be you if you're reading /.), then opposing its introduction is somethng you should be doing. This is one of those times when we don't need any more technology, because what we have easily suffices.
Sure, you can argue, we already use electronic money on the internet. Well yes we do, but we don't need new forms appearing, because every time they do it becomes more likely that a country's government will decide that the time is right for a general electronic currency, and introduce it.
And then every purchase you make is logged and tracked. And at will, the Government can block your money. Don't think they won't either. If you're even suspected of any wrong-doing then you'll swiftly find yourself unable to buy anything unless you check into the police station every day. And in the modern liberal trend of protecting people from their own "mistakes", the list of verboten behaviours is growing by the day.
Quite simply, electronic money is just a sneaky way for the Government to get your life on file. Don't be fooled by the technology.
MicroPayments are also done by American Express (thought it may be as a test because they don't market it). At every 7-11 in Florida you can buy a prepaid card backed by AMEX it can be used online or anywhere AMEX is accepted anywhere in the world.
As micropayment systems go this probaly has the best chance of making it becasue it uses current infrastrcutre and standards so no one need special equipment or software.
Remember the easier something is to adopt to the more redially its adopted. Espically if it has value.
"Don't mess with him, he taunts the happy fun ball."
Well there are key generators for little shareware programs up the more expensive software. How long will it take for there to be good ones made so you can buy physical stuff for free? They may have some good random number grnerators but someone can easily try a few thousand combinations in a short time to an online etailer.
I like where Telkom is going with this one... I'm thinking calling card, and I'm thinking about back in the day when the going rate (bulk) for AT&T numbers was about 20-30 cents. Can't wait to start ordering off tresorberlin.de :)
Aha, but to scratch the card in the first place you need a coin.
But you'll need the fish there as well.
/.-reader understand (reading is enough)?
Once again I'm happy to see that my education has had a positive effect on me: I do not need "the fish" to read German.
I have a question: What languages does the average
For me (as like most Flemish students) the answer is Dutch (mother tongue) French English and German. How about you all?
120 chars is not enough!
A lot of micropayment schemes had been proposed in the past. This one might work. Its inventors did not think about absolute security or cool cryptographic stuff. They thought about users and practicability.
The resulting scheme has several interesting properties:
Ok, usage could be even more easy, but at least it is no more difficult or inconvenient than using a credit card. A payment scheme for online digital goods and services requires convenience close to invisibility.
The card does not require software installation, prior registration of the user, or sophisticated authorization procedures. Just get a card and use it, that's all.
None of the many questions Joe Customer may possibly ask about a micropayment scheme has to be answered by using vocabulary from computer science or mathematics, or Alice-and-Bob-and-Mallory stories.
There is no way a customer could lose more money than his card is worth at the moment -- and mom and dad can actually understand why. The scheme also allows for exclusion of fraudulent merchants.
The card is bought anonymously. Payments made with the same card can be linked, but as long as none of the payments is linked to a person, those data are virtually useless. In typical micropayment situations, there is no need to ask the customer for his name. There is even a strong contraindication against any avoidable hassle. If a single card can be linked to a person, this relationship expires together with the card.
It can be used from any computer. No digital wallet, card reader, or other special equipment is needed. The customer doesn't need a computer at all. The scheme also works via WAP, SMS, or voice channels.
The most expensive thing probably is producing and distributing the cards. Anything else is handled by a computer somewhere on the net keeping a card numbers database and a merchants database and updating both if a transaction occurs.
I feel this is the best micropayment scheme ever designed. It just looks like user-centered design and a good-enough-approach. There is however one thing that could turn it into another failure: lack of acceptance on the Net. In order to become a real success it has to be accepted by sites throughout the universe. Limited to .de it would be pretty useless.
http://erichsieht.wordpress.com/category/english/
Could be the same two people each day, and as they get another IP on each dialup blocking them all won't help you any. I keep getting bad download rates from people connected via Roadrunner all the time, do you see me whining about that? Well, you could argue I just did, but...
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
Isn't that similar to the one use credit card where your credit card company can provide you with a one use credit card to use for online shopping?
If so, you will see an example of an artificial currency used by stall-holders who are selling refreshments, souvenirs, etc. It has a value of 1 Jazz = 1 Swiss Franc. The so-called 'Jazz' money is used because it has to be exchanged back through the organisers after the festival, the difference between the Swiss Frank and the Jazz on return is the way that stallholders pay for their stands.
The system either uses cash (confusing, because you often have real Swiss money in your pocket as well) or electronic tokens. The tokens may be charged using a debit card. They can link the token to me because of my debit card, so it isn't an anonymous system.
The system works well for at least the last four years, and is still going in this rather limited area.
I have atguard and it is also always wingeing about attacks from dialup users, usually Telekom dialup ports. However, I have had no problem getting Telekom to respond to the attacks. They will then send Cease and Desist letters to the perpetrator. I know that they do this because a friend was hit by a worm and received such a letter.
What Telekom don't do is block SMTP. At one stage they did, but the relay doesn't seem to be necessary from a Frankfurt based ADSL line.
Whoops, we were talking about dollar bills weren't we?
...Except they call it "Rocket Cash" and you get the added chance of winning FREE SPRITE! Woo hoo.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
The retail business could save a lot of money by reducing the amount of cash they handle, but cash is still pretty cheap.
If only 1% or so of shoppers use it, the cost of each transaction is much more than cash. A payment technology needs to have large transaction volumes before the cost per transaction is as cheap as cash.
On the internet side of things, these wallets or cards have to fight against the established credit card giants. Those will do anything to keep their 3 to 5% cut off every transaction. Some credit card vendors are now able to generate card numbers on a per-transaction basis, to protect the consumer. Their argument is that they are the only ones capable of handle the security side of things, and merchants buy into that argument. It might even be true.
It would be great if digital anonymous money would take off, but it's not going to be easy. All the wallet companies quickly found out that they were in the wrong business, and silently branched into something else.
A few reasons why digital cash will never take off:
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
The _real_ reasons for being against the euro is not that the local currency goes away. It is that the freedom for each country to run their own financial politics. No more interest rate hikes and cuts in order to cool down or heat up the economy. No more devaluations or currency-buy-backs. Those tools are now only available to EU, not each single country.
Eventually it means that social security, wages, benefits, taxes will be roughly the same across Europe. That might be a good thing, but it is not guaranteed to be a good thing for all.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
On the other hand, it's not entirely a bad thing if an ISP allows its customers 100% free access to the Internet (excluding SMTP, but the Telekom has a special SMTP relay for which you have to register). And, well, if someone attacks you on 119 and 1080 (111 is popular as well, maybe you should increase your firewall sensitivity), just block their IP for 24 hours and that's it. I do that automatically and it doesn't hurt.
On the other hand, I fail to see both how sensible a connection between the Telekom's ISP services and their micropayment idea is and what your security has to do with micropayment at all.
There is absolutely no reason to panic.
The Deutsche Telekom has done some piloting experiments that did not turn out entirely bad, but they still haven't been able to entirely solve the key generator problem. They have a system in Germany called the GeldKarte (link in German, of course, since it's a German system) which is basically a phonecard-esque payment card linked to a special type of account at your bank; you can load your card with arbitrary amounts of money and use it for cash. This is basically the same thing, except that it works without putting your card in some slot but by specifying your 16-digit number. The advantage over credit cards is not that evident, except (possibly) that people can't steal over 100 German marks (at present, about $42 or 48) by stealing your number. On the other hand, the high granularity always forces you to keep a large number of cards if you want to order anything online that costs more than these 100 marks. BTW the card is Euro-aware, of course, because the value stays the same, it's just a different currency. So you buy a 100 marks card and when you use it after January 1, 2002, it's an 48 card. Not a problem. After the euro introduction, they'll probably shift to 50 and start selling them throughout Europe.
There is absolutely no reason to panic.
The Germans have been scratching and paying for their prepaid cellphones for a while now, but I doubt that this will work.
If you pay for your cellphone, you can throw the card away after using the number. The card number is invalid right after you use it, and all the money if tranferred.
But with this system, you get to keep the card until the money "on" it is used up. How are all the vendors supposed to keep track of the cards? If it isn't done in realtime then I could overdraw a card. And that won't be a problem because I bought the card anonymously.
Also remember that all micropayment systems have failed. The Germany Bank are stopping their micropayment system because nobody uses it.
I just suppose some manager's generating work for his bored department.
-- sigs are like parking spaces - all the good ones are occupied
except it uses a credit card number and can be used anywhere credit cards are accepted. I saw a vending machine for this in a mall recently.