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Apple Pay Competitor CurrentC Breached
tranquilidad writes "As previously discussed on Slashdot, CurrentC is a consortium of merchants attempting to create a "more secure" payment system. Some controversy surrounds CurrentC's requirements regarding the personal information required, their purchase-tracking intentions and retail stores blocking NFC in apparent support of CurrentC. Now news breaks that CurrentC has already been breached. CurrentC has issued the standard response, "We take the security of our users' information extremely seriously."
Wait until the cops decide that "credit limit" equals "cash on hand".
"How much credit do you have on that there credit card, sir?"
"Um, $28,839.54"
"I have reasonable suspicion that you used your credit to purchase cocaine, online child pornography and uninspected beef steaks. Please hand it over."
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I was thinking along those same lines - they compared CurrentC to ApplePay. But, there is another player in field which meets the needs of Android users much as ApplePay for iOS does.
Both ApplePay and Google Wallet protect the consumer and keep them in mind such as by using the protections afforded in the use of a credit card. CurrentC is focused on the mercantile experience and puts all liability for fraudulent transactions squarely on the consumer. Using CurrentC, with its direct access to your checking and bank accounts as well as to your health information, you entire identity could be stolen along with your life savings. This breach highlights why they should not be trusted with your information even if no financial data was compromised this time around (they aren't live yet, right?).
Of course, Apple and Google can shut CurrentC down before they even get out of the starting gate - simply ban them from the app stores. This would prevent the software from being installed on anything iOS other than a jailbroken device. And, if Google choose not to allow it in the store, the only means to install it would be a side-install. Without an ability to have the consumer to install it, it will die pretty quick. Merchants would be forced to reconsider their strategy or face more competition from those merchants who demonstrate a willingness to protect the consumer and use one of the more anonymous systems such as ApplePay or Google Wallet.
As for merchants who say they won't accept credit cards - they do so at their own risk. To me, the smarter move would have been to work with Apple and Google and develop a system that meets merchant needs while protecting the consumer AND get it installed on the widest range of machines. Or, maybe, just rethink their business model.
With the compromised emails floating around, who knows who REALLY sent out the notice. ;)
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
For years, these MCX folks allowed NFC payments, meaning potentially Google Wallet payments. Apple Pay comes out with an EMV based solution, and instantly block all NFC, taking Apple Pay and Wallet down together. So, Google was never seen as a threat, or at least never passing the threshold of needing-to-ban, even after years of use, but Apple is seen as a potential threat from literally Day One.
I wonder why Apple is seen as a threat more? Their network of friends? Number of potential users can't be it - many more Android phones than iPhone 6s. Number of cards already in iTunes? Ease of use (i never even tried Google Wallet)? Did Google leak some of the info back to the retailers where Apple is balking at that info leak?
Just wondering.
We should demand similar protection against ALL electronic charges, whether or not credit was involved. Telephone slamming should be included too. Our bank accounts need protection too. The burden of proof should be on those who are responsible for the installing and maintaining the system. Not the little guys who are users of the system.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I don't believe those two things can be reconciled.
The merchants want all of your data, and want to be able to operate with zero liability.
The consumers want security and privacy.
The people developing CurrenC are pretty much at odds with what consumers actually need. Which means this system can never be fixed or trusted, because it's not designed for that.
It's designed to make them more money, and get them more analytics. They don't give a rats ass about the consumer.
They want to be like PayPal ... act like a bank, with none of the liabilities of being a bank, and none of the responsibilities.
This is sort of like trusting the mob to be your financial advisors ... there's pretty much no win for the consumers here.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I'll trust Visa more not because they've been at it a while, but because the law gives me a good deal of protection against fraud. CurrentC does not use credit cards, it requires direct access to your checking account. That means none of the legal protections against fraud that apply to credit cards. It also means that if their servers get breached, and that bank account information is stolen, the thieves aren't stealing money from the bank, and the bank responsible for getting it back, but rather, they're stealing my money from my bank account, and it's up to me to get it back. And my bank isn't responsible, and the merchant probably isn't either, according to their terms of service, and the people behind CurrentC are likely a shell corporation with nothing to sue them for.
CurrentC looks, to me, like the biggest bucket of bad ideas in the history of electronic payment.
And, don't forget the part where (in addition to everything you said), the system is also designed to give merchants access to more information about your purchases and buying history.
So, it's a badly written system, designed to tap directly into your account, with no liability on their behalf, coupled with an added amount of access to your information to violate your privacy.
There's really not a damned single thing about this which is in any way good for the consumer ... I'm sure they'll try very hard to get people to use it (and in some cases might actually try to make it mandatory).
I agree, the entire premise of this system makes one go "WTF are you clowns thinking?" This is an insane amount of terrible ideas which have no net benefit to the consumer -- unless they create artificial benefits like their rewards program.
But losing the security of your bank account to people who are too greedy and incompetent to implement security is a terrible idea.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Merchant needs, not wants. Merchants dont need your data, they want your data. And I dont want to use a payment system that gives it to them, no matter the rewards.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Why was this modded down? You don't think this might happen, if it hasn't already, considering what we see the cops do these days? While it may be speculative at this point, it most certainly is plausible. I hope the moderation will be corrected.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
This is a company that requires your social security number and full bank info for an account. Any bit of nerves about that is bad. Even just emails, it's bad. That and spear-phishing (shudder, I hate that term) emails are gonna cause more chaos. Also, maybe the emails is all we know about? If i hacked a payment processor, with the potential of getting payment info, SS numbers, and bank account numbers, Id keep that under my hat as I slowly drain things, no need to call the press on that. This is bad bad bad.
ApplePay allows you to give a credit card, which already has fraud protection on it. A couple orders of magnitude of peace of mind. Which would you pick?
It hasn't been breached... they just got a hold of their email mailing list! This is the crappiest bad summary of all crappy bad summaries.
Yes, and their ability to manage a mailing list is in no way related to their ability to manage more sensitive information, in their system that isn't even live yet.
My understanding is that even on NFC-equipped Android phones, Google never had a proper deployment strategy; they only partnered with a few card issuers, they didn't really work with any merchants to get them on board, Verizon blocked their app on their phones, it was only limited to the US, etc.
Over that first weekend, we know now that ApplePay adoption was in the millions, and in those first few days CVS probably saw this deluge of NFC transactions and were like, the jig is up, the train is leaving the station, and if we continue to allow NFC transactions through the 2014 Christmas season the Payments War will be over and CurrenC won't have even been a contender.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
No, see, that's where you're wrong.
The entire CurrenC system is designed to give merchants more access to your data. This is from TFA:
And if you really trust a merchant created system to respect your wishes and not track you, you're hopelessly naive.
Wait, what?
So which is it? They don't want my data? Or they want my data so they can sell it and make even more money?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
That'd probably raise some anti-trust issues, though.
Given CurrentC's complete tone-deafness about what consumers actually want in a mobile payment system (easy, secure, private, pick none?), the best strategy Apple and Google could choose is to keep pushing their respective solutions and ignore CurrentC entirely.
Log in or piss off.
why is parent not modded funny?
Because people who actually pay attention have noticed that Apple has been making privacy protection an important, heavily promoted, feature to help distinguish their products in the market. People who actually pay attention have noticed Apple's description of the lengths to which Apple Pay goes to be secure, and to provide NO tracking information. But go ahead and bash away if it somehow makes your day a little more tolerable ;-)
The other thing CurrentC seems to have goofed on is that there is no way in hell this system will ever see the light of day outside the USA.
The USA may still live in the backwater side of banking where people still commonly pay for groceries by cheque, but in the rest of the world the idea of giving a third party your bank account information is quite foreign nowadays. There is absolutely no way in hell I would ever use this system, and if someone at Walmart asked me for my chequeing account information I would laugh in their face.
The sooner we figure out a way to cut out credit card processors from the purchase experience the better.
I really like the fraud protection my credit card offers me. Totally worth the effective 2% tax on the price of goods. Debit cards aren't the same. I haven't been impressed with PayPal, and have no reason to try the Apple/Google/MS/Startup offerings - CCs work fine.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
That'd probably raise some anti-trust issues, though.
Whats good for the goose is good for the gander. CurrentC stores in the CurrentC consortium (thats what it is, regardless of what they call it) are actively blocking NFC cards, one of which allowed it to occur for a period of time and then when a competitor hit the market before them, they actively worked to disable the ability to use the service.
Any sort of anti-trust issue that arises from Google and Apple banning their apps is the same as CurrentC users banning the use of NFC. They lost this battle when they took active steps to stop a working system. They might have had an argument about 'not upgrading to equipment with NFC' for various reasons, but thats not what they did. CVS has NFC capable equipment and WAS accepting it, then turned it off.
They (CurrentC) loses
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