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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."
Secure? I have no problems keeping on me credit cards with $30k spending limits. Would you keep that amount in cash on you all the time with no fear of getting robbed?
It isn't alleged-- TFA states CurrenC sent out a notice saying email addresses were compromised.
Wow... I don't personally care for the Walled iGarden, but you don't just get to make up numbers and then damn them for your imagination.
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.
In my time we used to wait for a full roll out to break a system. Kids today lack the common courtesy to wait for the big payoff, and now we see the real price. It gives these folks the time to put another band-aid on their hack of a system and try again. You kids should have the decency to wait until it is rolled out to enough places to make a big score. It saddens me to see what has happened to this once great country.
Phew. That's OK then!
"CurrentC Allegedly Breached" would have been a more appropriate headline, that also doesn't necessarily expose anyone to a lawsuit if it turns out to be bullshit.
Did you read the fine article? MCX confirmed that "unauthorized third parties obtained the e-mail addresses of some of our CurrentC pilot program participants and individuals who had expressed interest in the app." They also sent emails notifying their users, No "allegedly" needed; it's not bullshit.
They're assholes who are about to get completely fucked and lose whatever kind of war they think they can win against Google and Apple.
My chief problem is I'm hopelessly conflicted over which group of assholes I want to win and which group of assholes I want to lose.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"We take the security of our users' information extremely seriously, but in this particular case, you're all screwed!"
They're blocking Apply Pay and Google Wallet.
Good point. It sounds like this could almost fall under anticompeition/antitrust laws.
i think for the pilot program the only thing stored is the email addresses. No credit cards or links to checking accounts. I saw that somewhere..
This is the problem with a new system like this. Especially one designed to make more money for the retailers, and give them more access to consumer data.
They simply haven't been at this long enough to be trustworthy or competent at it.
And, historically, many of the vendors involved in the creation of this system have been fairly inept at implementing security, and fairly moronic about reporting it when it happens. Or understanding the severity of it when it happens.
So, sorry guys, I'll trust my bank -- because I know they're operating under at least some laws, and I'll trust VISA more than I'll trust you (because they've been at this for a while) ... but I will never use this system if I have a choice.
This is a payment system which is designed to make them more money, and give them more information to consumer information at point of sale. Which means they've primarily focused on those things, and have proven themselves to have done a terrible job at security.
So, what's in it for us consumers? I'd say nothing at all which provides value to us, other than the shiny baubles and discounts they're offering in return for them getting higher profits, and a much more detailed look at how and where you spend your money -- which they don't currently have since the CC processors don't let them have it.
The people making this new system are interested in it for entirely different reasons. Which means everything they do is for their benefit, and not ours.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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.
And I imagine it'll suffer the same fate.
Sorry about the mess.
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 have NFC enabled devices at retailers everywhere here in Canada yet Google Wallet only works in the US. Seems they have given up on the idea entirely.
The vast majority of coverage on CurrentC is negative – now this. It will be interesting to see how long they keep this thing on life support before pulling the plug. Anything after this would seem like good money after bad.
Everybody in the tech community was already worried about direct access to bank accounts and no fraud protection. How will the consortium behind CurrentC answer the already swirling security concerns when this happens so quickly after members give Apple Pay (and it's biometric locks) the boot?
Letter To Iran
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.
After all, you can bet Google and Apple will try to resell ads and intelligence to the highest bidders, whoever those bidders might be, based purely on the data of the purchase history inside those stores.
No, you can bet Google will, and Apple will not.
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.
I think that would be a risky move. This is one of those areas the 'regulators' are likely to wade into sooner or latter. Apple and Google don't want to be seen as bad actors. Right now there is a fair amount of goodwill for both Apple Pay and Google Wallet.
Its "Old/Big retail" that is out there trying to suppress competition to push product that various consumer advocates might not see as being good for the consumer. My guess is Apple and Google will seek their victories in the court room and on K street.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
> Secure? I have no problems keeping on me credit cards with $30k spending limits. Would you keep that amount in cash on you all the time with no fear of getting robbed?
Cash equivalents are readily available in those amounts and they can be secured if stolen.
Although it's dubious that you actually require the ability to make a $30K payment. You probably wouldn't get authorization for such a thing even if you attempted it.
Of course what you are describing there is not your actual spending power but your total line of credit.
You are confused and you are muddling terms you don't seem to understand.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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.
You sir (or madam) seem not too familiar with Wall Street... Please allow me to introduce myself and the wonderful security offerings I just happen to have! You're guaranteed to make money!*
* ahem, make money for me....
cool frameworks and Languages too!
When are programmers going to wake up and smell the coffee!
You are screwing around with peoples money. You cannot just slap the latest cool frameworks together, write 50 lines of connection code and call it a system.
I would be willing to bet that there is a single database credential that has rights to insert/update/delete/select on all the tables in the system and its is stored in some xml file that the web application has access to and if the web application has access to it so do all the people trying to break in.
I cannot begin to count just how many times I have seen the following:
select * from users where id=? and password=?
and that returns everything about the user. Every modern database supports either functions or procedures to do something like:
validate_user(uname,upass);
and it simply returns true or false, 1 or 0 nothing more, nothing less.
Far far to often I hear, lets use [ fill in the blank ] framework because that is what everyone else uses and besides look how much more productive we are! And so it is taken upon nothing more than faith and 90% of the time the people saying vehemently that that is the way to go, understand perhaps 10% of the framework code and don't investigate any further. When you are considering a framework that is 100's of thousands of lines of code that more then likely wouldn't pass the particular languages version of Lint or Bounds or any other validation tool you have already lost the security war.
The people who are actively trying to break into large systems do their homework! They spend weeks or months looking at your generated web code looking for patterns that reveal the underlying frameworks and then comb through that code looking for even the most subtle vulnerabilities and then they make a plan and execute it.
When you are building systems like this if you don't start with security as priority #1, for the entire stack you will lose, it is just a matter of time.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
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!”
Dunno about pissing people off, but massive Streisand effect for Apple Pay. The payment so good it's been BANNED. I don't think anyone now thinks about how it wasn't ready when 8.0 shipped, all that lag and slowness is now lost to "they banned it, the punks".
The odd thing is, Apple is actually pushing a standard here, the EMV standard. (though I guess you can say MCX is a standard too). It's just they have the best hardware for it, with decent (but not unhackable) security with TouchID. TouchID hit a sweet spot in the balance between security and convenience.
CurrentC Spokesman: Hello everyone, We're CurrentC. Screw Apple Pay and it's 1 million users! We're gonna go head-to-head with a major technology company using our tried and true 40 year old technology. Sure, all of our members have had huge data breaches in the past year but we're serious about it now and we're doing it right, for you, our customer. Trust us!
Spectator: Umm, you dropped something there -points at ground-
CurrentC Spokesman: Awww, Mother Pussbucket #*@^% #$)!( , @*!))(!
Warning: Teh poster of this messaeg is lysdexic
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?
A credit card isn't cash, credit cards emit a very long paper trail. Imagine how easy the police's job would be if criminals actually used credit cards in the manner you describe.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Why not? It works on the campaign trail... Made up numbers win elections and gain more customers all the time. We reward the vivid imagination, the more flamboyant and extravagant the better. That's how you make the sale. Yes, it sets a bad example, but there's little to no negative feedback, quite the opposite, so expect more of it.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
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.
The credit card companies don't allow stores to charge more for a cc transaction.
At least here in North Carolina, as well as in Virgina, and in Kansas, I've seen chains of gas stations that have a "cash price" (also the price that you get if you use the chain's own brand credit card) and a higher price (usually about 8 to 10 cents higher per gallon) if you use a major Credit Card. I don't see Visa doing anything to prevent this. In fact, the law was changed recently at the federal level to explicitly allow merchants to tack on a credit card processing fee, although many major merchants such as WalMart have said so far that they will not do that (although one has to suspect that the politicians who passed this were motivated to do so by someone with an interest in doing it).
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
That's ok. They just have to wait until the inevitable account-compromising security flaw is discovered and THEN rightfully ban them from the store for potentially exposing their customer's entire bank accounts to theft...
Bottles.
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.
There is another bit player in the field. Don't pretend like it's any more than that.
Apple Pay has been out for a week. It's done more business than Google Wallet did in, what, 3 years? How many banks signed on to Google Wallet vs Apple Pay?
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
NFC is not EMV. They are using technology that's compatible with Mastercard's Paypass, Visa's payWave, and so on. EMV is chip and pin.
Particularly when using CAPSLOCK, please be sure to use the correct term. Chip and Pin. Most English speakers are lazy enough in their pronunciation that it comes out as a homophone. But even if you couldn't hear the difference between "in" and "and", you ought to be able to work it out from context: you've got a chip, and you've got a pin; the chip does not reside in the pin.
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 ;-)
they just got a hold of their email mailing list
From registered email addresses, you can get things like home address/phone number, and lots more data that may be of interest.
Basically the breach got a bunch of primary keys they can use to get something more juicy later.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Would you consider home address, and phone number also to be a bit of a breach?
Because you can get those and a lot more with just the email address and a call to the CurrentC web service.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Because Google Wallet and Apple Pay work in opposite ways.
For a retailer to support Google Wallet, they need to work with Google and their merchant processor to support Google Wallet. Because what really happens is the transaction details are forwarded to Google who then charges your payment method (credit card, debit, Paypal, bank account, etc). This is why Google knows everything about your transaction whenever you use Google Wallet. (Basically Google gets to know everything about what you're buying).
Apple Pay is nothing more than EMV so it's just an electronic credit card. Once you register your card through Apple Pay, Apple is no longer in the transaction. As long as the retailer takes credit cards, and has an NFC reader, Apple Pay will work. Most of the retailers listed by Tim Cook? They did diddly squat to support it. They just had working readers and probably someone came over and tried it and was successful.
Because to support Apple Pay means you need an EMV compatible terminal (swipe, chip+pin, NFC) and processor, and because of October 2015 legislation, people are supporting it by default since practically all new terminals have it. So all a retailer needs to do to get Apple Pay support is make sure their hardware (terminals) is upgraded (which they're doing anyways over the next year) and their processor supports EMV (which if they're doing chip+pin, they're going to have support for).
However, for Apple Pay to work, Apple needs to work with banks to ensure when a user scans a credit card,, they can get a token assigned in its place (the token is private between the user and the bank, and is basically just an index so the bank can determine who to bill).
So Google Wallet requires no effort by banks, etc., and effort by retailers to support. Apple Pay only requires hardware updates they're doing anyways which is minor, but effort by the banks to support EMV.
That's why Google Wallet's penetration has been low - there are probably more retailers that support Bitcoin than Google Wallet just because. (Though if your processor is adding support for Bitcoin, they probably have Google Wallet support as well).
For Apple Pay, because for retailers it "comes for free", which means its market penetration is far higher than what Tim Cook had in his presentation. Because retailers who already have NFC terminals practically already support EMV and that makes them Apple Pay compatible with zero effort.
So retailers may be inadvertently supporting Apple Pay when they don't want to because Apple Pay just shows up as a credit card.
My chief problem is I'm hopelessly conflicted over which group of assholes I want to win and which group of assholes I want to lose.
Well golly gee! It's not like there's not a choice of "none of the above". Ah, but, *Give me convenience, or give me death* :-)
At first I was going to mod this up, but then I thought a bit more about it. Let me give you a better example of what the grandparent was likely getting at:
RealNetworks, Inc. v. DVD Copy Control Association, Inc.
Let's face it, I sincerely doubt that ANY slashdotter uses Realplayer on a regular basis. Most of us file it under "relics of the 90's" or "squandered tech opportunities" or something similar. Had RealNetworks won that case, I sincerely doubt anyone here would have actually purchased or used this application. However, this court case was one where many of us were hoping that RealNetworks would win - not for the amazing software or for the continued growth of RealNetworks, but for the court precedent. If RealNetworks won, it would be the first piece to fall of the problem of legislatively backed DRM. The war would continue, of course, but it would be a start.
I can't speak for the GP, but I concur with his sentiment. I don't think that Apple, Google, or these retailers have my best interest at heart. Not in the slightest. However, they all want the same thing: money. Apple seems generally better about not directly selling marketing data, but there's also no guarantee that they're not doing it under the table. Even without the tin foil hat, Apple may keep all that data in-house, and if iCloud security is any indication, that database security is questionable. Aunt Google, we all know, sells marketing data - they compete just as much with ClearChannel as they do with Microsoft - arguably more so. Retailers have their own science about how to psychologically manipulate you to buy stuff in their store. Apple may be the 'least offensive' in this lineup since their biggest crime is still a matter of speculation, but they're still no saint, even by corporate standards.
Thus, we have ourselves a bit of a conundrum. Even if you and I continue to use cash, the order invariably goes "opt-in, opt-out, alternatives disincentivized, alternatives socially unacceptable, alternatives impossible/illegal". Thus, the question becomes "who do we want blazing that trail?" That's the true question being asked by the GP, and unfortunately, I agree.
CurrentC is Walmart. It is not Google nor Apple.
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.
How many banks signed on to Google Wallet vs Apple Pay?
Zero. That's not how Google Wallet works.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
The proper term is not 'robbed', it's "civil forfeitured". By confusing the two terms, you sully the reputation of thieves who ply their craft without the aid of crooked DA's and the DEA.
Doesn't everyone hate Walmart? Including their customers, suppliers and employees?
How many banks signed on to Google Wallet vs Apple Pay?
Umm, effectively all of them, since you can use Google Wallet with any credit or debit card, which is far more than Apple Pay supports, at present.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
A payment system needs some thought put into it. As a fallback, if a credit card is abused, the money is reimbursed, charges are reversed. This is a tried and true system for over 40+ years.
Other systems don't have this protection. Debit cards, once the money is out, it is gone. Third party providers? I have read stories of some various payment providers permanently banning people from using them if fraud happens and a charge is reversed, so at best one winds up going through their "fraud" measures, which likely will result in nothing.
I don't see anything that even remotely approaches Visa/Mastercard for a reliable, secure, system where if a customer gets screwed (even if it is a double-charge at a restaruant, and the place refuses to bother going back), money would be returned. Visa/Mastercard also demand a level of security for all links in the chain. In virtually everywhere else in the computing industry, there are no useful laws (FERPA/SOX/HIPAA are never enforced), no regulations... nothing at all to ensure security regulations are kept. The CurrenC hack would not have happened if PCI-DSS3 guidelines were in place.
Yes, Visa/MC are a near monopoly, but they have earned it, and have earned a trust, which is very hard to get. No, they are not perfect, but they do quite a good job at at least doing something to stem the tide of credit card fraud, and reimbursing if/when it happens.
I don't see other payment systems, other than the ones that are based on credit cards, having this innate protection. Consumers read about many, many places getting hacked on an almost daily basis, so they have almost zero faith in security measures. If a payment system can't undo bogus charges, then consumers will stick with one that does, and if nobody gives guarantees against fraud, the end users will go with cash, as it takes far more than an Internet connection to make coins or paper money.
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.
"CtnerruC" suggests something of Cthulhu to me. That doesn't so much "ring" as "slither".
And any technology that reduces the incidence of credit card fraud leads to reduced swipe fees in the long run, so long as there continues to be competition among card issuers.
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
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
No, no, no. It says it right in the quote. Users can select what information they *WANT* to share with retailers. All of their information will be shared, regardless, just some because the user want it, and the rest because the retailers do.
Walmart organized MCX and leads it. http://www.forbes.com/sites/la... I don't know where you are getting the "evil" part but it most certainly is WalMart's design.
Nonsense. Apple doesn't have a monopoly of mobile App Stores.
You may think that they have a monopoly of App Stores for iOS. But monopolies doesn't work like that. Having control of your own product isn't a monopoly. A product isn't a market.
Likewise no problem with Gillette only allowing Gillette blades, or HP printers only allowing HP ink.
If Apple could be subject to monopoly rules forcing them to stock apps, it would have been an issue already many times over the years. It hasn't been because there's no legal problem here.
Viewed from one perspective, so do all businesses. But look at it from another perspective, no company is successful if they don't meet needs of their customers.
You are quite simply wrong. An attempt at a monopoly is illegal too.
Yes it is. That doesn't make me wrong. I didn't claim to outline every aspect of monopoly law. That bit isn't relevant to the point in question.
No, shutting down the CurrentC app wouldn't be a slam dunk antitrust case, but it would absolutely carry antitrust risk-
It is not illegal.
especially if Apple colluded with Google.
Which as already mentioned is highly unlikely.