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London Launches World's First Contactless Payment Scheme For Street Performers (theverge.com)

Posted by msmash on from the moving-forward dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Here's a casualty of the cashless society you might not have previously thought of: the humble street performer. After all, if more of us are paying our way with smartphones and contactless cards, how can we give spare change to musicians on the subway? London has one solution: a new scheme that outfits performers with contactless payment terminals. The project was launched this weekend by the city's mayor, Sadiq Khan, and is a collaboration with Busk In London (a professional body for buskers) and the Swedish payments firm iZettle (which was bought this month by PayPal for $2.2 billion). A select few performers have been testing iZettle's contactless readers on the streets for the past few weeks, and Khan now says the scheme will be rolled out across London's 32 boroughs.

2 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. Let's hope... by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...that some enterprising busker does not put the reader at waist height in a crowded area and gain hundreds of "taps" from unsuspecting passersby.

    1. Re:Let's hope... by tlhIngan · · Score: 4, Interesting

      ...that some enterprising busker does not put the reader at waist height in a crowded area and gain hundreds of "taps" from unsuspecting passersby.

      Which is why I have a NFC jammer in my pocket. It's just a little card that's powered by NFC and just jams the signal by responding. (Basically, in NFC, you send a clock and the card pulses to indicate a 1 or 0. The cards listen as well and if they detect a pulse they didn't send, it means a collision and the card will temporarily disable further responses until inquired again. The card that responds continue to do so unless it detects a collision from a third card. A card that successfully transmits disables itself for further inquiries while still powered).

      So this card continues to send pulses out which prevents all the other cards from responding. NFC readers don't even acknowledge something is happening - they just fail to read anything.

      Attempts to "tap" my wallet result in nothing being read.