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    <title>GNU Taler - Taxable Anonymous Libre Electronic Reserves: Financial News</title>
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        <h1 lang="en">Financial News</h1>
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          <h2>22-12-2015: Sicherheitsforscher hacken das EC-Bezahlsystem</h2>
          <p>Security researchers found serious security flaws in the German &quot;electronic cash&quot; system
             which enable criminals to withdraw funds from merchant accounts based on the information printed
             on receipts and other information obtained from public sources or point-of-sales terminals purchased
             online.<br>
             The German &quot;electronic cash&quot; system is based on the &quot;Poseidon&quot; protocol, for
             which there is no publicly accessible specification or reference implementation. This has allowed 
             such major security holes to persist for decades.
          </p>
          <p><a class="btn btn-info" href="http://www.zeit.de/digital/datenschutz/2015-12/electronic-cash-bezahlsystem-terminals-gehackt" role="button">Source</a></p>
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          <h2>30-4-2015: 1970 Researchers Predicted Debit Cards Would be Great for Surveillance</h2>
          <p>&quot;Suppose you were an advisor to the head of the KGB,
          the Soviet Secret Police. Suppose you are given the
          assignment of designing a system for the surveillance of all
          citizens and visitors within the boundaries of the USSR. The
          system is not to be too obtrusive or obvious. What would be
          your decision?&quot;<br>
          The think tank RAND essentially answered this question with
          a blueprint for modern payment systems.  Taler offers an
          escape from the financial panopticon.
          </p>
          <p><a class="btn btn-info" href="http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/1970s-researchers-predicted-debit-cards-would-be-great-1699216972" role="button">Source</a></p>
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          <h2>17-3-2015: Pointing Fingers in Apple Pay Fraud</h2>
          <p>Apple Pay may be easy to use, but the simplistic
            user identification creates opportunities for fraud,
            resulting in much higher fraud rates than even with traditional
            credit card systems.<br>
            Taler does not require user identification, enabling
            ease of use while also being effective against fraud.
          </p>
          <p><a class="btn btn-info" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/business/banks-find-fraud-abounds-in-apple-pay.html?_r=0" role="button">Source</a></p>
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          <h2>6-12-2014: Visa and MasterCard's uncompetitive business practices</h2>
          <p>The Visa and MasterCard duopoly has eliminated competition among
             banks, setting fees that take away a significant share of profits from
             small merchants.<br>
             Taler is an open standard with free software
             implementations, so merchants do not have to fear a lack of competition.
          </p>
          <p><a class="btn btn-info" href="http://www.ocregister.com/articles/gas-644344-card-fees.html" role="button">Source</a></p>
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          <h2>5-12-2014: US judge rules banks can sue merchant for bad security</h2>
          <p>Merchants taking credit card data from customers now have to additionally
             fear banks suing them for losses.  It is not suggested that the merchant
             in question was not in compliance with PCI DSS security audit procedures.<br>
             With Taler, merchants never handle sensitive personal credit data, and
             thus neither customers, mints nor governments would even have standing to
             sue merchants in court.  Thus, if a merchant system were to be compromised,
             the damage would be limited to the merchant's own operations.
          <p><a class="btn btn-info" href="http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/12/judge-rules-that-banks-can-sue-target-for-2013-credit-card-hack/" role="button">Source</a></p>
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          <h2>5-12-2014: PayPal for Android gains fingerprint support</h2>
          <p>Following Visa and MasterCard's move to biometrics, PayPal
             now supports authenticating purchases with fingerprint
             recognition.
             Hence, police can now <a href="http://www.findlaw.co.uk/law/government/civil_rights/500374.html">forcefully take user's fingerprints</a> and
             <a href="http://www.wired.com/2013/09/the-unexpected-result-of-fingerprint-authentication-that-you-cant-take-the-fifth/">access their mobile computers</a> and possibly empty their electronic wallets
             <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/american-shakedown-police-won-t-charge-you-but-they-ll-grab-your-money-1.2760736">in addition to their physical wallets</a>.<br>
             For Taler, we advise users to protect their digital wallets using
             passphrases.
          </p>
          <p><a class="btn btn-info" href="http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tech/news/a614631/paypal-for-android-gains-fingerprint-support-on-samsung-devices.html" role="button">Source</a></p>
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          <h2>10-9-2014: PayPal accounts hacked with a click</h2>
          <p>Yasser Ali reports a now patched vulnerability in PayPal that would
             have allowed him to reset other user's passwords and take over their
             accounts. This is unlikely to be the last vulnerability found in
             account-based payment systems.<br>
             In Taler, customers do not have accounts with usernames, passwords
             or associated e-mail addresses.  Instead, Taler uses reserves which
             are represented by a private key on the owner's computer.  Users
             create a reserve by depositing currency at a Taler mint, and can then
             withdraw digital coins from that reserve using the respective private
             key.  There is no limit on the number of reserves a user can have, and
             even hacking the Taler mint would not provide an adversary with access to
             user's reserves (as the Taler mint does not have the private keys).
             Stealing in Taler requires breaking into each customer's computer to
             extract the reserve keys or the coins from the digital wallet.
          </p>
          <p><a class="btn btn-info" href="http://yasserali.com/hacking-paypal-accounts-with-one-click/" role="button">Source</a></p>
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          <h2>13-11-2014: Visa and MasterCard's to move from passwords to biometrics</h2>
          <p>Visa and MasterCard are planning to &quot;simplify hated verification
             systems&quot; by moving from passwords to security codes on mobiles
             and biometrics.  Continuing their flawed insistence on verifying identity,
             Visa and MasterCard will thus build a very personal picture of their
             customers, from shopping habbits down to their cardiac rhythm.<br>
             Taler does not require a customer's identity to verify a payment, as the
             payment system cryptographically verifies the coins.  Thus, Taler does
             not have to intrude into any personal detail of a citizen's life, and
             certainly not their private medical data.
          </p>
          <p><a class="btn btn-info" href="http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/nov/13/mastercard-visa-kill-off-verification-systems" role="button">Source</a></p>
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          <h2>15-9-2013: NSA follows the Money</h2>
          <p>Despite the EU allowing the NSA access to financial transaction data to
             track terrorists and organized crime, the NSA saw it necessary to
             target international payment processors including SWIFT and Visa.
             As terrorism and organized crime are covered by legal means, industrial
             espionage to improve the US economy is the only remaining US national
             interest within the NSA's mandate that would explain this illegal activity.<br>
             With Taler, mints will only learn the value of a merchant's transactions,
             not who paid or for what (governments may learn what was sold).  Thus,
             the Taler mint is a significantly less interesting target for industrial
             espionage.
          </p>
          <p><a class="btn btn-info" href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/spiegel-exclusive-nsa-spies-on-international-bank-transactions-a-922276.html" role="button">Source</a></p>
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