There are over 6000 banks and credit unions in the US. And all 6k of them miraculously manage to be shit. I don’t get it. You would think out of that many choices there would be one non-shit option.
Though to be fair credit unions only give the illusion of independent and small. They actually all outsource to other giant corps, so it amounts to fewer choices than it appears.
So IIUC, that clip is not just a voice print that verifies my voice, but a recording which can then be used to recreate my voice. Cyber criminals are going apeshit with all the AI and voice impersonation lately.
Banks are such a shit show there is no better alternative than what I have and ideally I would ditch all banks entirely. I really need to be able to force my bank to not keep my voice on record. But I suppose that’s not an option. I probably have no choice but to try to choose the least shitty bank over the others.
I covered this in my footnote. Billpay services are free for a reason. Whatever that reason is, I don’t trust it. Banks themselves do not do the billpay service in house. They outsource it. Which means an outside 3rd party is getting that sensitive info and providing a service for free. Fuck that. I would rather buy stamps. (but I don’t do paper checks either for complex reasons)
bank’s possible sneaky way of collecting my voice
I call my credit card supplier to make a payment over the phone. This is because other payment methods are a shitshow¹. The robot says it will record my voice and use it for verification purposes. I’m not okay with that so I press buttons until a human comes on. I order the payment to draw from a checking acct. Then the operator transferred me a bot that said “state your name to confirm this payment”. Now what? I was trapped.
I wonder if this is something I should be giving a shit about. My data is routinely exfiltrated by criminals. I’m not sure if voice prints are being stolen in that way or how they might be used. Perhaps voice print is even more secure for the consumer. If the voiceprint cannot be used to create a voice, only to verify it, then a voice print may even be less useful for criminals than security questions. Any thoughts on this?
¹ (billpay is outsourced likely to a privacy abuser; will not do autopay because I want control [the purpose of privacy]; mailing a paper check is best for privacy but cannot be bothered for various reasons).
This is half the reason he doesn’t want to do it.
I really hope the democrats take full advantage of spinning that as yet another anti-democratic Trump move.. that it’s anti-democratic to impede informed voting.
Interesting that they are still today apparently served by mentioning Obama’s middle name.
Whenever I see Obama referred to by his full name, I instantly know that the author is pushing manipulative islamaphobic dog-whistle propaganda and everything else by such authors automatically has zero credibility, lacks substance, and the drivel is a waste of time to finish reading. I wonder if that manipulation attempt is still largely unknown, or if the rt-wing nut jobs are really just out of touch with the pursuadables they are trying to reach and thus shooting themselves in the foot.
I must say he’s right about one thing: the US is a one-party system.
Or more specifically I would say the US is a two-party system for white men (+Kanye West) and a one-party system for everyone else.
NY Times is a closed website. Paywalled or something? I could not reach it from Tor at least not with my browser. Could be a popup-blocker blocker, not sure. Anyway, the link I gave is a NY Times front-end that is openly accessible, though clearnet users might have to append a .cab or something. There are probably NY Times FEs on clearnet but I don’t know of any ATM.
(edit) actually I think that’s NY Times official onion server. Anyway, for whatever reason it has better accessibility than the clearnet version.
Hold the debate anyway. Have Kamala appear next to an empty chair.
Moderator: giving Trump a couple more minutes to appear.
(~5 min later)
Moderator: Trump is a no show. Hmm.. he originally eagerly agreed to this September debate with Biden. It’s unclear why the change of heart, but I have to say he forfeits by default.
Kamala (interrupts): Hold on, please call Trump’s probation officer to verify his attendance permission while we wait a few more min. He’s understandably a bit skiddish with prosecutors lately but I would like to yield some of my time & do him this courtesy since he donated to my campaign in 2011 & 2013.
(~5 min later)
Moderator: no go, but would you like to answer the questions next to an empty chair to have your answers heard anyway?
Kamala: yes, this way he can take all the time he needs to prepare a scripted response later given his cognitive challenges….
Ha! I predicted this!
I also predicted Biden’s disaster and asked people around me why the fuck is Biden going to debate Trump. People said “he has no choice”. I found that quite questionable. Now Trump seems to be proving that candidates have a choice.
Sure Trump’s cowardice will damage his campaign. But getting an ass-beating in the debate is even more damaging, as Biden proved. So Trump is making his best tactical move for his ability.
(edit)
I would like it if the headlines were “Trump forfeits the debate” to rightfully emphasize the lossy nature of the decision.
bank card → ATM info exposure and collection (question for banking tech people)
Any tech finance folks know what information ATMs get from bank cards?
I found a few articles on how ATMs work:
- https://web.archive.org/web/20240301022054/https://www.nasatm.com/pages/how-do-atms-work
- https://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/banking/atm.htm
- https://web.archive.org/web/20240712072800/https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/atm.asp
Those articles all skip the crucial details that privacy embracing users would care about: what all info is on the bank card that ATMs have access to and what does the ATM machines do with it?
In principle, I could only imagine that an ATM would get non-personal details like a card №, acct №, card type, and issuing bank -- not necessarily the card holder’s name or address. I would like to know for certain though. I need to file a complaint against an ATM network and so it matters who the target of my action knows about me. If I disclose the card number connected to transactions I am complaining about to a mediator who shares that with the ATM operator, could the ATM network/operator then obtain my name and retaliate against me for complaining / whistle blowing by blocking all my cards?
These things are small experimentation gardens,
Indeed that was my thought as well. The problem is we don’t have enough consumers experimenting with privacy and/or an analog life. If just a few percent of the population would insist on cash payment, refuse to feed the tech giants, and resist designed obsolescence by using old smartphones (AOS 4-), and run only FOSS, then there could be some headway into ensuring these digital experiments that kill off lifestyle freedom of choice while leaving some people in the dust would rightfully fail. It would be interesting if a consumer union would recruit right-to-be-analog proponents to target merchants among these experimental digital dystopias.
A “pin” receipt, ie. validation of payment is not a legal item to be used for tax deduction because it does not list what you bought nor the amount of tax, not sure if both percentage and the amount must be present.
In the parts of the world I’ve been, an itemised receipt and card receipt are both given or they are combined into one. In my travels through Netherlands I often only receive one form of receipt or the other and sometimes I have to request it.
ATMs are mandated by international treaties to print receipts, yet I’ve noticed some that are perpetually out of paper.
The cashless direction is forcing a “paper trail” on us whether we want it or not, but then at the same time the receipt problems seem to deny us the benefits of the paper trail (to be able to claim tax deductions and make warranty claims). For ultimate control I generally want to pay in cash (for data control) and receive an itemised receipt (for tax/warranty claims) which should be on paper (for more data control).
As far as I know, a customer receipt is not and has never been required.
Then the interesting question is: Do tax auditors accept that if you claim a deduction for a cost where a receipt was not rendered?
What is required is a pin receipt, but you get this when paying with a card.
I find it a bit alienating that Dutch speakers often seem to refer to card payment generically as “PIN payments”. Maybe I’m missing something because PIN typically expands to personal identification number which is an authentication mechanism used for larger amounts of money. In my case it was a small enough transaction to just tap the card and use RFID to identify the card and skip authentication. But indeed I was surprised they accepted a card payment but had no printer to produce a receipt. I wonder what would have happened if my card were the older style which has no EMV and requires a hand-written signature. I probably would have been unable to pay.
BTW, strangely I see your reply in my notifications timeline but not in the thread when I visit the thread. So I’m not sure if you’ll get this reply.
(edit) I can see my own reply to you in the thread, but still not your msg in the thread (unlike the other comment from someone else that I can see fine). Seems like a strange federation issue between our nodes.
cafe in Amsterdam could not produce a receipt -- a “digital transformation” scenario; are receipts no longer obligatory?
Apparently merchants are no longer required to give customers a paper receipt. A cafe with a no-cash sign also had no menus. Normally I would move along but they had something unique that I wanted to try.
They had wifi without a captive portal, so I was able to get online. But the menu would not render in my browser (“Privacy Browser”). No idea what the malfunction was but I just got a black screen when visiting the menu. So the staff had a phone they let me use (which is important because who’s to say that all customers even carry a smartphone).
I was able to place an order. I’m not sure how they normally work out which order goes to what table because there was no step of identifying my table in the UI. Perhaps they guess based on timing of my entrance. After placing an order, I tapped a pay afterwards option. And I was able to pay at the register. But the register had no printer. No way of producing receipts.
me: I would like a receipt please staff: that will be in gmail¹ me: what email? I was never asked for an email address.
Staff discusses among themselves how to add an email address to an order that came from one of their phones. Turns out to be impossible (at least as far as they knew).
¹ yes they really said “gmail” not email, which made me realise /their/ address is gmail, and thus the receipt would be transmitted with Google in the loop.
So even if they could work out a way to associate my email address to the order, the receipt would come from Google. Of course the first problem is assuming customers even have an email account and willingness to share it. The assumption that breaks down in my case is the assumption that I am okay with Google tracking my offline commerce.
GAFAM is investing fortunes in buying offline sales data and I oppose willfully feeding these tech giants. I will not give an email address to a gmail user.
I was denied a receipt because of a competency issue, but had competency not been an issue I would have still been denied a receipt because of my ethical stance. Is this really legal?² What if it had been a business meal subject to a tax deduction? The taxman wants receipts.
After I left, it later occurred to me to ask for a hand-written receipt on a napkin or whatever they can come up with. I will ask for that next time.
² My question of legality is strictly in terms of denying customers a printed receipt. I’m sure it’s illegal from a GDPR standpoint (data minimisation -- my email address is not necessary for performance of the contract).