How safe are you in a purely digital economy? If you are carrying cash, someone can of course rob you, or you can lose it or give it to someone. You can also have a stash of it at home for emergencies or for buying something from a garage sale. For the most part, you retain control over any cash you manage. Electronic cash can still be stolen and your ability to spend it can be taken by someone else if your details get into the wrong hands. However, it's convenient, just tap and go, or in some cases, just wave your smartphone over a pad. While you have no idea where your money actually is, a small piece of plastic, your watch or a phone can retrieve it for you for a payment. You can even use it to get cash from a wall.
- What happens if you take away cash altogether? I recently had a notification from my bank about a charge. When I looked, it wasn't from me so I replied to the SMS with a no. I immediately lost access to my credit card as it was blocked for safety, and a new one was to be sent within seven days. If I didn't have any cash, I was basically unable to buy anything for a few days. If I had multiple credit cards, that would help, but since I have Google Pay or the equivalent on my phone, the new credit card was automatically linked to that before I even received the new piece of plastic. If I had neither of those, it would have been annoying for a while.
- Without cash and if my ability to use electronic funds was controlled by a third party, say a government, then no cash would mean I was at the mercy of that agency. Some people in China and Canada have already experienced this. Take a step back and imagine the power goes out for a week. After about two days there is no cell service, you can't order food, pay for petrol, buy anything at a store or from anywhere else. No cash removes all options, except for traditional bartering, from everyone. It's worth thinking about.
- A while back I mentioned this subject and it hasn't changed. The British government allows their public sector .gov.uk websites to host advertising. So what, you reply. Britain has been making noise about what China has been doing lately. What links these two things? Chinese ad brokers. It's not just the UK. The security company Silent Push has identified 18 websites in the UK and US that send visitor data to web brokers, including one in China that has been involved in past privacy concerns. The full report can be found here silentpush.com/blog/chinese-adtech. There are supposed to be rules about advertising on government websites and I would think that these should be particularly important for foreign nations with whom you have tensions.
- It works by a web page publishing an ads.txt file listing businesses allowed to sell that site's ad space to an advertiser when a visitor loads the page. This happens in real time, even to the point of bidding between businesses handled by the advertising exchanges based on the identity of the visitor and their importance to the advertiser. The Chinese vendor is Yeahmobi. A broker has access to the visitor's IP address and other information. All in all, this is another good reason to invest in a VPN.
- I had to smile at the Austria's foreign minister last week who called for a ban on "killer robots". If you haven't watched the Boston Robotics dog carrying and firing a flame thrower, then do so. If you have, or are a fan of the Terminator series, then you may understand where the foreign minister is coming from, calling it the "Oppenheimer moment of our generation". As a general rule, technology is great until it goes wrong. Armed, autonomous robots going wrong is not a comforting thought. We are at the point where controls should be placed on such devices, but there are not worldwide coordinated efforts to do so and some nation states would simply ignore such a directive anyway. In related news, the US Air Force and Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, aka Darpa, have documented efforts to put AI in control of tanks and even an F-16 fighter jet.
- Now a few short topics. According to former senior White House cyber policy director A.J. Grotto, Microsoft has way too much control over IT within the federal government. He says it's fair to call this a national security issue. Australia will be moving into quantum computing, claiming to be doing pioneering work in the field. The federal and Queensland government have pledged A$940 (22.7 million baht) for a start-up. Given the history of quantum computing, I'm predicting this will not end well for taxpayers. Hubble has celebrated the 34th anniversary of launch, which in satellite time is very long. It celebrated by entering safe mode for a gyroscope problem.
James Hein is an IT professional with over 30 years' standing. You can contact him at jclhein@gmail.com.
