I’m biased. I hate digital money for stalkerware.
Taler is one of the coolest projects I’ve seen
Regarding homeless people I’d say just carry a bunch of 2 euro coins. You can get them in a roll against a small payment at exchanges and it’ll last you a long time. That way you can also budget your donations.
cashless society is a really stupid idea. it’s not worth sacrificing privacy and stability for a tiny bit of convenience.
I don’t understand why we can’t have multiple forms of payment. I’ll keep cash and cards so I have options
Same here. In a more general way, I don’t understand why people can’t simply let things coexist in peace. Just because one doesn’t like or use something, doesn’t mean that others shouldn’t. I’m getting tired of that behavior in our society, to be honest.
Need to send a friend some money? How about you download this proprietary app made by some random company who takes a cut out of the middle. Cash is so outdated we need to use phones for no reason
People are shilling something they don’t understand and the regime is taking advantage of their poor education and impulses.
Adults need to adult. Use cash and educate people around you about risks of cashless.
Prolly a futile fight but what are we gonna do, give up? Fuck that
Doing my part.
I agree. If every of us would do their homework right.
Doing my part.
Does anyone actually want a cashless society though?
I don’t carry cash for the same reason I don’t carry my socket wrench. I use it for specific things at specific times but I don’t need it day to day. That doesn’t mean I think socket wrenches should be outlawed.
Governments love the idea. It’s much easier to collect taxes or punish dissidents in a cashless society.
Well, our own government has never said anything about it. If they did propose it I guess our democratic process would find the best way forward. The same could be said of a great many things that will never exist.
Also collecting taxes ought to be easy and fair. If no one cheats then no one pays too much if they do not cheat. Besides that, there’s plenty of other measures that can be applied in 2024 to diminish tax evasion.
It’s now illegal in many parts of Europe to make large cash transactions.
… but how could someone buy a new Audi during a blackout ?
The right to have cash is granted on a constitutional level in the EU, all 27 member states would have to agree to get rid of cash.
I think it is important to have cash as a backup.
A couple of years ago there were some issues with card reading terminals in Germany. Due to a faulty security certificate these card reading terminals were not operational for about a whole month. Many stores were affected, because they almost all use ones from the same manufacturer. The only reason why it wasn’t such a big deal was that people were carrying cash around anyway and were able to switch the method of payment easily. Having cash worked as a backup.
More like it shows dangers of using only one provider for almost all IT infrastructure.
Not necessarily one provider but one point of failure. In this case it was the update system that allowed one company to push something to production on other companies systems.
This
…why not both?
Choice sounds like something people should not be fighting over :)
because cash is disgusting
Agreed. While I agree with the privacy and security arguments against cashless payment methods, I’m still for them for the simple fact that as someone who works as a cashier for a living (or some semblance of one anyway), I’m more aware than the average public of just how DISGUSTING cash actually is.
Is the money really filthy or what?
Oh gods yes.
I get so many bills that are dirty, but also you don’t wanna know all the germs that are on a lot of those bills. Another thing I learned from years of working in retail is that people are also disgusting as all hell. Many people don’t bother washing their hands after going to the bathroom, or they’ll hand you nasty sweaty bills they pulled out of their pocket after walking into a store or up to a fuel kiosk during a >80 °F (26 °C) day, or after working a shift in construction or a factory job or even simply just exercising. Some women will pull cash directly out from under their bra, as if I want to accept sweaty boob money. Yes, they could use a wallet. However, many people don’t. Rather, they just shove the cash directly into their pocket or bra and be done with it. Because fuck cashiers, I guess.
Not to mention that the majority of bills out there have at least some trace amount of cocaine or other drugs covering it, though you may not be able to see it.
So, in short, sorry for the ramble but, yes, people are absolutely disgusting and so is their cash.
Retail. has. fucking. ruined me.
/rant lol
Because if everyone used cash, schedule systems, records systems, communication systems around the world, breakdown still.
If there’s a verity of software vendors used in these systems, and financial systems, you don’t get simultaneous global breakdowns any more.
Basically. Using cash won’t prevent this from happening. Using several interoperable software providers and systems will.
Using cash won’t prevent this from happening.
I mean yeah, that’s why I said both, not just cash. I carry some cash on me because you never know. I’d also like to see less monopolization of just about everything because it makes for single points of failure. Diversifying your payment methods by including the potential for cash also helps.
But cash has nothing to do with this.
It’s an entirely unrelated issue.
It could equally be a warning to floss every day for all they’re related.When the payment processor goes down, I can buy my groceries/gas/weed with cash, not by flossing my teeth. I don’t follow the point you’re making. Going fully cashless is a bad idea, and the recent outage didn’t affect every system used. I don’t see how having multiple methods of payment is possibly a bad thing. I’m not advocating for only cash.
The inventory and POS systems also go down. You still can’t by your groceries/gas/weed.
Going cashless is a bad idea. But not because of this.
That’s not what I witnessed recently. Payment processors went down but local POS was fine. Inventory didn’t matter with the short duration of the outage. This is one of the reasons going cashless is a bad idea. Far from the only one, but it’s a factor, and I experienced it. Going cashless reduces diversity in payment options and makes the system more vulnerable.
Going cashless is a bad idea. But not because of this.
It’s pretty clear this incident has highlighted a myriad of very important issues.
It’s likely more productive to discuss the other issues in their own threads - this thread is clearly focused on the cashless problem.
this wasn’t a problem with cashless infrastructure tho, this was a problem with monoculture. if the globe stopped using microsoft for gov and business, and instead threw their tax money towards open development; as in - the people, not microsoft, these kind of global issues wouldn’t exist.
It’s also not like as if I care. In case of total collapse and me being hungry, I’ll just take the food regardless. Cash is pointless as we’ve already moved digital, even in a cash country like mine.
Because cash doesn’t solve the problem. If the stores themselves rely on computers, and they do, it doesn’t matter what’s in your wallet. (In other words, you need more than just cash to have a reliable alternative. It’s certainly possible to do so.)
Also, some of the big problems were in airports and hospitals where payment was not the serious concern.
There’s more to it. The mono-culture is one thing, but rolling out the update to millions of computers on the same days sounds like a bad idea.
Fun fact in 2008, with nuclear submarines, the mono-culture was not that bad yet.
It’s interesting to note the UK went with a Windows XP variant and not Windows Vista, which is marketed as the more reliable OS. The USA never made the same calculations: The American Navy runs on Linux.
Navy: “we use Arch btw”
No wonder those Navy touchscreen controls killed people…
I personally have never had good luck with Linux touchscreens…
sounds like they rather spend that RND on pocket lining over contributing to software dev.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Campaigners say the chaos caused by the global IT outage last week underlines the risk of moving towards a cashless society.
Supermarkets, banks, pubs, cafes, train stations and airports were all hit by the failure of Microsoft systems on Friday, leaving many unable to accept electronic payments.
The Payment Choice Alliance (PCA), which campaigns against the move towards a cashless society, lists 23 firms and groups, at least some of whose outlets take only credit or debit cards.
Cash payments increased for the first time in a decade last year, according to UK Finance, which represents banks.
The GMB Union said the outage reinforced what it had been saying for years: that “cash is a vital part of how our communities operate”.
In March, McDonald’s, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Gregg’s suffered problems with their payment systems.
The original article contains 416 words, the summary contains 135 words. Saved 68%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
No, that is not correct. Global outage shows the dangers of centralized systems would be a better headline. Monero Worked all day throughout the entire outage with no problems.
Monero isn’t bad but I don’t think it is great for easily buying things. At the end of the day trying to use two different currencies is hard. Also Monero gets a bad name because it is used primarily for illegal transactions. It is simply two complex and has no accountability
The fact that it’s used for crime means that it actually does what it’s supposed to do and keeping people private. Shoes are also used by bank robbers and we don’t ban shoes. Monero is a tool the same as a hammer or a shoe or a car or a gun.
The problem is that it has zero accountability. Shoes, cars, cash and guns are all physical. At the end of the day someone can inspect your shoes or prevent you from taking a gun inside of a theater. Monero allows payments from anywhere and completely anonymously. You can get rid of it as it is decentralized but you can just not use it especially since cash is easy, private and secure.
Even central currencies can work if you can make offline and peer to peer payments.
Not easy to pull off cryptographically, though.
Does Taler do this?
I remember reading it in its docs. It probably does, but it is sure it was planned
True, but do you really expect them to let you use a central bank digital currency peer-to-peer and not have some way of revoking your access to it? If so, you’re absolutely nuts, LOL.
Define “worked” in this context. You mean their own infrastructure didn’t crash? You certainly didn’t pop down to the store and buying anything useful with Monero 😂
Define “worked” in this context.
You can still exchange funds as normal because no necessary components or intermediaries were affected by the outage. Only conventional banking systems.
My point was more that using Monero as an example is probably not the best way to cryptobrah an illustrative point.
I don’t see how you were making that point.
Because you can’t just go and buy real world goods at will as with cash. If there’s ever a Carrington Event, your Monero is worthless in an emergency.
You can use it for all the same things you can at any other time, as I said. Still not sure what your point is.
Lol. How is your crypto gonna work without global peers and internet, friend?
Not that day I didn’t, but I have bought Domino’s several times this month, and I bought my groceries at the beginning of the month.
So do you use some kind of payment app that does a conversion or do you have to manually convert from Monero to fiat currency?
Most retailers don’t accept crypto at the point of purchase so I’m curious as to how this would be convenient enough to use regularly.
There are businesses that specifically sell gift cards to retailers for Monero and when possible I search out and purchase from retailers who accept Monero. Https://monerica.com and https://xmrbazaar.com help with that.
That is not correct, either. The outage even took out decentralized platforms.
Which decentralized platforms did it take out?
Maybe they are talking about the cash registers running Windows?
… And if the systems you actually interact with go down, you can get fucked as well.
If you want to buy food with Monero and the payment processor for the local shop doesn’t work, even if it’s a local machine sitting in the back office, you still can’t buy anything.
A local machine sitting in the back office, acting as a payment processor, is much easier to access and fix than the Visa Network.
Not for you. And certainly not for the staff working in the shop.
Currently, you’re bartering with copious amounts of copium.
Totally. My petrol station allowed me to pay in seashells while everyone else were just standing around complaining, was kinda nice
Sand dollars?
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I…
I have so many questions
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Achieving a moneyless society after one big overlong network outage.
*global IT outage shows dangers of monopolies.
Why do you hate the “free market”
What good is cash gonna do if the networked cash register doesn’t open anymore?
They have paper and pens that they can track their transactions until the system is fixed.
How are you getting change?
Use exact change?
If we’re going cash only, I’m bringing those coins too.
They can do that anyway. It’s called credit.
Somebody’s never worked retail. Yeah, there’s no way they’ll do that. Maybe at a small independently-owned store? Otherwise, there’s no way they’re even allowed to do that!
Simply not allowed for a lot of businesses in my country, either by the government or corporate.
Can’t remember which one but credit cards were offline for a time with something and places that still had the carbon paper roller things stashed away took them out and used them. They should keep those things around.
Serious privacy issues around copying cards. That means the store has to retain a physical copy of the full embossed card number.
There were boxes full of them in the backroom.
My friends and I used to call those machines ker-chunkers. 😂
I’ve heard it mentioned as a “fly swatter” in my mother’s tongue.
Knuckle-buster was the industry term, and they were already obsolete 20 years ago…
That’s against the rules for PCI compliance
Under no circumstances should you copy a card
are they not allowed now. The thing im thinking about was definately post 2000 but maybe not 20teens
Shop I worked for in 2005… I think … ran cards when the connection was down and took card impressions, and I think the transactions were all auto submitted when the connection came back up.
did they do something special. most places I have been to when the network is down it just does not work.
national chain. I think it stored the transactions for transmission, and in-case it didn’t go through we also had the imprints as proof of having the card at the time of transaction. I assume it processed them as a different option instead of instant approval, and probably has different liability implications if the transaction is later denied. Being a big company, was probably fine.
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Not sure how much good that’ll be… A lot of banks are giving out cards where the numbers are only printed, I haven’t had one with raised numbers in years.
You could just write down the numbers.
You could, but then we wouldn’t be talking about a carbon paper roller thingy…
Do people still have embossed credit cards? All mine are flat now.
good point. I think embossing went away about when wireless became ubiquitous with it. So they would need to be doing that again.
My card is embossed. Then again it’s also from a community credit union in southeast Michigan. Lol.
One of the biggest rules in IT is always have a backup.
A cashless society has no backup.
Then don’t get rid of cash. We can do both you know
The backup with a crypto, such as Monero or Bitcoin, would be to print out a paper wallet and then load the money onto it. LOL.
- take “this”… 2… 3…
- profit
If you’re against cashless you’re a criminal or a tax evader, which is also criminal.
Amazon didnt pay a penny in taxes where i live, theyre giant criminals yet they dont need to use cash to evade taxes.
The ability to pay with cash is great just in case a country’s cashless system(s), especially the one you use the most, goes down for any reason. Gives a backup just in case you need to pay for stuff locally like at a store but your digital money is essentially in limbo until the system(s) is/are fixed.
How often does that happen though?
Or… what if the power goes out, you can’t pay with cash or card.
Honestly if this is the best reason to carry cash then we should be cashless.
Why wouldn’t I be able to pay cash without power? If people did it in BCE, I can certainly do it now.
Because the equipment used to record sales uses electricity.
Do you really think the 12yo cashier is going to get out a pad and pen and rithmatic your purchase?
12yo? What’re your child labor laws? Arithmetic? We’re talking simple addition here. I manned a cash register before, it’s doable even without the computer. Just takes a wee bit longer.
Have you been to a shop in the last 20 years?
I’m genuinely curious how you envisage that everyone could pay cash during a power outage.
Items don’t have price stickers. Cashiers couldn’t reliable total up more than a few items. Customers couldn’t be given itemised receipts.
In an end-of-days style apocalypse, sure trade would carry on, but the existence of “cash” wouldn’t be relevant.
As I started off by saying, this is such a lame reason to argue for the existence of cash.
What a horribly flawed opinion to have.
Or someone that does not trust a centralised solution as it is easily used to suppress people.
Just pay up, doucher
No
Like drugs have never been bought on card, and money washed through banks…
It may be the case that people do not want every single step they take to be monitored as it currently is.
You might not have a phone or be charged per use of card.
I’m not in favor of a cashless society but looking at how Apple and Google are pushing their wallets (and how practical it is) you guys need to come to piece with the fact that cash might die with the millennial generation. Most Gen X don’t have / want a physical wallet and money needs to be digital.
With that said, I believe this Crowdstrike fiasco just proved that the biggest threat to IT lies inside the companies themselves and on the managers who decide to use this kind malware without properly understanding the risks. Yes, I’ve said it and I’ll say it again Crowdstrike is malware, anything that messes with Windows at that level is malware, there’s no other description and shouldn’t be allowed by Microsoft to exist.
I carry cash and so do many of the younger people I know. It is handy sometimes and happens to be private.
Me too, but we’re not the majority.
Industry standard solution that protects companies against malware is malware? Any proper AV will have unrestricted access to system. Only other option is for companies to completely lock down your device.
Yes. It is.
Any system with this level of access to the system should be opensource and tested against actual workloads before shipping updates to prod.
Something like ebpf would make more sense too.
Here’s the thing, malware protection is supposed to deliver protection and one important aspect of that is making sure there’s business continuity… what they did was to completely fuck over their customers in that aspect, they become the problem and I bet that most companies running their solution would never suffer any catastrophic failure this bad if they didn’t run their software at all. No hacker would be able to take down so many systems so fast and so hard.
Im the Xer type with no smartphone and prefers the wallet. I remember so many shows or street people with paranoia would have the horror of government trackers but I find the horror of corporate trackers to be much worse and far to real now.
Yeah, those same people totally paranoid about govt tracker are now carrying smartphones around no problem, how ironic isn’t it? :)
