"If you have control of the servers belonging to Visa or MasterCard, you have control of Sweden," Engström says.
It is hard to argue that you cannot trust the government when the government isn't really all that bad. This is the problem facing the small but growing number of Swedes anxious about their country's rush to embrace a cash-free society.
Most consumers already say they manage without cash altogether, while shops and cafes increasingly refuse to accept notes and coins because of the costs and risk involved. Until recently, however, it has been hard for critics to find a hearing.
"The Swedish government is a rather nice one, we have been lucky enough to have mostly nice ones for the past 100 years," says Christian Engström, a former MEP for the Pirate Party and an early opponent of the cashless economy.
"In other countries there is much more awareness that you cannot trust the government all the time. In Sweden it is hard to get people mobilised."
There are signs this might be changing. In February, the head of Sweden's central bank warned that Sweden could soon face a situation where all payments were controlled by private sector banks.
The Riksbank governor, Stefan Ingves, called for new legislation to secure public control over the payments system, arguing that being able to make and receive payments is a "collective good" like defence, the courts, or public statistics.
[...] "Most citizens would feel uncomfortable to surrender these social functions to private companies," he said.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Appalbarry on Sunday April 08 2018, @03:09AM (4 children)
blah blah BLOCKCHAIN blah blah...
Also, all of our cars could powered by hemp!
And next year will be the year of Linux on the desktop!
(you're welcome)
(Score: 2, Interesting) by fustakrakich on Sunday April 08 2018, @03:30AM (2 children)
Well, the impossible has happened before. We now have lights at Wrigley, and the Cubs won the World Series
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 08 2018, @04:25AM (1 child)
and i got laid
(Score: 4, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 08 2018, @05:28AM
You mean you crawled up a chicken's ass and waited?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 08 2018, @06:52PM
i don't know about hemp powered cars, but monero and linux desktop adoption would be a big improvement. too bad people seem to "quite enjoy their servitude" (Aldous Huxley Berkeley interview)
(Score: 5, Interesting) by looorg on Sunday April 08 2018, @03:15AM (6 children)
Engström comes of as somewhat clueless when he says things like "If you have control of the servers belonging to Visa or MasterCard, you have control of Sweden". No it's not about VISA or Mastercard, most people don't give a crap about creditcards or chargecards anymore. As a matter of fact it's starting to be an issue to actually get a bank to issue you with a chargecard or just a bank card to take money out of an ATM, while related it's not the issue at hand here. But as far as the banks are concerned it's either a Creditcard or no card. But most of all they don't even want you to bother to get one of them. It's that other little thing mentioned deep in the article that the clueless reporters at the Guardian missed and Engström was to, stupid or, ignorant to actually tell them about. It's all about SWISH (1). The battle isn't CC or Cash, it's Cash or SWISH.
SWISH is an app that is basically tying your smartphone, and the numbers associated with it such as your phone number to your bank account numbers. All conveniently supplied by the Swedish banking monopoly. In the app you can then send messages/money between phones and it gets charged or added to your accounts. The images in the links below are fairly self explaining really. You are far more likely to see someone SWISH other people, or even stores then to see them pull up a credit card. A Credit card is now for "large" purchases, cash is for "anonymous" transactions and Swish is for more or less everything else. To do banking errand (paying bills and such) they now prefer you to get a BANK ID and do it from home at your computer or from the other apps they can supply you with. They clearly prefer it if you didn't ever visit their physical bank.
Engström is somewhat out of touch with Sweden after his stint as a MEP down in Brussels. The Pirate party never amounted to anything in the national elections. They don't even get mentioned in polling, they are "other" together with wacky feminist parties, fringe right and left wing nutjobs and the donald duck party (yes, that is an actual thing and I don't know if Disney cares) as far as polling goes. The Pirate party totally collapsed after the initial wave of support (mostly tied to TPB) and became a cesspool of identity politics and weird fringe ideas that appealed to nobody.
(1) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=se.bankgirot.swish [google.com]
(1) https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/swish-payments/id563204724 [apple.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday April 08 2018, @03:51AM (5 children)
In Portland and Vancouver they call it the "Hop Card". You tap it on a screen as you board the bus or train.
For a while now I've been buying thirty day all-zone passes, but I've been paying with my debit card. So the transit folk are at least able to identify me as a regular.
But work is going well now so I was going to go all-out and get an All Zone Express Pass. The only way to do that is to buy a Hop Card.
I was on my way into the ticket office when I realized that the only way I could pay was with my debit card. I turned around and bought another 30-day All Zone pass with my debit card.
Next month I'll come prepared and buy my express Hop Card with cash.
I once got around all over Creation by hitchhiking. I really enjoyed it, I met so many interesting people. But no one will pick me up anymore.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 08 2018, @05:41AM (4 children)
You've apparently missed the point. In Sweden they don't bother with anything so petty as your hoppy-hop card. Everything - EVERYTHING - is tied to one account. They would have to roll things backward a good deal, before they considered hopping around like you do. How far away from home can you go with a hop? Can it take you to the nation's capital? Will it get you to LA? Orlando? That hoppy card is so minor, it doesn't even create any noise on the radar.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday April 08 2018, @07:06AM (3 children)
Just thinking about being tracked makes me psychotic. The only way I could stay sane was simply to accept that I'm being tracked. I do my very very best never to notice security camera. I'd go out of my tree in England or in Sweden.
There are different causes to paranoia - schizophrenia, paranoid personality disorder, drug abuse and so on.
But most of those who experience paranoia don't need to be hospitalized all the time. To the extent I avoid looking at security cameras I can stay out of the funny farm.
A friend from high school is a psychiatrist. I'm going to ask him about incidences of hospitalization for paranoia in countries that either have or don't have pervasive surveillance.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 08 2018, @08:00AM (2 children)
Dude - you don't have to be crazy to be paranoid. Sometimes, the bastards are really out to get you. In light of the various and sundry headlines on our pages in recent days, you have to be crazy to NOT be paranoid! There are a myriad of predators out there. It's a jungle full of predators. For the most part, people rely on that herd thing - there is so much food available, that the predators can't take it all. Everyone hopes that he's not today's prey. They pretend that it can't happen to them. But, the predators are real, and if you happen to be noticed, then you are dinner.
Stay paranoid, and don't believe for one minute that you are crazy because you are paranoid.
That doesn't preclude the possibility that you are afraid of the wrong things. Nor does it preclude the likelihood that you really are fucking bonkers.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday April 08 2018, @08:10AM (1 child)
Just because you're paranoid it doesn't mean they're not really out to get you [warplife.com].
I wrote that in 2003.
Consider soldiers who never lose their cool despite fighting in wars for many years.
You're right, in today's world many people have good reason to fear for their lives, but not all of them will experience paranoia. Some simply accept their lot, as do those soldiers who don't lose their cools.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 08 2018, @09:55AM
That is a very rare creature, indeed. Everyone is afraid of something. If that something sneaks up on you unexpectedly, most likely you'll lose your cool. The biggest badass you ever met can be broken down, sometimes by something minor. Maybe he's afraid of rats, or wasps, or maybe he's superstitious. A black cat, or a voodoo witch destroys him.
OK, leave all of that stuff aside. Let us only consider a fighting man, who has faced combat many times. From my own experience, you might be fearless today, and tomorrow, you'll be scared shitless. It all depends on whether you can overcome that fear, whether you are also brave. Note that "brave" and "fearless" are entirely different things.
Anyway, those soldiers who are never visibly shaken often have their own psych problems. Audi Murphy was the most decorated US soldier in WW2. You should read his biography. He was pretty screwed up. We might suspect that being fucked up is what enabled him to perform his heroic feats - normal people can't do the stuff he did.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday April 08 2018, @03:44AM (2 children)
If the Soviets could recruit spies in the NSA - and they really did - then they can recruit spies among the folks who are root on Visa and Mastercard's servers.
The one NSA spy I remember was an Army seargant who made the mistake of driving to work in a fast red convertible.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 08 2018, @05:37AM (1 child)
You can't be serious. Fast red convertible? Really? If that's all it takes, then half my shipmates were Soviet spies. Or, Israeli, or something. No, we couldn't afford Porsches, or Mazzaratis, but most of us had fast sporty vehicles. Especially those of us who weren't married. A sergeant (E5) with a reenlistment bonus in his account? There was more to that story than just a shiny red sports car.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday April 08 2018, @06:59AM
I read James Bamford's "The Puzzle Palace" over 20 years ago.
That's an awesome book but it gets tedious sometimes. Bamford is more a historian than a journalist, so he details every single reorg the NSA ever went through.
There are many editions. He issues new ones as he learns what the NSA is up to the last few years.
Strange But True:
"NSA" no longer means "No Such Agency": the National Cryptologic Museum [nsa.gov] is at Forte Meade and is open to the public.
Among the exhibits are a U2 and a real NAZI enigma machine.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday April 08 2018, @03:46AM
At least until all the old folk are finished dying off:
Legal marijuana shops are not permitted to have bank accounts.
Strictly speaking it's not against the law but none of the banks permit it because they are federally regulated.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 08 2018, @07:33AM (1 child)
We have the same push here.. all the benefits that belong to it (according to the shop organisations that push it). The one fact that they seem to forget continuously is that on a monthly basis one or two banks (you know, the big ones) have at least one or two times problems with their payment infrastructure which causes these cashless payment methods to fail.
Cash has also lots of other benefits. Last month my bank suspended my payment account because they didn't know where some money was coming from (I paid out some cryptos). I was glad I had a few hundred euros in cash at home to cover basic grocery purchases and such.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 09 2018, @10:34AM
What he said. It's also the reason to keep one's finances well diversified, even if it costs a little more. There's nothing more suicidal than the all-eggs-in-one-basket 'deals' that banks offer. It only takes one idiot in one call centre to press the wrong button and suddenly you have no access to cash, no credit, no insurance and you're in mortgage or rent arrears. (In recent years I've encountered two such idiots; one who issued a banker's draft for a car loan and then forgot to credit it to my account, and one who cancelled my credit card - irrevocably, I might add - instead of renewing it.)