Uncategorized

Keeping up with the
security arms race

Posted by on August 24, 2016 at 4:26 pm

Data breaching is big business. It is, as I wrote last week, something of an arms race. When we strengthen our armor, we don’t send the bad guys home in ignominious defeat; we send them off to upgrade their armor-piercing weaponry so they can return for another foray. The financial fraud arms race is as […]

Another casualty in the
secure data arms race

Posted by on August 18, 2016 at 4:47 pm

Uh oh. It seems HEI Hotels has joined the ranks of The Home Depot, Target, and other substantial “hackees.” On August 12, HEI published a “Notice of Data Breach.” HEI Hotel properties affected by the breach (click to enlarge) You may not have heard of HEI, but you have certainly heard of the 20 potentially targeted […]

Apple: Falling up or down?

Posted by on August 10, 2016 at 1:54 pm

  IT’S A FACT that Sir Isaac Newton set forth laws of motion and gravitation that have endured for nearly four centuries with precious little revision. It also appears to be a fact that the sight of a falling apple may indeed have catalyzed his theorizing about gravity. The part about its bonking him on the […]

Clay, counterfeiters,
and digital banking

Posted by on August 2, 2016 at 4:44 pm

Languages spoken in commerce-less civilizations typically have words for the numbers one through five—something to do with the fact that most of us carry around five fingers on each hand—but have no word for six or anything beyond. Instead, they make do with a catch-all word that roughly translates to “a whole bunch.” Societies engaged […]

Welcome to India

Posted by on July 27, 2016 at 3:25 pm

This week you will be hard-pressed to find a financial periodical, blog, or website that isn’t raving about India as the next land of opportunity for the digital payments industry. From the tidal wave of news reports, the casual observer might conclude that, by sheer coincidence, independent reporters happened upon the same data and drew […]