Tuesday, October 10, 2017
China ‘Pretty Much’ Already Cashless
Chinese consumers have increasingly opted for “mobile pay” options for retail transactions.
Mainland Chinese stores and services are increasingly centered around mobile pay apps like WeChat Pay and Alipay according to CNBC. That accounts for roughly $5 trillion worth of revenue in which not even a single physical yuan exchanged hands.
The prevalence of mobile pay-only businesses makes it difficult for foreign visitors to conduct retail transactions without one of the government-approved mobile payment apps. In turn, that means the government is better able to monitor all financial transactions happening within its borders.
The report further states:
Lack of red tape and a less developed financial system have apparently allowed mainland China to leapfrog the developed world into embracing mobile payments …
In the first quarter of this year, Alipay had 54 percent of that mobile payments market, and WeChat Pay accounted for 40 percent, the study said.
The Chinese mobile pay habit is also affecting other countries. More than 6 million Chinese traveled abroad during the "Golden Week" national holiday in early October, according to state-backed media outlet Xinhua. That puts pressure on popular tourist destinations like Japan and Hong Kong to add mobile pay services.
CNBC notes that this growth of mobile pay in China is a direct result of the rapid expansion of smartphone usage in the country, where exchanging WeChat “adds” has replaced the customary exchange of business cards. The expansion of mobile pay is expected to grow to 300 trillion yuan ($45.3 trillion) in the next four years.
Credit to TruNews
U.S. Military’s Drones Hacked
A new report has made the stunning claim that U.S. military drones—all of them—have been infected with a computer virus that recorded pilots’ every keystroke.
In an exclusive published Saturday afternoon, Wired magazine reported:
The virus, first detected nearly two weeks ago by the military's Host-Based Security System, has not prevented pilots at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada from flying their missions overseas. Nor have there been any confirmed incidents of classified information being lost or sent to an outside source. But the virus has resisted multiple efforts to remove it from Creech's computers, network security specialists say. And the infection underscores the ongoing security risks in what has become the U.S. military's most important weapons system.
"We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back," says a source familiar with the network infection, one of three that told Danger Room about the virus. "We think it's benign. But we just don't know."
Military network security specialists aren't sure whether the virus and its so-called "keylogger" payload were introduced intentionally or by accident; it may be a common piece of malware that just happened to make its way into these sensitive networks. The specialists don't know exactly how far the virus has spread. But they're sure that the infection has hit both classified and unclassified machines at Creech. That raises the possibility, at least, that secret data may have been captured by the keylogger, and then transmitted over the public internet to someone outside the military chain of command.
Drones have become America's tool of choice in both its conventional and shadow wars, allowing U.S. forces to attack targets and spy on its foes without risking American lives. Since President Obama assumed office, a fleet of approximately 30 CIA-directed drones have hit targets in Pakistan more than 230 times; all told, these drones have killed more than 2,000 suspected militants and civilians, according to the Washington Post. More than 150 additional Predator and Reaper drones, under U.S. Air Force control, watch over the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. American military drones struck 92 times in Libya between mid-April and late August. And late last month, an American drone killed top terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki – part of an escalating unmanned air assault in the Horn of Africa and southern Arabian peninsula.
The report also noted the security flaws in the U.S. drone fleet are well known, recalling how in 2009 U.S. soldiers discovered Iraqi terrorist laptops with “days” of drone footage that had been captured with a $26 piece of software.
Credit to TruNews
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