Zwipe, MasterCard Show Off Credit Card With a Fingerprint Sensor

[crimethink]

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2470568,00.asp?kc=PCRSS03069TX1K0001121&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ziffdavis%2Fpcmag%2Fbreakingn ews+%28PCMag.com+Breaking+News%29

[Celtic Rogue]

What a smooth way to get a fingerprint database of a great many citizens. Before all they had were people arrested and booked for a crime. Now people will gleefully send their data to whom ever is listening. Soon no more paper and coins as currency for whatever reason they make up. Like someone stated before here that they might use the ebola scare to eliminate paper money because of false roomers of hard currencies spread the Ebola bug. Everyone will have their chip so to speak ... and fingerprint to do transactions! Then we are totally watched more efficiently than ever before.

[crimethink]

What a smooth way to get a fingerprint database of a great many citizens. Before all they had were people arrested and booked for a crime. Now people will gleefully send their data to whom ever is listening. Soon no more paper and coins as currency for whatever reason they make up. Like someone stated before here that they might use the ebola scare to eliminate paper money because of false roomers of hard currencies spread the Ebola bug. Everyone will have their chip so to speak ... and fingerprint to do transactions! Then we are totally watched more efficiently than ever before.

Apple, HP, and others have already done a lot of the work for them. My laptop has a fingerprint scanner - I permanently disabled it.

I've been saying for years that "they" would get rid of paper money by claiming it as a primary vector for disease. I see that a video game trailed, based on Tom Clancy work, is pushing that very scenario.

[osoab]

Barry needs one.

President Obama's credit card declined at NYC restaurant (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-president-obama-credit-declined-20141017-story.html#navtype=outfit)

[crimethink]

Barry needs one.

President Obama's credit card declined at NYC restaurant (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-president-obama-credit-declined-20141017-story.html#navtype=outfit)

Maybe some unwitting JP Morgan Chase employee was running fraud checks on open accounts, and found that the Social Security Number for Obama's account was owned by a dead person in Connecticut?

[PatColo]

My recently expired HP Pav. laptop, new in Jan '11, had the fingerprint scanner. It had a piece of black electrical tape over it soon after the laptop was out of the box. Ditto on the webcam. A year or two later I ended up wanting the webcam available for the occasional skype video chat with female prospects. First time I removed the tape over the webcam lens, it needed washing with a damp soapy cloth to clean the tape glue away, which was obscuring the image. After that, I used a little square of normal paper over the lens itself, with a larger piece of tape keeping it there. That kept the tape glue off the lens.

For the unawares, your laptop's (and I presume desktop's) webcam can be activated remotely (http://www.wired.com/2010/10/webcam-spy-settlement/), and without the indicator light next to the lens turning on. I haven't read any stories confirming but I take for granted, the condenser mic can be similarly activated, for eavesdropping on a room. Ditto for your mobile phone's cam & mic, even with the phone's power turned OFF (http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/06/technology/security/nsa-turn-on-phone/). Not to mention your phone is a location tracking & recording device (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/15/business/attention-shopper-stores-are-tracking-your-cell.html?pagewanted=all).

I've been running Ubuntu (http://gold-silver.us/forum/showthread.php?78236-Going-Ubuntu-Linux-Advice&highlight=ubuntu+linux) for a couple months, which I anticipate offers greater privacy than Windoze and Mac OS as those 2 latter are closed source code and loaded to the gills with spook-agency friendly backdoors. But I still don't trust that the hardware isn't also spook-agency friendly... as spook agency backup for those peasants who stray from the windoze/mac spy-OS's.... as surely as the mobile phone manufacturers & OS's have played ball with the spooks.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSJqBJ1TF-E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSJqBJ1TF-E

[crimethink]

My recently expired HP Pav. laptop, new in Jan '11, had the fingerprint scanner. It had a piece of black electrical tape over it soon after the laptop was out of the box. Ditto on the webcam. A year or two later I ended up wanting the webcam available for the occasional skype video chat with female prospects. First time I removed the tape over the webcam lens, it needed washing with a damp soapy cloth to clean the tape glue away, which was obscuring the image. After that, I used a little square of normal paper over the lens itself, with a larger piece of tape keeping it there. That kept the tape glue off the lens.

For the unawares, your laptop's (and I presume desktop's) webcam can be activated remotely (http://www.wired.com/2010/10/webcam-spy-settlement/), and without the indicator light next to the lens turning on. I haven't read any stories confirming but I take for granted, the condenser mic can be similarly activated, for eavesdropping on a room. Ditto for your mobile phone's cam & mic, even with the phone's power turned OFF (http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/06/technology/security/nsa-turn-on-phone/). Not to mention your phone is a location tracking & recording device (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/15/business/attention-shopper-stores-are-tracking-your-cell.html?pagewanted=all).

I use a hole punch to punch out aluminum foil dots, and then Scotch tape them over the lenses. They are easily removed, but allow nothing, not even light shadows, through.

For the microphone, short of opening up the lid and snipping or disconnecting the wires, I recommend taking an old set of earphones or earplugs, snipping the cord off, and plugging the dead plug into the port. It fools the sound card into thinking an external microphone is connected (this trick does not work with a cell phone, though).

For mobile phones, there are Faraday pouches available on eBay for cheap (from China - ones available from America, usually also made in China, are a lot more money). Look for "cell phone blocking pouch" or similar wording. There are small, medium, large, and very big ones (for tablets). Physically taking the battery out is best, but the Faraday pouches are good if you need to routinely use the phone. Of course, if you're (dumb enough to be) using an iPhone, the battery removal trick won't work.

[crimethink]

Obama moves to improve credit-card security

http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2024808934_obamacardsxml.html

[PatColo]

For the microphone, short of opening up the lid and snipping or disconnecting the wires, I recommend taking an old set of earphones or earplugs, snipping the cord off, and plugging the dead plug into the port. It fools the sound card into thinking an external microphone is connected (this trick does not work with a cell phone, though).

It's funny how laptops don't tell you, or label on the hardware, where the condensor mic is?! My former HP Pav, and current Asus, give no clue where it is.... yet it's plainly there somewhere and functional, as surely as I can talk on skype sans headset (though I don't coz of the echo-back).

If I know where it is, I can slap a few layers of duct or electrical tape over it, which would render it impotent in picking up all but the loudest, sharpest sounds.

Truth be told though, I was never concerned enough about audio eavesdropping through the puter, to take any extraordinary measures to find and "disable" the condensor mic. Esp with my former windoze OS, I always took for granted that the video I was watching, or mp3 audio I was listening to, were all fully transparent to the spooks. Ditto all skype SMS, voice & video chats. And any person to person conversations I'd have in earshot of the puter were few, far between and innocuous. Being spied on visually through webcam is a much more chilling prospect, IMHO.

Good idea re putting a snipped off mini-jack in the speaker/mic port. It so happens I just irreparably busted an earbuds set, too! :) Thing is, y'all know I'm a podcastaholic--- mp3 player when out & about, but laptop speakers when I'm in. It seems a snipped mini-jack in the speaker/mic port would disable the laptop's mic, but also the speakers. Not sure if I can tell Ubuntu to LISTEN via the (fake) external mic, but PLAY through the hardware speakers? I know that's doable in skype; but skype's fully spook-transparent regardless of how it's configured. We're talking, skype closed, laptop mic 'disabled', laptop speakers functional.... :|~

[PatColo]

But I still don't trust that the hardware isn't also spook-agency friendly... as spook agency backup for those peasants who stray from the windoze/mac spy-OS's.... as surely as the mobile phone manufacturers & OS's have played ball with the spooks.

re spy-hardware, NSA BIOS Backdoor a.k.a. God Mode Malware Part 1: DEITYBOUNCE (http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/nsa-bios-backdoor-god-mode-malware-deitybounce/)