Ahh springtime, flowers and the annual Apple Platform Security (APS) update. This year’s version has many Apple Pay housekeeping changes. Previous versions put everything Apple Pay in a single section. In keeping with Apple spinning out iOS 15 Wallet app as a separate identity, Wallet has its own separate section […]
The Apple Pay monopoly debate part 1: context is everything
John Gruber did everyone a favor outlining some of the stakes at play in the remarkably glib, “Remarks by Executive Vice-President Vestager on the Statement of Objections sent to Apple over practices regarding Apple Pay.” The objections are annoyingly vague and refuse to specify how Apple Pay stifled competition and […]
OMNY white-label card completes the EMV only OMNY system
After a long gestation, and a COVID related delay, the mighty swipe MetroCard replacement finally shipped. The OMNY card: a white-label EMV bank payment card using the mastercard payment network, not a MIFARE or FeliCa smartcard like San Fransisco Clipper or Tokyo Suica. MetroCard missed the transit smartcard revolution of […]
Are Chinese manufactured PAX NFC readers a security risk?
Probably not, but the FBI Raids Chinese Point-of-Sale Giant PAX Technology report from Krebs on Security has some thrilling bits: “FBI and MI5 are conducting an intensive investigation into PAX,” the source said. “A major US payment processor began asking questions about network packets originating from PAX terminals and were […]
My Cousin Apple Pay
So the EU is going ahead with ‘open NFC’ antitrust charges against Apple. As posted back in August 2020, the whole open vs closed debate is not easy to define. It’s probably easier to look at it from the simplistic App Store debate of letting developers bypass Apple’s in-app payment […]