Apple Pay To Become Accepted Payment Method For Federal Services

[Guest]

Tim Cook announced at the White House cybersecurity summit that starting this September, Apple Pay will be integrated with federal services.

Apple Pay To Become Accepted Payment Method For Federal Services : Read more

 

[kep55]

OH BOY! One more way to see your money and identity disappear into the ether.

 

[Raquel Channing]

OH BOY! One more way to see your money and identity disappear into the ether.

dont forget your tinfoil hat.

 

[canadianvice]

"If it was any other company those standards could be much lower".

Oh, so like Apple? They sell your phone number here to third parties. Fun.

 

[jasonelmore]

apple doesn't sell phone numbers. I think they make enough billions off of device sales to not worry about peddling phone numbers for a .50 cents a pop.

 

[Rattenmann]

@kep55
So you think paying with a plastic card that has your name, adress and SECURITYNUMBER right on the back is more secure then?

@canadianvice
As much as i hate Apple for some stuff they do. Are you serious? They have more money then they can spend. Do you really think they would sell phone numbers for some change money and risk their reputation? Get real. Seriously.

 

[captaincharisma]

considering how hackers were easily able to hack into apples icloud this is going to be an epic fail

 

[kep55]

Actually, most in store CC readers are on dedicated lines and not running over the internet. At the stores that care about customer service.

 

[canadianvice]

@kep55
So you think paying with a plastic card that has your name, adress and SECURITYNUMBER right on the back is more secure then?

@canadianvice
As much as i hate Apple for some stuff they do. Are you serious? They have more money then they can spend. Do you really think they would sell phone numbers for some change money and risk their reputation? Get real. Seriously.

It's established in the fine print, so yes, I do. That said, my comment begs minor correction: they reserve the right to do so. I have no factual information proving they actually have.

 

[ethanolson]

Apple should create Apple Pay for Android and sell it for $35. Yes, there will be prerequisites that will prevent most (actually all) current devices from meeting the minimum requirements but in three years, everyone will be doing it.

 

[M0j0jojo]

Whats next Ivote? Looks like Apple maybe heading in the direction of 1984

 

[Kewlzter]

Most people are too fearful of things. Fearful of hackers, yet have never been nor know of anyone that's been hacked. Fearful that their private information will be shared, yet ignoring the fact that they just aren't important enough, that anyone would want it.
Stop being afraid people, bad things might happen, but if they do, you are resilient enough to deal with them,right? And if not Apple can afford to give you a major payday!

 

[canadianvice]

Most people are too fearful of things. Fearful of hackers, yet have never been nor know of anyone that's been hacked. Fearful that their private information will be shared, yet ignoring the fact that they just aren't important enough, that anyone would want it.
Stop being afraid people, bad things might happen, but if they do, you are resilient enough to deal with them,right? And if not Apple can afford to give you a major payday!

Not voluntarily, and class actions never pay out.
That's why people don't tempt this stuff - you don't understand how things work if you think it's some easy scenario to resolve.

 

[ericburnby]

considering how hackers were easily able to hack into apples icloud this is going to be an epic fail

Only epic fail is your comment. First off, iCould wasn't hacked. Users were phished.

Second, none of your credit card information or transaction details go through Apple servers (like they do with Google Wallet). Only your financial institution has this information and they process the payments.

Apple Pay is superior to Google Wallet for security (because it uses the newest transaction processing technology from EMVco while Wallet is based on an older system). This is why banks need to update their systems before Apple Pay will work. Apple Pay also has better privacy than Google Wallet.

 

[aisalem]

I don't even know ehre to start but if someone talking about corporate income and privacy is already making mistake. Yes $0.5 is not much, same as $50 spend for me is not much but multiply it by the number of user (1 for me and 100'0000'000 for Apple) and you're getting $0.50 against $50'000'000) so hey, who wants $50M in [profit for free? noone, because they're good company.
Bot on serious note, every system is charging you for payment processing, and whichever way it's done, it's always sharing your data. Credit Cards, iPay, androidPay, WindowsPhonePay, anything you want, it's always going back to your account and the bank has to know what you're paying for. It's not Apple, Google, MS selling you, get real, it's the commodity of making easy transactions. If you want privacy, pay by cash, if you want conveniency, pay with card/phone/PayPal/PayAndroid/;PayhWindowsPhone/PayAnything, it's always going back to you.
You're getting service and you're paying for it, deal with it. Someone will have a record of that transaction! Gwet real and enjoy your life.
I just need to get another pint and enjoy my life.

 

[abbadon_34]

It pays to have Al Gore on the Board of Directors, and 10s of millions in donations to the Democratic Party.

 

[ssdpro]

I tried Apple pay and got double charged. It was a 10 minute problem to fix and was promptly refunded by my bank. My issue isn't the security, it is the fact I need to carry the phone AND wallet. It will be a long, long time before I could use the phone alone. A wallet just gets it done. A phone AND a wallet is a fail.

 

[evo_7]

I'll just take a bat at this and go over 2 points that seemed to be missed. First an early adoption doesn't mean instant payoffs; it does mean however that users might actually take the initiative to utilize the feature in it's entirety which increases the probability of said user using the service more and more

Secondly while privacy can be construed and understood by posters and story author as "information not being supplies directly to another party" the other privacy concerns are how system vulnerabilities, phishing and weaknesses in code for Apple devices have been continually and historically less than perfect as Apple has typically failed to patch up said flaws and weaknesses in their devices even when information and methods duplicating the problem have been demonstrated months in advance. While I agree the now famed "celebrity hacks" was a phishing attack, it was again utilizing a weakness that was brought to Apple 's attention as early as 6 months ago on Krebs and 4chan boards. It doesn't imply that Android is "as secure" or "safer" but because of Android's overall ability to use mods for customization for security, it can theoretically be personalized to be made more secure and the fragmentation of said devices also means that attacks with a wide vector have to be duplicated across all variations and versions of Android.

The biggest problem with this on Apple's end is that they really really inherently are less than proactive when it comes to security flaws and bugs and equally more incompetent when accepting responsibility for these problems when they become highly publicized. In the last fiasco it was the "users fault for not selecting strong enough passwords" when it was demonstrated that the ability to throw the proverbial dictionary when guessing passwords was possible implying that security at that state was practically non-existent. I don't need to drink any kool-aid from either end of the android or apple spectrum but the story author and other posters shouldn't also be implicit that Apple = greater security when in fact it doesn't.

 

[ericburnby]

^ Complete bull.

Android fragmentation makes it more secure? You mean like the webview vulnerability that affects some 60% of Android devices in use? The one Google said last month that it's not going to bother fixing?

The hack you describe about "throwing the proverbial dictionary" is also incorrect. There has NEVER been any proof that worked. Just some idiot who wrote a kiddie script that was tested by several people and found to NOT work to which he replied: "well, it USED to work, Apple must have patched it". Guy pulls off one of the highest profile hacks ever and doesn't even bother to document it or provide proof it worked.

I could write a script to check passwords against a dictionary for Gmail and post it to github. Then when people try it out and find it doesn't work I'll just claim "Google must have fixed the flaw, because it USED to work for me."

What's funny (or more like pathetic) is people are so quick to believe this guy when he claims it worked simply because it involves Apple, and Apple is the current flavor of the month for haters. Had he done the exact same thing for Google, people would be all over him to provide proof.

BTW, I never said Apple is greater security. I said Apple Pay was more secure than Google Wallet, which is 100% true. Nice tangent going off about iCloud and other issues when they have NOTHING to do with Apple Pay at all.

 

[ET3D]

I read the title as "Apple Pays To Become Accepted Payment Method For Federal Services".

 

[cmi86]

Oh so it wasn't apple that got hacked for all those celeb nudes ? Oh and apple isn't always the first one hacked at hacker conventions. Yeah definitely trust them with my credit cards and bank info, what could go wrong ?

 

[spdragoo]

@kep55
So you think paying with a plastic card that has your name, adress and SECURITYNUMBER right on the back is more secure then?
quote]

@Rattenmann, if your physical credit has your physical address on it, you need to talk to your bank right now. You may have noticed that a number of card readers (especially the ones at gasoline pumps) have started asking for your ZIP Code as part of the transaction? That's part of their "dual authentication" now -- it's a lot easier to identify a credit card transaction as potentially fraudulent if the wrong ZIP code was punched in at the same time. (Although it's true it doesn't help as much if you also lost your wallet with your driver's license).

The concern I have, however, is their claim about Touch ID's security. I'm sorry, but if it can be bypassed on an iPhone's lockscreen, then it's not that secure. Imagine, for example, if you found out that a random stranger could substitute a piece of plastic for an authorized ID badge, & gain access at your place of employment. Wouldn't make you feel very "secure", would it?

 

[burt johnson]

Believe it or not (most of you won't) but from a personal perspective, the good old plastic credit card is still the best way of making a payment. Note that I did not say its the most secure...but it is the "best" and also note I said from a personal perspective.

Why? Well, looking at it only from the point of view of individual self interest, our laws are written in such a way that the individual's liability is next to zero. If my plastic card is compromised I just report it lost and its immediately cancelled. Even if I don't even know its been compromised, I'll eventually detect it or in my case (in the couple of times this has happened) the card company detects it and notifies me before I even realize there is a problem. Either way, the card company ends up eating the bill, not me.

For society in general this is a problem of course and the cost of credit card fraud gets built into the cost of using the card. But from an individual perspective, liability is extremely limited.

Finally, I acknowledge that Apple's system does offer some advantages over competing systems. An example is integration of touch ID with the secure enclave feature. On my Samsung tablet, its got a finger print reader and I can encrypt the entire device...but I discovered I can't do both at the same time. Encryption is a must for me but I found that disabled the finger print capability....I had to choose either/or. Tokens vs actual card number is also a good idea.

But the other side of the coin is that the federal government "marginalizing Android users" is not really acceptable. Then again marginalizing people who don't even own a smart phone is even more unacceptable. Finally, plastic cards are pretty much universal within the US and any replacement has to become just as universal in order to be successful in the long run. As it is, even if you have an iDevice and Apple Pay, most of your transactions are still going to be using your plastic card for a long time to come - so you have to have both.

 

[Rattenmann]

Still all sounds like double standards.
How can paying the "current way" be more secure then apple pay? Or any other new form that does not give out your information to every shop you buy at?

If you use your CC right now the shop in question has your Name, your CC number, your security number (at this point they can already pay via your info on EVERY WEBSITE THERE IS), they also get your full address and bank information trough a lookup in their system (no idea why this is actually possible or why,.. but it is).

Via ApplePay they do get a transactionnumber and their money. So they don't have any of your informations.

Please enlighten me. How is that worse then what we used for 65 years now?
Apple could be hacked. Yadda Yadda. Yes. Your Bank could be hacked as well. Same result. You might IN THE WORST CASE get a few bucks "stolen". Then their ensurance kicks in and you get your money right back. Nothing is lost.

If your CC is stolen the guy can use it right away. Nothing is needed apart from your Address (can be looked up easily most of the time, even if you do not have a driving licence with you at the time), the number on the card itself and the "secrutity" code that is also on your CC itself.

Long story short:
Is the system perfect? No. Sure not. It never is.
Is the system leaps and bounds better then what we had before? Hell yes it is.

Things can go wrong. But way less risk then before. So no, this is not a bad thing.