3 ms·

> Why exactly Australians need a peer-to-peer payments system isn’t exactly clear... Probably as the first steps towards removing cash. Cash must be such a pai

> Why exactly Australians need a peer-to-peer payments system isn’t exactly clear... Probably as the first steps towards removing cash. Cash must be such a pain for a government, I'm surprised it is still around.

cyphar 9y ago
Which is a shame, because of how incredibly authoritarian the tracking of credit cards is. Credit/debit cards are a proof of ID in Australia (40 points) and so with every purchase you are uniquely identifying yourself to the seller. Unfortunately making cash digital is quite hard (you could argue that zcash and zcoin will solve this problem but I'm not so sure).
- mod 9y ago
  > Credit/debit cards are a proof of ID in Australia (40 points) Can you elaborate on that? I'm curious what the points are.
  - cyphar 9y ago
    In Australia we have a "points" system for proof-of-ID. In order to get certain things (open a bank account, get a passport, so on) you need to have a certain number of "points". Most things require 100 points of ID, and there are different classes of IDs (passports -- 70, credit card -- 40, water bill -- 35). The purpose was to make it harder to commit fraud, though it also makes it kinda difficult to legitimately bootstrap your ID when you're a minor (or if you're an immigrant). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_point_check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_point_check http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/133193/FACT_SHEET_100_PT_ID.pdf http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/133...
    - falsedan 9y ago
      > makes it kinda difficult to legitimately bootstrap your ID when you're a minor (or if you're an immigrant Or a slacker: I somehow scraped up 100 points to get a passport, then didn't have photo ID to collect it from the post office. I had to point to the packet & say, I need to open the packet to be able to show you the photo ID you need to see before you can release the packet to me.

cyphar 9y ago

Which is a shame, because of how incredibly authoritarian the tracking of credit cards is. Credit/debit cards are a proof of ID in Australia (40 points) and so with every purchase you are uniquely identifying yourself to the seller. Unfortunately making cash digital is quite hard (you could argue that zcash and zcoin will solve this problem but I'm not so sure).

mod 9y ago
> Credit/debit cards are a proof of ID in Australia (40 points) Can you elaborate on that? I'm curious what the points are.
- cyphar 9y ago
  In Australia we have a "points" system for proof-of-ID. In order to get certain things (open a bank account, get a passport, so on) you need to have a certain number of "points". Most things require 100 points of ID, and there are different classes of IDs (passports -- 70, credit card -- 40, water bill -- 35). The purpose was to make it harder to commit fraud, though it also makes it kinda difficult to legitimately bootstrap your ID when you're a minor (or if you're an immigrant). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_point_check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_point_check http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/133193/FACT_SHEET_100_PT_ID.pdf http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/133...
  - falsedan 9y ago
    > makes it kinda difficult to legitimately bootstrap your ID when you're a minor (or if you're an immigrant Or a slacker: I somehow scraped up 100 points to get a passport, then didn't have photo ID to collect it from the post office. I had to point to the packet & say, I need to open the packet to be able to show you the photo ID you need to see before you can release the packet to me.