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And the next time there's a major network outage, whether because of incompetence (like the recent national outage in Canada), natural disaster, sabotage, or ev
by ThrowawayR2 4y ago
And the next time there's a major network outage, whether because of incompetence (like the recent national outage in Canada), natural disaster, sabotage, or even war, access to all of those conveniences will be frozen solid. One won't be able to purchase so much as a stick of gum.
James Burke, in the series Connections, warns of the "technology trap", where our dependence on various high-tech systems becomes so heavily ingrained that any significant outage leaves the workings of society lethally nonfunctional. Certainly something to consider...
- athrun 4y agonewsflash: point of sales transactions can usually be processed offline, and settled at a later point in time. Merchant A might be unable to process while offline, while Merchant B next door will have no such issue.
- retrac 4y agoMaybe where you are? But EFTPOS in Canada is done online. It is designed to. The bank interrogates the cryptographic processor in the chip and pin card over the network with each purchase. I was unable to purchase anything with my bank card for more than a day during the outage mentioned above.
- majewsky 4y agoHow does that help during a power outage?
- ThrowawayR2 4y agoA quick check suggests that offline credit card payments can "expire" if the network doesn't come back online within 24-72 hours, leaving the merchant with a loss. Not terribly reassuring.
- jasonvorhe 4y agoMerchant B won't be able to serve the unexpected surplus of new customers due to supply chain constraints and JIT delivery/lack of storage.