cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/4262252
A combination of good high-speed internet coverage, high digital literacy rates, large rural populations and fast-growing fintech industries had put the Nordic neighbours on a fast track to a future without cash.
[…]
But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and a subsequent rise in cross-border hybrid warfare and cyber-attacks blamed on pro-Russia groups have prompted a rethink.
[…]
The Swedish government has since completely overhauled its defence and preparedness strategy, joining Nato, starting a new form of national service and reactivating its psychological defence agency to combat disinformation from Russia and other adversaries. Norway has tightened controls on its previously porous border with Russia.
[…]
[Norway’s] justice and public security ministry said it “recommends everyone keep some cash on hand due to the vulnerabilities of digital payment solutions to cyber-attacks”. It said the government took preparedness seriously “given the increasing global instability with war, digital threats, and climate change. As a result, they’ve ensured that the right to pay with cash is strengthened”.
[…]
My derped eyes and proked brain read cashless as moneyless. Comon, Nordic countries, you can do it.
I was once a proponent of cashless societies. Not anymore. Too many vulnerabilities, too many ways for governments to take control of your finances.
Just having a power outage is enough lol, never mind an attack.
Carrington event and we are fuckarruuh
If it isn’t cash you have to ask permission from someone to use it
Most of us need to get permission just to get our hands on cash.
Exactly… I am amazed that we all allowed for things to get this bad.
A lot of work to try to undo this idiocy.
Deny money changers profit
Sure, but if a cyber attack knocks out your credit card systems in a targeted attack, chances are they’re taking your cash machines down as well.
And who carries enough cash around to be useful any more? I know I don’t. I might have a £20 note tucked in my phone case at a push.
And who carries enough cash around to be useful any more?
I do. Maybe not physically in my pocket, but between my wallet and my home there’s enough cash to buy a tank of gas and a few days of groceries.
Parts of the debit/credit processing system are fragile enough that I’ve seen them down randomly for signifigant portions of a day.
Cash has got me food when other people have been stuck without the ability to pay more than once in the last couple of years.
Proper planning which more people should be doing!
But people also should be using cash as much as possible before regime takes it away.
I hoped for a second they meant moneyless.
The risk of the payment system getting shut down and people being unable to make payments for a while is real. And it is one good reason to be less reliant on digital payments.
But there is also the risk of bad actors, which could also be e.g. Russia, getting access to decades of payment history through a hack, if everything is digital. Having that data for every citizen of a country could enable efficient profiling of people in the country using big data analysis technologies.
The kind of thing you could find out with the transaction data is who are working in the military or security police, who is sympathetic to Russia and at the same time vulnerable to work with foreign governments, and potential blackmailing material relating to people in these or other groups. I’m sure the analysts working for the bad actor can come up with even more useful things to look for in the data.
There are of course a lot of other data sources that bad actors are interested in and that are easier to hack, but the financial history seems more comprehensive source of information than most other ones.
The risk of the payment system getting shut down and people being unable to make payments for a while is real. And it is one good reason to be less reliant on digital payments.
Exactly.
Part of the card processing system goes down often enough due to various technical failures that it should just be good business sense to always be capable of accepting cash.
It already happened in Ukraine during the NotPetya attack by Russia in 2017
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Ukraine_ransomware_attacks
Having that data for every citizen of a country could enable efficient profiling of people in the country using big data analysis technologies.
You don’t need an external actor for that, a government can very well do that to their citizens…
In America, you can’t open a bank account without an address. That means that the homeless population can’t open a bank account (not easily, anyway), and therefore can’t get a debit card.
Cashless is a nice idea, but it is extremely prohibitive against the most vulnerable people (which, sadly, might be part of the point).
Affordable housing and the threat by malicious actors to attack digital payment systems are two different things. Homelessness has to be addressed, of course, but we are dealing here with something else.
You seem to have missed the point: in many countries, access to a bank account (therefore digital money) is not universal.
I didn’t miss the point, but this is a different topic. We need to provide housing, end homelessness and possibly the right to a bank account for everyone. These are different things.
It’s funny because actually you can receive mails pretty much everywhere without giving an actual address. P.O boxes and post restante. Only banks keep enforcing residential addresses as it was a guarantee of having lack of identity frauds.
t was a guarantee of having lack of identity frauds
I don’t think that’s true, it’s just indicative of someone who’s more stable. That said, I can put down anyone’s addresses and have mail sent to it, my family does it all the time (e.g. my SIL just got married, and they sent their combined bank statements to our house while they were finding a new apartment). All it means is that you can receive mail at a certain address, and that can be as simple as knowing the mail schedule and getting to the mailbox before the residents do (or going through their trash the next day if you miss it).
It’s technically illegal, but I’ve never heard of anyone getting charged w/ accessing someone else’s mailbox… So it’s a pretty low barrier for someone actually committing identity fraud to clear, and a pretty steep barrier for someone who is homeless.
Funny way to say people dont like the idea of having all financial privacy ripped away from them.
Sweden is otherwise cool with having a zero privacy payment system? I’m a little Suprised this made it that far even there. When I see a business that says it does not accept cash, I stay away even if I wasn’t planning to use cash anyway.
Money changers in shambles.
Meanwhile in Denmark: FULL STEAM AHEAD! Next stop on the digitalisation train, all of your identification papers!
We have cash?
o_O
Haven’t used it for years.
Guess you don’t like privacy
