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cashless society by i.d. (id@disinfo.com) - October 24, 2000 |
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| Yet to the unquestioning majority, the cashless society represents the latest gift from above in our eternal quest for safety and convenience. They have been told that the discarding of currency will force an end to underground economies (therefore solving the "drug problem"), stop costly check fraud, and do away with bank robberies entirely. Besides, it sure does make it obscenely easy to order swank merchandise from Disinformation's online store! Whatever your take on the coming cashless society, you can bet your bottom binary dollar that Visa, MasterCard, Citibank, Mondex and all the other multinational financial megacorps won't rest until inherently anonymous cash is obsolete and all transactions require their services (for a fee, of course). What better place for the invisible hand of capitalist economics to pick than from your virtual pocket? Whatever the case, one thing's certain: the more dependent our society's economic infrastructure becomes on computers, the more vulnerable we all become to glitches in the system, man-made or otherwise. You just might find yourself reluctantly singing, "I owe my soul to the company store" . . . |
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The Future Of Money 666: The Mark Of The Beast Mondex USA: Take It With You Smart Cards: As Potential Applications Grow, Computers In The Wallet Are Making Unobtrusive Inroads Chaos Computer Club: Chip Card Information New Scientist: Banking On Electronic Money New York Puts Smart Cards To Test Smart Cards: Big Brother's Little Helpers |
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