cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/13133455
It used to be that you could insert a coin into a washing machine and it would simply work. Now some Danish and German apartment owners have decided it’s a good idea to remove the cash payment option. So you have to visit a website and top-up your laundry account before using the laundry room.
Is this wise?
Points of failure with traditional coin-fed systems:
- your coin gets stuck
- you don’t have the right denomination of coins
Points of failure with this KYC cashless gung-ho digital transformation system:
- your internet service goes down
- the internet service of the laundry room goes down
- the website is incompatible with your browser
- the website forces 3rd party JavaScript that’s either broken or you don’t trust it
- you cannot (or will not) solve CAPTCHA
- the website rejects your IP address because it is a shared IP
- the payment processor rejects your IP address because it is a shared IP
- the bank rejects your IP address because it is a shared IP
- the payment processor is Paypal and you do not want to share sensitive financial data with 600 corporations
- the accepted payment forms do not match your payment cards
- the accepted payment form matches, but your card is still rejected anyway for one of many undisclosed reasons:
- your card is on the same network but foreign cards are refused
- the payment processor does not like your IP address
- the copy of your ID doc on file with the bank expired, and the bank’s way of telling you is to freeze your card
- it’s one of these new online-only bank cards with no CVV code printed on the card so to get your CVV code you must install their app from Google’s Playstore (this expands into 20+ more points of failure)
- your bank account is literally below the top-up minimum because you only have cash and your cashless bank does not accept cash deposits; so you cannot do laundry until you get a paycheck or arrange for an electronic transfer from a foreign bank at the cost of an extortionate exchange rate
- you cannot open a bank account because Danish banks refuse to serve people who do not yet have their CPR number (a process that takes at least 1 month).
- you are unbanked because of one of 24 reasons that Bruce Schneier does not know about
- the internet works when you start the wash load, but fails sometime during the program so you cannot use the dryers; in which case you suddenly have to run out and buy hanging mechanisms as your wet clothes sit.
- (edit) the app of your bank and/or the laundry service demands a newer phone OS than you have, and your phone maker quit offering updates.
In my case, I was hit with point of failure number 11. Payment processors never tell you why your payment is refused. They either give a uselessly vague error, or the web UI just refuses to move forward with no error, or the error is an intentional lie. Because e.g. if your payment is refused you are presumed to be a criminal unworthy of being informed.
Danish apartment management’s response to complaints: We are not obligated to serve you. Read the terms of your lease. There is a coin-operated laundromat 1km away.
Question: are we all being forced into this shitty cashless situation in order to ease the hunt for criminals?
I think it’s too hard for many to grasp the full consequence of surveillance via forced banking. They link cash to privacy which they then mentally reduce to “confidentiality”. It’s a lossy reduction but in the naïve brain privacy=confidentiality. They don’t realise privacy is about /control/, not just purely infosec concept of confidentiality, which then leads to the mental short-sightedness of thinking they’re dealing with “paranoia” (which is hinted in vzq’s next reply).
From there, I don’t have the answer as far as how to convey the full depth of the whole concept of privacy within the span of a post or comment that’s short enough to not be automatically ignored.