Pyramids
Joined 13 years ago
Karma
129
Submissions
55
Member since
Jan 21
Recent submissions
Comment · 10 years ago
Comment · 11 years ago
I'm curious how you phoned them up, as they're quite adamant and public about not offering any sort of phone based point of contact.[1]
[1] https://support.stripe.com/questions/do-you-have-a-phone-num...
Comment · 11 years ago
A cool concept, however requiring login with Facebook for a site focused around anonymity is an unusual decision.
Comment · 12 years ago
Although much simpler, this reminded me of a website from ~2008 which did the same thing with the now defunct Liberty Reserve combined with a basic coin flip game.
The site is, surprisingly, still online[1] and now accepting Perfect Money in place of Liberty Reserve. Unfortunately, they seem to still be using MD5 hashes even years later, for example:
TAIL/OaU1ERm1ZbUl5WWpGbE5UTm
bf30359e539686fb3eaa9abf9701938e
Comment · 12 years ago
As it stands, the majority of CA's do not verify any of this information, besides a very cursory email verification.
Exceptions would obviously include higher priced (OV/EV) certificates, which are no different cryptographically. Even the CA mentioned (GlobalSign) states this fairly clearly on their website.[1]
[1] https://www.globalsign.com/ssl-information-center/types-of-s...
Comment · 12 years ago
Very cool, is there any ETA on parallel execution and background execution (ex: Currently, you have to stay on the page while the recipe executes.)
Additionally, it seems that the more servers you have, the more you pay per server. Our use case would be several sysadmins (less than 5 users) accessing 50+ servers, which would mean we'd be paying ~$3/server/mo, whereas on the lower plan it works out to literally half that, at ~$1.5/server/mo, is pricing already finalized?
Thanks!
Comment · 12 years ago
The term 'Gig' is a registered service mark (held by Fiverr) for uses related to "Operating on-line marketplaces for sellers of goods and/or services" [1]
While this might not be a big consideration right now, this is almost a guaranteed loss in a UDRP/WIPO case against your domain, since you're in a very similar space. It might be a good idea to weigh your options prior to launch, as rebranding will inevitably become more difficult as you acquire users.
Comment · 12 years ago
http://arpnetworks.com/
Not a reseller, owns their hardware and operates their own BGP network (with route optimized bandwidth/peering none the less), provides out of band management (VNC) and direct access to MRTG graphs etc.
Although they specialize in FreeBSD/OpenBSD and market heavily toward that crowd, they also offer the ability to install your own OS/Kernel if desired.
I wouldn't say they're the DigitalOcean if you're looking price wise, but having tried quite a few KVM VPS providers with FreeBSD, they've definitely been the best so far.
Comment · 12 years ago
I can't give you any input on the legal side of things, however I commented on a thread about 6 months ago regarding gift card fraud[1] and the assumption that it's a new phenomenon.
With gift cards, especially Starbucks gift cards, it's almost (if not literally) impossible to verify legitimacy. Generally, almost anyone attempting this type of fraud, even at the lower levels will:
- Mask the fact that funds are loaded with credit cards in the transaction log by purchasing gift cards with gift cards.
- Use services[2] which sell residential IP's by location (infected systems) as proxies
Unfortunately for the service your offering, Starbucks has an internal chain-disable feature which deactivates any gift cards "downline" of a fraudulently loaded card, hence it's entirely possible that after conducting a card transfer, even one fraudulent transfer could put the entire balance of your legitimate holding account at jeopardy, and the average Starbucks call center representative will be unable to help you.
Services like Cardpool (also offered in-store at Safeway locations) verify individuals identities prior to cash-in, however even with that the amount of fraud they experience is staggering. To give you an idea, the rate of successful, fraudulent transactions experienced by Cardpool in Safeway stores for 2012 was over 20%, compare to the average chargeback rate on an adult site, which is between 0.5 and 2%
I think you've made a smart move to put your project on hold until you have a better grasp of the entire situation.
Comment · 12 years ago
DigitalOcean has a solid platform for the price, and we've personally had great experiences with them, with only intermittent downtime when their SFO location first launched.
In terms of the suspension you're referring to, they're an automated detection as far as I'm aware, so it really sounds like there might of been something happening that you were unaware of.
Regarding alternatives in this price point, you aren't going to find many options. If you're willing to step up your budget slightly, CloudVPS[1] and TransIP[2] in the Netherlands have both been great for us, and are still quite affordable considering what they provide.
If you're really stuck within your current budget, you might want to look at EDIS[3], whom we run several Slave DNS/MX servers with. They're about on-par with DigitalOcean pricing and offerings, with a much larger choice of locations, including the US.
Comment · 13 years ago
Are you considering offering paid plans by any chance? We'd be interested in using a service like this, but it would need to have a much lower interval to meet our needs.
Comment · 13 years ago
Phishing for credit card information alone is extremely rare, as it doesn't make any financial sense to people whom are committing fraud, if someone were phishing they'd be interested in login information and identity data instead.
In my experience, most database breaches result in data being sold, not used. It's more profitable and results in far less risk (Ex: 100k cards @ $2/ea via anonymous payment methods) vs attempting to use the cards.
As such, the people who end up actually creating the transactions are usually low level individuals whom are trying to figure out a way to "cash out"
Not to say there isn't a chance you're right, but card data is cheaply and readily available elsewhere, which is why I don't think this was related to a phishing attack. If there were other signs (ex: bank logins compromised, credit inquiries, etc.) then I'd be much more inclined to agree. Either way, it's hard to come to a certain conclusion based on the information provided in the article.
Comment · 13 years ago
I wouldn't say there is any higher potential for fraud, as they're essentially verifying the same about of data. It may make it slightly more difficult to recover funds if your card is used without your permission, however.
The processing rate is typically lower because of agreements between issuing banks and debit processing networks, and is a somewhat hot topic at the moment as technically pinless online debit transactions are only intended for when the customers identity has been "confirmed", such as individuals with running accounts at a wireless carrier.
However, for whatever reason, some big companies are being allowed to use the MasterCard Debit/Maestro/Visa Debit/STAR/PULSE networks in this manner. In this case that company is Starbucks.
I'd estimate the rate paid by Amazon/Starbucks for processing pinless debit is 0.8% or less. Compare this with the 0.9 - 2.2% interchange fee (depending on card type) they'd incur if they processed these transactions as credit. It might not sound like a lot, but at that scale it probably ends up being millions per day saved.
Comment · 13 years ago
As far as Giftango goes, they simply provide the platform, Whole Foods (or whomever is the actual gift card merchant) is responsible for any fraud which occurs due to abuse of the platform. Assuming the fraud was successful, Whole Foods will lose both their product and their money.
Having used both for several months, I found the only workable option for myself was converting the database to KDB 1.x and using KeePassX.