We've been invited to attend the AWS Global Summit in Sydney in April, and are looking forward to the security-related breakout sessions. 

Registration is free(!); sign up here. The good folks at AWS expect over 7000 people to attend! 

Looking forward to seeing everyone there, and as always, send us a message if you want to catch up; we'll be in Sydney from 3 - 9 April.

We're pitching to a few companies in Melbourne this week, and attending the AWS Meet-Up at the York Butter Factory on Wednesday.  
Send us a message if you're in the area and want to catch up. to find out more about why our technology is the better than blockchain.  

Next month, the CNP Expo is giving their delegates an opportunity to chat with a US Secret Service (the agency tasked with managing e-commerce, identify and credit card fraud) agent about all matters to do with security.  

If you are in the infosec and finsec communities, I highly recommend you subscribe to their newsletter as they contain a good mix of statistics and research papers on all issues pertaining to data security.

​Interesting keynote speech by former US Central Intelligence Agency chief technology officer Bob Flores at Melbourne's recent Connect Expo. I would argue that security in general, not just in the cyber sphere, should be a KPI. 

Since I started working with Stav on this security product, I've encountered some horrendous data handling practices from both small and big businesses including:

-The bottle shop that placed customer's ID, contact details and credit card details on their bulk wine orders, and left these boxes in the side entrance of the store.
-The charity dinner that asked for donation pledges (complete with name and credit card details) on a single piece of paper. 
-The major Australian bank who wanted me to verify my ID through a series of personal questions, with other customers located within earshot of our conversation. 

Our database is designed to simplify your data handling practices by removing the data from the handling. Once your personal or instance profile (business, IoT, device, etc) is established, our system works for you, first by providing our foundation security feature. No Edit. We can further strengthen this with our full "Paranoia" suite, removing access and admin from the system also. This means, once in, your data is seen by no one, touched by no one. Your personal information is focused into just one number, or an email, or a name, etc. Any time you wish to leave your information or payment details you need only quote your account reference. Strictly speaking, you needn't even tokenise it. Your information privacy is set the moment you register. You can elect to share your information with some and not with others, or you can have all transactions and communication conducted by our system and remain completely unknown, though not anonymous. You are your indellible ID.

** Until the transaction receives your appropriate level of authority, be it SMS code, device authority or biometric mechanisms, no transaction is conducted. **

Waldfogel's dream gift card: Yiftee. A creation of two friends, and backed by Mastercard, Yiftee (unfortunately this means "Gypsy"' in Greek) allows you to choose a gift, pay for it, and have your friend pick it up / schedule delivery. If they don't like it, they can swap it for something else. We like the feature which allows for unspent gift value to return to the sender's account after 12 months, and the "Support Local Businesses" message, however we're not convinced about the security features of this product. 

Find out more about Yiftee here.

We applied, and were granted Electronic Transaction Association scholarships, courtesy of First Data, to attend the Transact 2015 conference at the Moscone Centre in San Francisco.

While in San Francisco, we had the opportunity to pitch our database concept to several Fortune 500 companies, build upon existing relationships, and visit a few companies in Silicon Valley. 

Find out more about the good work of the ETA here.