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Comment by brobdingnagians | Hacker News Reader

If someone recreates Amazon's logistics and distribution systems they could try to compete with Amazon? But they'd also need the connections, distributors, transportation, etc. same with banking software, you need capital to be a bank not just software, and if they have the capital then the technology is working we intended making it easier to make new things and innovate, or at least just compete?

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No, I am not talking about "taking over" companies and trying to emulate them and do business yourself. You just need to be able to break trust in the api calls and no one knows if a purchase order or transaction is legitimate.

Obviously you need to have access to the keys, BUT I don't see this as a dealbreaker anymore because you just get your agents to go and find them.

I think you’re saying ‘being able to do this means the opportunity for more fraud, by producing fake XYZ as proof’.

Photoshop has been around for around 35 years, fraud has always been an issue. There are plenty of reports of people selling things via Facebook marketplace and the ‘buyer’ showing them sending a payment on a fake baking app. Fraud will always exist and I don’t think tech will make it worse, everyone needs to be more cautious and tells friends and family to be the same.

Nah small potato stuff.

I'm talking about cloning hmi platforms to send fake instructions to offshore oil platform valve bodies or insert false market trades to collapse companies.

Ah. So in that instance are those platforms not validating that the things submitting information are correct and true. A bit like a utility company needing to do manual reads every now and then to ensure they are getting a correct signal.

Or perhaps uploading faulty firmware to centrifuge controllers?

Or they can just take your money and not send out anything.

Alternatively, you just act as a middleman drop shipper and slightly raise the price more than Amazon’s and skim the difference. It might be a while before they find out.

Yep. On a small scale, you could skim money off transactions. On a large scale, you could break global distribution and logistics chains.

Example, parking places with QR codes for paying webapps.

Currently a plague in some European countries.

It looks like the real site, and you pay twice, in the fake app, and later the police.

That’s an insecure design. The way we do it here is that you install an app and register your register number and payment card in it. Then when you drive in and out from the parking lot your license plate is scanned and you’re automatically charged. There’s only two providers so it’s not a huge hassle, if there was a single app per garage it would not really work from UX perspective.

No room for hostile social engineering.

Are you sure to install the right app though?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyjqg578e1o

And given your German nickname, here isn't safe either in a general way, when folks aren't regularly parking on the same place.

https://www.adac.de/news/verkehr-quishing-parkautomaten

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