Jonathan's Card 2.0 | Hacker News Reader

Jonathan's Card 2.0

talkaboutdesign.com

55 pointsNickKampe33 comments

So as a test I donated $10 to the card:

http://i.imgur.com/2p3gK.png

And the balance still shows as empty. It's probably a scam. (Or someone has already found a way to siphon the money off immediately.) I don't care personally, its just $10 for me, but I thought you all might like to know the results I got.

Edit: Never mind, it just took about 10 minutes for the main page to update. Here's to the good people and coffee drinkers of the world. ;)

I'm seeing $120 it's prob not real time. It says on his page that he gets the data somewhere else and then updates it.

I used it earlier, and it worked like a charm. The page now displays $120 donated.

If they don't have an API, why does it say "Opps! Look's like I'm Empty!" on the web site? If they show the current balance there, they have an API.

It might just say "there's money", not an exact figure like the first card… Who knows, I haven't actually seen the page with the card having any cash on it

It seems like the owner manually updates the page.

"My guess is that Jonathan made a big mistake by releasing API to keep track of cards balance."

Er... Wasn't the API part of the experiment? It wasn't really a mistake then if the experiment was undefined.

Er, as far as I can tell:

• this isn't associated with Jonathan but uses his name

• this isn't associated with Starbucks but uses their logo

• it's already empty

• there's no details to suggest that the previous transfer-balance vulnerability has been closed – only that it's now harder to optimize the attack by knowing when the active card has a fat balance

• the usable card number will change regularly so as to confuse both attackers and users, and putting primarily the site maintainer in full control of all monies deposited

What is this supposed to achieve? Are you really Sam Odio trying to prove another point?

Maybe the point is to simply continue something great. And prevent people like Sam sitting at starbucks with his laptop playing songs every time the card reached a high balance.

this isn't associated with Jonathan but uses his name

My name is Jonathan and I give this guy permission to use it. If you don't want someone to name their knock-off after your product, maybe don't name it after a common first name :)

By your logic, I should be able to make my own Craig's List.

And I guess that's exactly why trademarks were invented.

The popular site is called Craigslist, one word. If he had called it Craig's List, then yes, you would be able to make your own. It's your given name and a common English word. Not trademarkable.

See also: Windows.

It is not true that you have to combine things as a novel compound word (as with 'craigslist' and many other tech firms) in order to obtain trademark protection. Common names and plain words/phrases can be protected too, within a well-identified field of use, by either formal registration or force-of-use-over-time.

"Craig's List", in the field of an online listings site and community, is just as protectable as the smushed-together version. And, by risk of confusion with 'craigslist', the two-word version is now just as excluded from others' use as if 'craigslist' itself were named "Craig's List".

Even if your name is 'McDonald', you won't be able to open a "McDonald's" hamburger chain. If you wanted to sell cash registers worldwide, you couldn't start an "International Business Machines". You couldn't even get away with "Jonathan's International Business Machines".

Could you cite come case law here?

This introduction to trademarks from a course by the Harvard University Berkman Center for Internet and Society includes many legal references:

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/metaschool/fisher/domain/tm.htm

In the legal terminology, a trademark like either 'craigslist' or "Craig's List" would be considered a descriptive mark that has acquired secondary meaning via use, such that the consuming public identifies a mark with a particular producer. It now doesn't matter if your name is Craig and you have a List. If you name a business that and people are confused because the field of use is similar to those for which Craiglist is known, Craigslist has a valid case against you.

The Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark) also highlights that "The test is always whether a consumer of the goods or services will be confused as to the identity of the source or origin."

Another example of the primacy of the liklihood-of-confusion standard is the following guide page at the USPTO:

http://tess2.uspto.gov/webaka/html/Likelihood/Likelihood_of_...

Small changes in appearance/spelling/punctuation (like adding a space in the middle) are not enough to resolve a conflict.

Alas, that's not how it works for trademark law, or common courtesy. The relevant standard is whether use is likely to confuse.

By calling this "Jonathan's Card 2.0", and their explicit references, they're clearly trying to portray this as an official successor from the same agent(s). If Jonathan Card "1.0" cared about this, he could object on both legal and ethical grounds.

Got myself a caramel macchiato. Works and I'll definitely donate later.

Hopefully this lasts and doesn't get abused.

Just used it in the W Seattle area... worked.

I will put $10 on it next Friday (if it lasts that long).

I can confirm this works, just grabbed a coffee. I'll donate $10 when I get back home.

Edit: donated using my iPhone. Neat project, great hack.

Any idea how they're changing the number? Sounds like it'd have to be a manual process rather than something they could automate.

Jonathan 1.0 automated it, why couldn't they? To curb abuse they are probably just not polling/updating as often. Who knows.

It's my understanding that in 1.0, the card barcode/number never changed, so it couldn't have been automated. Someone correct me if I misunderstood.

Yes you're right, that part is probably manual. I misunderstood the question, I thought he meant the amount shown from the card. My mistake.

Someone should create a jonathan's card aggregator of all sites attempting to do this. Yeahyuh.

Put $10 on it this morning. Enjoy.

Thank you, you made my day! Tall mocha :)

I just hope it's still around by Friday so I can put some money on it.

Your welcome. Hope this keeps going as well.

I can confirm this works. Just bought a latte!

Added more money to it. Enjoy, and give back.

meta: I already miss the days that we were grilling AirBnB or even the bitcoin days.

I got a coffee earlier. Says total amount donated $130. Not bad for one day. Will put some money on it later.

Oh look, it's a cheap marketing trick. Ad. Blocked.

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