Comments on: A Mobile Payment Trifecta in Kenya

By: African Mobile Technology | SLEEPLESSKENYA.COM

African Mobile Technology | SLEEPLESSKENYA.COM — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 02:19:17 +0000

[…] world has integrated Mobile Money solutions into everyday life like in African countries. MPESA and other Mobile Payment Solutions continue to shake the way businesses are run in Kenya and Â have been replicated in other African […]

By: Follow these Steps to Guaranteed Internet Marketing Failure

Follow these Steps to Guaranteed Internet Marketing Failure — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 11:16:19 +0000

[…] rush by Kenyan programmers to create a payment processor that can work for e-commerce in Kenya. Hush the White African has a great post about this. I was very excited about this developments since my preferred merchant […]

By: Kimani Tiga Waana

Kimani Tiga Waana — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:39:06 +0000

I am guessing you were dead serious when posting the facebook link and even suggesting i am inciting a kind of panic attack;facebook like any other web application not made of codeigniter i guess totally missed this post by Elliot.That should kill your curiosity.

http://www.haughin.com/2010/02/23/building-utf8-compatible-codeigniter-applications/

Okay,the point i have been making all along is,developers of an upcoming pay system should make sure that the idea built around things that are reputable and at least have the courtesy of realizing not all internet users are saints;well in Eminems words “Some are thiefs(data in this case)”.

Success building the next paypal mate,i wish you well, i really do.

By: Salim of Zunguka

Salim of Zunguka — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:27:56 +0000

@kimani – Ok. Fair enough. We will all get USD 10, 000 SSL certificates and will ask the Zynde team to validate their CSS, lest no one will use their site because it has 37 mundane html errors.

I even fear for facebook as they also have errors. I am sure 1M people will de-register today.

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0

By: Kimani Tiga Waana

Kimani Tiga Waana — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:18:50 +0000

I dont mean to over show anything,just making an informed point from my side of the table.Case in point.Upon nick-nuffing(just a fancy word i made up meaning;visiting sites and laughing out loud),i have observed that,zynde is using an authentication library straight from codeigniter’s wiki by dxshell team,an asia outfit i believe.Dx auth is somewhat borrowed from cl auth by ashwood of the uk,but the project has since been dead and gone.

For the curious heads here is a link:http://dexcell.shinsengumiteam.com/dx_auth/index.html

The ssl procedure of securing the assets so to say is also a good starting point for comedy students and for crying out loud,while dx auth is a good choice,have the courtesy of changing auth.php controller to something else less suspect.The backend controller in the admin folder is still there for the even curious heads who went ahead and downloaded dx auth.

So to make the point of the day “Pay systems like all other deposit taking institutions in kenya are regulated by the central bank.Thinking you could hide behind the free flag of the internet is one cool business plan,but consumers beware;its free enterprise but the name of the game;is and has always been;CAN I TRUST YOU;and that is what is lacking”.

Oh and for the punchline ladies and gentlemen;

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zynde.com%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0

Thanks again.

By: Kimani Tiga Waana

Kimani Tiga Waana — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:59:09 +0000

Its interesting that you choose to speak of Ssls.In my opinion again,nowadays the reputation of the certificate authoring body that takes all the reputations and not some cheap knocks off the shelf of a bubbling p.r. flick,resellers and marketing evangelists.You are right,i cannot decode info on transmit on a $64 worth of cert,but for your keen intellect on the matter,thanks for pointing out,its worth the whole 5 bucks.

I am kind of straight observer.My point is,should the service providers hosting all the data on the mobile money platforms,the hardwork,investment and enthusiasm will be wiped out with very little effort by the mobile carriers.

I was then wondering why you would wanna make a mobile pay system with such little information,like yo do not have a direct api to the mpesa platform for instance.Secondly,i was in my eve of my enthusiasm to reliably point out the wonderful mysql over http package i showed you for apache and mysql to serve as an example,but i thought you saw it.

Thanks.

By: Salim of Zunguka

Salim of Zunguka — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 11:58:23 +0000

@kimani. Thanks for your opinion. I am sure you can crack the traffic encryption on those USD 64 certificates in your sleep. Would it offend you if I mentioned that there are even FREE certificates available and work?

By: Kimani Tiga Waana

Kimani Tiga Waana — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 08:18:37 +0000

I have been following the growth of web based pay systems in Kenya and i have made the observation that most of the pay systems meet not the minimum security requirement of having an extended validation ssl certificate.Since most of the systems are based and registered in Kenya,its laughable that one can say the system is secure with a $19 to $64 godaddy or rapidcert certificate.I hate to be the prophet of doom but check this this out.2checkout has been accepting paypal payments for users anywhere in the world save for countries enjoying the privellege of messing the the big us of A(trade embargos).

Mobile pay systems in Kenya i imagine have a central server running some sort of relational database.Hooking an Api to a database is a night’s job and the announcement in the morning.Case in point,http://code.google.com/p/mod-ndb/

I have seen several api’s and boy,they have a long way to go.I am not discouraging anyone but it helps to see that all this buzz is headed where most hyped projects go;into the drain bellow;that’s just my opinion.

By: Africaincorp [Flagship] » Symbiotic

Africaincorp [Flagship] » Symbiotic — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 17:11:42 +0000

[…] A Mobile Payment Trifecta in Kenya (whiteafrican.com) Save this: […]

By: pemaloney (Patrick Maloney)

pemaloney (Patrick Maloney) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 18:10:56 +0000

Three cool companies courtesy of White African http://whiteafrican.com/2010/07/28/a-mobile-payment-trifecta-in-kenya/