Archive for 2023

It Says “AI Powered” But Does It Matter?

It’s tempting to accept that if the internet claims something is AI-operated, then it must be, but AI is being held to an entirely new standard in 2023, thanks to the introduction of ChatGPT. That means everyone needs to be prepared to examine whether or not something is actual AI or if the use of AI is even integral toward achieving a goal.

“I think [it’s] a really important thing for people to do right now is to look at how they evaluate the AI marketing promise because there’s an opportunity now that people are capitalizing on to just launch with the name AI, that they’re using it, but not really, or they’re not doing anything you need,” said Robert Burke Jr., Founder and CEO of Sobo, a company that matches businesses with consultants. Burke says that one way to try and distinguish fact from fiction is to ask questions about the company’s AI team, their data strategy, and patents they might have, if any.

Jason Feimster, Founder of Moonshine Capital, said that a more fundamental question should be asked first, whether or not the use AI of really makes a difference to achieving the objective. “What is it that you want to achieve,” said Feimster. “Do you want to get funded? Can I fund you? Yes. That’s the only question that matters. Now, if I claim that I can get you funding through AI, and you care about how they work, we’re muddying the water, you’re still not closer to getting funded.”

At the same time, one shouldn’t hesitate to at least experiment with the technology. Jared Schulman, CEO at Lendica, says that “There are probably some small, idiosyncratic risks to interacting with AI but largely speaking, it’s a really exciting time. I think it’s right to be curious and to try, and some really great things are going to come from it.”

Meanwhile, Burke at Sobo said “I think this is the key to remember that AI is not a magic wand that instantly solves all your problems and challenges. It’s a tool that when it’s used properly, can provide benefits. But it also comes with its own challenges and limitations because it is such early stages.”

Fintech Nexus AKA LendIt Discontinues Its Large-Scale Event Business

Fintech Nexus, which began as the LendIt Conference in 2013, announced it is exiting the large-scale event business after a 10-year run.

“This is not a decision we took lightly,” wrote co-founder Peter Renton in a blog post. “We know many of you have loved coming to Fintech Nexus events for many years. And we have loved bringing you those events. But after 10 years of doing that, it was time to move on to the next chapter.”

Fintech Nexus plans to focus on its online digital media business going forward.

Fintech Meetup, a recent rival to Fintech Nexus, is acquiring Fintech Nexus’ sponsors, exhibitors, and attendees.

Loan Scammers Play With Email Dots

Did you know if you send an email to myname@gmail.com or my.name@gmail.com or myna.me@gmail.com, they would all go to the same place? Scammers do. In a recent bombshell report published by the SBA and OIG, $200 billion in PPP/EIDL fraud was accomplished through a number of common techniques, one of which appears to be through the manipulation of email addresses.

Some mail servers, including Gmail’s for example, ignore the dots, a feature likely built in because periods are commonly used as concatenation operators to join two strings in programming. Reader’s Digest recently called this “The Gmail Trick That’s Been Around for 15 Years—But Few People Know About It.”

“Any combination of your e-mail address and those little dots is sent to the exact same inbox. You own all dotted versions of your address,” RD wrote.

The implications of this, however, are that scammers can potentially bypass systems that rely on e-mail addresses as a primary form of verification or identity. Both scammer@gmail.com and scam.mer@gmail.com could have separate accounts in one system even though it’s the same email address. This method is useful to scammers because they do not have to register additional gmail accounts, which could potentially trigger additional unnecessary verifications or reviews from Google for suspicious activity. Instead, they can rely on the single account.

Furthermore, the SBA report said that aliases or email forwarding or disposable email addresses are also used in fraud and are a fraud indicator.

“Using an alias technique to add an extension to an existing email address through use of a dash (-) or plus (+) that resolve to the same email (e.g., username-123@gmail.com or username+bob@gmail.com both resolve to username@gmail.com)” was something that the SBA analyzed in its fraud investigation. “Using a disposable email service to remain anonymous by receiving emails at a temporary address that may self-destruct after a certain time elapses” is another technique that was examined.

Is your system checking for dots in gmail addresses? If they weren’t before, they should now!

Florida Disclosure and Broker Law Signed by Governor, But Will The Effective Date Be Revised?

Florida’s governor signed H1353 into law on Friday, a set of disclosure rules that will impact both brokers and funders. One key element of it was drawn from the DailyFunder forum, for example.

As written, the law says it is supposed to go into effect on July 1, 2023. One wonders given the timeline if that will be extended to give the industry an opportunity to even understand what the requirements are.

Florida has now been updated on the deBanked regulatory map.