251–257 of 257 posts
The actual secret API of banks-and by the way this is the initial strategy Plaid pursed if rumor is to be believed (essentially without the consent of the banks)-is by reverse engineering mobile app APIs. Most of these bank APIs try to use cheesy secret token vending to prevent casual API traffic on their endpoints, but the reality is that a sufficiently instrumented Android kernel (or rooted iOS device) will let you…
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But that was in the past, right? Current version shouldn't allow it unless user explicitly agrees.
It was permissioned before too. The general population mostly doesn’t understand what they are giving up when they agree to that when an app asks.
1. In order to achieve this functionality, the app explicitly requires permission to receive SMS [1] [2]
2. I agree that the general population likely isn't fully aware of the implications of granting permissions for such things. Having said that, I think that privacy/security/transparency is one of the things constantly being worked on with subsequent Android OS updates [3] [4], and I think that things are getting better.
Personally, I don't grant access to sensors like microphone/camera/location to apps that I don't want using them (most apps), and I think people should be aware of potential hazards here. Then again, people are openly inviting Amazon Alexa and Google Home into their homes ...
On the other hand, as a developer I like having the ability to build this, for me, and potentially for others who find use for what I wrote, with full transparency/visibility into the source.
[1] https://github.com/loisaidasam/poor-mans-money-counter/blob/...
[2] https://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.per...
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Honestly. [1] Make it $500. $1000. Unless you put the next winning lottery numbers in there, your data isn't that valuable. And in case you are wondering some data is heavily regulated anyway. But you keep moving the goalposts, you complain about something, it turns into a non-issue, then move to something else. First it was that you don't have access to your data, then it turned into web banking only providing 3 yea…
> Unless you put the next winning lottery numbers in there, your data isn't that valuable. My Facebook or other data obtained through web tracking is definitely more valuable than my boring bank balance. The thing about web banking not providing 3 years was just to refute your argument about how banks apparently provide me all the data I need, which clearly isn't the case. > you do have access to all your data just n…
That data is valuable to Facebook. Your bank balance is valuable to you. That's why you don't send all your money to Facebook, just your data.
> I do not [...]
You do. You wanted a bank data export: it's the 3 years from the website or go to the bank and ask the guy at the counter for more if it still exists. Data retention periods are mandated by law. Some data is kept 2 years, most data for 5-7, and some for even more. There's also a mandated period in which the data must be readily accessible. After that it's archived and put in cold storage, or deleted. This is why the website doesn't give it to you and why an API won't magically provide it. That website is also using an API to give you the data. Just not an API you can access.
Don't worry, you will get API access to your account when the bank is ready with it. It's not something you want to rush, especially when you have millions of customers. But if you think just anyone can get bulk access to the API and provide financial services you've got another thing coming.
You have poor knowledge of this topic. And that's OK, that's how most people are. But that's exactly why regulation is put in place. So others don't take advantage of this - your bank or a 3rd party.
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I'm skeptical of any tender that is rendered worthless by something as simple and common as an electrical outage.
And by "electrical outage" you mean more of a end of the world scenario? Because a normal electrical outage is not going to make your Monero worthless. It will have the exact same value before, during and after the outage. You need electricity to use Monero, but that can be also said about any credit or debit card.
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Because the value is in not being commodified. Not giving API access is worth more than charging for it. If all of your credit lines, checking, savings, and investment accounts were an API call away, the institutions providing those no longer build relationships that can be profitable; they're simply utilities you could swap out interchangeably. As such, they're not a fan of this idea.
> they're simply utilities you could swap out interchangeably. As such, they're not a fan of this idea. It's sad, because that's exactly what they should be . :/.
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And by "electrical outage" you mean more of a end of the world scenario? Because a normal electrical outage is not going to make your Monero worthless. It will have the exact same value before, during and after the outage. You need electricity to use Monero, but that can be also said about any credit or debit card.
I mean that I can promise to the merchant that I have monero I intend to pay them with but unless I can provide proof of this intention, by producing e.g. an IOU -- which will serve a purpose suspiciously similar to an official bank note -- they are worthless in the moments transaction.
Or pay in cash off course, but that only works if you remembered to go to an ATM first and that ATM had power.
Off course you could also write an IOU to the merchant about the amount of government IOUs that you will withdraw later.
I guess that means that your bank notes are worthless in the moments transaction if they are stored in a bank?
Posts like this make me pretty excited to be a customer of a "tech-y" online bank. (In my case, Simple, not shilling, I just like them) Theoretically, these banks with great mobile apps are one step away from giving you API access once it's needed/wanted by enough consumers. Technically, your phone is doing it under the hood already. Simple uses React for their web interface, so I imagine they have nice JSON APIs for…
You can prod the network panel to reverse engineer simple's APIs. I've done it for some visualization tools in the past. It's sloppy and undocumented, but their support staff are fantastic and surprisingly technical, so I had about a 100% success rate tweeting them things like "what's the new endpoint for what was previously /bank/transactions?" A public version of this API was one of their stated goals in 2010 or so…
How are you doing authentication for the API? Is it session based or can you pass some sort of API token after logging in?