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Student IDs on iPhone and Apple Watch Expand to Canada and More US Universities

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Re: Student IDs on iPhone and Apple Watch Expand to Canada and More US Universities

#51

Post by ghaff »

devwastaken wrote: post #16

The more value you make a target the more money is invested to break it. Physical documents require significant physical abilities to steal, you actually have to be in physical possession of a document. In the digital world the databases are accessible from anywhere in the world. Significantly larger attack surface, and we know for a fact no software, especially Apples, is going to be secure enough. Governments have…

Social Security numbers used to be used for all sorts of things such as driver's licenses. It's less common now but SSN is, at best, part of confirming identity. And I haven't had a physical card for many decades.

Re: Student IDs on iPhone and Apple Watch Expand to Canada and More US Universities

#52

Post by Willamin »

pkage wrote: post #45
Willamin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would this differ from keeping your hotel keycard, ID card, cash, and credit cards in your wallet/purse? If you lose your wallet/purse in that case, you'd also have no key, no ID, no money, etc.

Your wallet doesn't need to be recharged.

Excellent point! I was mostly referring to the issue of loss or theft of a single device containing all forms of payment/ID/access not being that different from loss of theft of a single wallet/purse containing all forms of payment/ID/access.

On the note of charge, Apple has recently included a feature that lets certain cards work even when the phone doesn't have enough charge to be normally used. It seems they shutdown the phone before the battery is entirely depleted, reserving a small amount of charge to be used for these cards.

https://support.apple.com/guide/security/express-cards-with-...

Re: Student IDs on iPhone and Apple Watch Expand to Canada and More US Universities

#53

Post by ghaff »

vishnugupta wrote: post #48
Willamin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would this differ from keeping your hotel keycard, ID card, cash, and credit cards in your wallet/purse? If you lose your wallet/purse in that case, you'd also have no key, no ID, no money, etc.

With physical IDs there's an option to spread them out. I typically keep passport in hotel room, hotel key card in my back pack etc., Perhaps Apple Wallet will act as a secondary but a fast path access and I'll continue to carry physical IDs but don't have to pull them out for most of the cases. That is how I used Apple Pay. I carried bank card with me but used Apple Pay 99% of the times.

I generally don't walk around with my wallet any longer. Just a few cards and my phone. (Though I have it with me--along with other cards and cash if I'm traveling.)

That said, I don't really like a single electronic device being such a single point of failure. (And, to be honest I find taking out a card easier than Apple Pay most of the time.)

Re: Student IDs on iPhone and Apple Watch Expand to Canada and More US Universities

#54

Post by Willamin »

vishnugupta wrote: post #48
Willamin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would this differ from keeping your hotel keycard, ID card, cash, and credit cards in your wallet/purse? If you lose your wallet/purse in that case, you'd also have no key, no ID, no money, etc.

With physical IDs there's an option to spread them out. I typically keep passport in hotel room, hotel key card in my back pack etc., Perhaps Apple Wallet will act as a secondary but a fast path access and I'll continue to carry physical IDs but don't have to pull them out for most of the cases. That is how I used Apple Pay. I carried bank card with me but used Apple Pay 99% of the times.

Wouldn't you be able to spread your digital IDs out between multiple devices?

Yes, that would be more expensive if you don't already have multiple devices. I'd wager than many people here on HN (who are in the Apple ecosystem) have at least 2 devices on which they could add payment/IDs/access (Apple Watch, iPhone, iPad, MacBook).

Re: Student IDs on iPhone and Apple Watch Expand to Canada and More US Universities

#55

Post by meowkit »

lintroller wrote: post #46
meowkit wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strawman, Mr. Luddite. I don’t want cash, a wallet, plastic cards, metal keys, or tons of slips of paper from receipts and all other kinds of bullshit. Putting it on the phone as a native app is hardly complex. Use QR codes, an officer won’t need to look at your phone

While I am not a security expert, it seems like a security risk for an officer to scan a QR code with their device.

It could be a runtime hash of your data that the police database would already have. Why would that be a security risk?

Re: Student IDs on iPhone and Apple Watch Expand to Canada and More US Universities

#56

Post by kop316 »

Frankly I worry about the unintended consequences of decisions like this.

My university uses Google for many of their online services. Due to Google policies/recommendations, it de facto will not work on an Android Phone without Play Service, as IMAP is considered less safe and by policy is forced off, and since Google de facto makes it impossible for any app to use OATH outisde of Google Play[1]. As a result, I have no access to my University email on my Android phone, since I refuse to put Google Play Services on it (As an aside, it ironically works perfectly on my Pinephone).

My university also forces a 2FA App called DUO Mobile. In the default configuration, you are forced to use an Android with Googple Play Services or iOS app, and we were forced to turn it on. Thankfully someone was able to figure out it's protocol to allow it to be used on other apps [2]. For a while, DUO did not even support Firefox, so one was even then forced to use Chrome to sign in online with a U2F Device.

While the digital ID is introduced now as an option, it wouldn't surprise me that this will be forced on students in 5-10 years, and now by default, they need to buy an Android/iOS phone to attend a University, then are forced to the Privacy Policy of companies that they have no choice for.

Consequences of forcing Google or Apple on students aside, another unintended consequence I worry about is students who come from poor income backgrounds. One of my dear friends from college came from an extremely low income family who could barely afford to help her through college. She did not have a laptop because of the price, and used the computer labs on campus to do all of her computer work. She didn't have a cell phone either, also due to price. I get that a cell phone/cell phone plan is increasingly becoming a necessity, but I seriously worry about people for whom that is yet one more barrier to entry to college.

[1] https://github.com/M66B/FairEmail/blob/master/FAQ.md#user-co... [2] https://github.com/rcslab/duo-cli

Re: Student IDs on iPhone and Apple Watch Expand to Canada and More US Universities

#57

Post by cmckn »

devwastaken wrote: post #16

The more value you make a target the more money is invested to break it. Physical documents require significant physical abilities to steal, you actually have to be in physical possession of a document. In the digital world the databases are accessible from anywhere in the world. Significantly larger attack surface, and we know for a fact no software, especially Apples, is going to be secure enough. Governments have…

There is no accessible “database” for Wallet, these are just digital versions of cards that are stored on your local device in the Secure Enclave. Some items in Wallet, such as a credit card, may be included in an (encrypted) iCloud backup, but with some of their critical bits omitted (such as the CVV). It’s really not a different security profile than an analog card. While there could feasibly be a vulnerability giving remote access to the contents of the Secure Enclave (anything is possible, right?) that would be highly targeted and would almost certainly be harder to pull off than some simple social engineering if you just want someone’s SSN or student ID number.

Re: Student IDs on iPhone and Apple Watch Expand to Canada and More US Universities

#58

Post by ghaff »

handrous wrote: post #42
tnel77 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question: what’s the alternative? Perhaps a web app based solution?

What's the problem ? This seems like one of many applications of tech chasing very marginal gains.

The "problem," such as it is, is that an increasing number of people don't want to carry wallets any longer--carrying at most a few cards in a sleeve on their smartphone. So to the degree just a photo on their phone isn't good enough, they want a digital ID on their phone.

Re: Student IDs on iPhone and Apple Watch Expand to Canada and More US Universities

#59

Post by Riseed »

throwawayboise wrote: post #20
xrendan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my province (Alberta) I'm allowed to carry digital proof of insurance for my car instead of the standard pink sheet. The app has a mode that displays the insurance info on the lockscreen while locking the rest of the phone to the police (or whoever else needs to see it). So there are technical solutions to the first issue. The second issue, I completely agree, I would rather the system be an addition to existing I…

So much complexity, so many third parties you have to rely upon to not make any mistakes (or be abusive), for the convenience of not carrying a slip of paper in the glove box of your car....

I still keep the slip of paper in my glove box, but that only helps me if I'm in my own car. The digital version is an excellent tradeoff on the off chance that I end up unexpectedly driving a friend's car or a rental.

Re: Student IDs on iPhone and Apple Watch Expand to Canada and More US Universities

#60

Post by Jcowell »

Nextgrid wrote: post #24
Nullabillity wrote: post #4

Why would Apple be involved here? Wouldn't this just be a regular application, just like any other? Or is this yet another case of Apple's APIs being too limited, so they made themselves yet another loophole rather than fix it?

Apple does not allow apps raw access to the NFC controller, so yes it's an annoying business decision from Apple rather than a technical limitation.

This is half true there are NFC API’s to use the NFC chip. What they cannot do use their own implementation. This results in a way better experience in the user since there’s no pointless fragmentation.
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