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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

#71
post #57

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 giv…

Yes, a database, on your phone, connected to the internet, with applications everyone else has also connected to the internet. You don't have to singularly exploit every individual phone with brand new attacks. You design one attack and use it again and again.

Targeted attacks are no longer a "rarity", it's the natural result of having singular software platforms. Iphones are very popular, and very wealthy and powerful people use them, therefore they become a very lucrative target. Snowden was talking about the Pegasus project before we even knew the name of it. The ability to just exploit someones phone via a text message, no user interaction. There are plenty more where that came from, don't worry.

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

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nevertheless those without iPhones will be at disadvantage AFAIK.

Google-enabled Android is also fully supported. People without smart phones will be disadvantaged slightly, yes.

People not supporting the duopoly will be disadvantaged, those who use GNU/Linux smartphones (Librem 5 and Pinephone).

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

#73
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> This is half true there are NFC API’s to use the NFC chip

There is no API to send raw APDUs to a card or simulate a card (receiving APDUs from the reader). This makes it a non-starter for implementing any kind of smart card (such as receiving a challenge from a reader, signing it with a private key stored in the app - potentially delegated to the secure element - and returning it).

The APIs they provide only allow reading static values off "NFC Forum" tags which is useless for any kind of security or access control.

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

#74
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does a sleeve really do much? I just carry my cards loose in my pocket (a credit card, my driver's license, and my health insurance card). If I think I might need cash I'll toss a $20 in too.

If I carry more than one thing in a pocket, especially if one or more of the things is small, I usually end up dropping things a lot, sometimes without realizing it, while getting something else out. That's the main reason I use a card holder and don't do what you do. Other benefit is that the cards are very unlikely to end up in different places in your house when you need to find them. Even if you are very careful…

Yeah, even with the Apple Magsafe wallet I found I had to be fairly disciplined when I took it off the phone at home or to magnetically mount on the car so I didn't have to frantically search for it. Though I like it overall vs. having a conventional sleeve because the car mounting and wireless charging in bedroom works well.

But individual cards are really easy to lose. Probably a mini front pocket wallet would be a reasonable option but fewer items is still better in general.

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

#75
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> This is half true there are NFC API’s to use the NFC chip There is no API to send raw APDUs to a card or simulate a card (receiving APDUs from the reader). This makes it a non-starter for implementing any kind of smart card (such as receiving a challenge from a reader, signing it with a private key stored in the app - potentially delegated to the secure element - and returning it). The APIs they provide only allow…

They've expanded the API quite a bit in iOS 14 and you can now also write certain NFC tags: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corenfc/creating_n...

Still can't create payment apps though. No idea if this would be sufficient for an access control system.

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

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So this is awesome on the part of Apple, but what about Android? But what if I have neither iOS, nor Android? Why must the government/universities support the duopoly?

iOS plus Android certainly covers 99%+ of phones used by a student population in the US. And physical cards exist as a fallback. It's not about "supporting a duopoly" in the sense of entrenching it -- it's simply about cost-effectively supporting the devices students already have and use.

See my other comment: there should be a web version and an API.

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

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google-enabled Android is also fully supported. People without smart phones will be disadvantaged slightly, yes.

People not supporting the duopoly will be disadvantaged, those who use GNU/Linux smartphones (Librem 5 and Pinephone).

I just minutes ago read after your very generous notification earlier:

Librem5 runs (can run) Anbox, to explicitly support Android software applications.

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

#78
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People not supporting the duopoly will be disadvantaged, those who use GNU/Linux smartphones (Librem 5 and Pinephone).

I just minutes ago read after your very generous notification earlier: Librem5 runs (can run) Anbox, to explicitly support Android software applications.

Unfortunately not all Android apps can be supported due to GoogleApps dependencies and due to verification of "no root" by some apps. Also, virtualization is slow.

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

#79
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just minutes ago read after your very generous notification earlier: Librem5 runs (can run) Anbox, to explicitly support Android software applications.

Unfortunately not all Android apps can be supported due to GoogleApps dependencies and due to verification of "no root" by some apps. Also, virtualization is slow.

Yes, I forgot that Anbox is fully rooted, that means weakened sandboxing, that means only some very trusted or not sensible applications should be there.

Also, Anbox is not perfect - even some basic UI elements are broken (in the version I use for development). But it is good to have it.

Also, with 3GB of RAM we are not very far from a point of struggle with the resources.

Virtualization: I would like to see some benchmark results of the "NXP i.MX 8M" to roughly compare to the x86 Anbox experience, but I am not finding much data.

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

#80
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately not all Android apps can be supported due to GoogleApps dependencies and due to verification of "no root" by some apps. Also, virtualization is slow.

Yes, I forgot that Anbox is fully rooted, that means weakened sandboxing, that means only some very trusted or not sensible applications should be there. Also, Anbox is not perfect - even some basic UI elements are broken (in the version I use for development). But it is good to have it. Also, with 3GB of RAM we are not very far from a point of struggle with the resources. Virtualization: I would like to see some ben…

Benchmarks that I could find: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Benchm....

See also: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque...

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