Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Android Developer Verification: Threat masquerading as protection

f-droid.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 793 posts

Re: Android Developer Verification: Threat masquerading as protection

#401

Post by anonzzzies »

graemep wrote: post #376
anonzzzies wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need all countries and the EU govs to mandate companies to provide the same vital access via a Web page that works on the 4 major browsers (not an issue anymore) as via the app. All my banks have it; I need an otp device but thats fine; it works well. I wish EU would mandate that plus an EU made hardware device on which all seeds can be stored and otps generated. That can be the size of an USB stick you can put on…

Most places are going the other way. The UK uses ID verification for company directors that gave me an alternative between driving half an hour each way (plus parking and queueing) or using a mobile app. There is a web version but apparently they do not have the data to let me use it. The EU is pushing an age verification app that will only work on Apple or Google phones. There is a huge push towards cashless payment…

Yep, it's pretty bad.

Re: Android Developer Verification: Threat masquerading as protection

#402

Post by krieger_857 »

cherryteastain wrote: post #97
Timshel wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really a solution at the moment if you do not want to give money to Google by buying a Pixel (hopefully the deal with Motorola will work). Long term I would probably have more hopes in https://postmarketos.org/

Buy second hand

not possible in countries where they don't sell them, import fees are astronomical

Re: Android Developer Verification: Threat masquerading as protection

#403

Post by preisschild »

bluebarbet wrote: post #386
preisschild wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Convincing developers, especially bank and gov apps, is near impossible and won't scale well Not impossible though, my bank and govt eID app did do safetynet, but after enough users complained in both apps you can now skip a warning and use it without issues

The government and bank in question deserve to be named and praised.

Austrian eID app (ID Austria) + Erste Bank/Sparkasse AG (George Austria)

AFAIK they make use of this: https://a-sit-plus.github.io/warden-supreme/integration/supr...

Re: Android Developer Verification: Threat masquerading as protection

#404

Post by JeremyNT »

hollow-moe wrote: post #188
sambuccid wrote: post #130

It doesn't solve the current issue, but in case we don't manage to push back on this, some people might not know that there are various actual linux OSes for mobile: - SailfishOS: still linux based and seems fairly community inclusive, but the UI part of the stack is closed source. Is the only one officially allowed to run android apps, via emulation. Has existed for a very long time, it's lightweight and I think the…

And all are useless because you can't use your mandatory bank or gov id app.

We're moving to a world where it makes sense to have one cheap locked down phone with the society mandated garbage apps on it, and another device that you use for real computing.

Re: Android Developer Verification: Threat masquerading as protection

#405

Post by dmos62 »

We can't make arbitrary changes to much of hardware and software we rely on. We can't inspect their designs, we can't reproduce them, sometimes we can't repair them. Sometimes we can't even tell that they're designed to act against our interests, and, if we do, sometimes we can't do anything about it. We are forced to choose between price and privacy, between interoperability with proprietary (or official) systems and liberty.

Android making another step in this direction is bad. But, let's not kid ourselves: we are neck deep in this cyberpunk serfdom, and have been for decades. If we were to get this Android win, it would be only a small win. I'm saying this not to be defeatist, but to remind us of the bigger fight.

How does this feudal goliath meet its end? When is enough enough?

Re: Android Developer Verification: Threat masquerading as protection

#406

Post by axus »

hollow-moe wrote: post #188
sambuccid wrote: post #130

It doesn't solve the current issue, but in case we don't manage to push back on this, some people might not know that there are various actual linux OSes for mobile: - SailfishOS: still linux based and seems fairly community inclusive, but the UI part of the stack is closed source. Is the only one officially allowed to run android apps, via emulation. Has existed for a very long time, it's lightweight and I think the…

And all are useless because you can't use your mandatory bank or gov id app.

I don't use bank or gov id apps, why are these mandatory? Country-specific?

Re: Android Developer Verification: Threat masquerading as protection

#407

Post by Geof25 »

daakni wrote: post #285
matheusmoreira wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And you’ll never reach a human to sort it out. Unless you blog about it angrily enough that you somehow make it to the HN front page and some insider sees it and solves the problem for you. Getting my own domain and setting up email on it is one of the best things I've ever done.

About to go down that route as well, just need to find a email provider with ideally servers in the EU

I am on protonmail+ my own domain. Works alright

Re: Android Developer Verification: Threat masquerading as protection

#408

Post by fizzbuzzdizz »

sscaryterry wrote: post #80
linuxhansl wrote: post #29

What Google is doing is shameful. One of the promises of Android was being more open than the restrictive Apple ecosystem. Now that they reached penetration they do the switch - under the guise of security. Just let me do with my hardware what I want to do it. Let it be my responsibility to install whatever I want (and stop calling it "side-loading", as if I am doing something shady from the "side"). We need to resis…

This is worse than Apple. With Apple you knew where you stood day 1.

lol my god the apple shills are out in full force. this is implementing a tiny fraction of control over probably less than 1% of android users (hint for the hn crowd: you dont represent real people and you need to remember that) in an effort to stop a very real problem that far far far more than the people affected by this face. yet they are worse than apple who has been doing this since day one to 100% of users. you’re an unserious person

Re: Android Developer Verification: Threat masquerading as protection

#409

Post by [deleted] »

noosphr wrote: post #400
Forgeties79 wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a textbook “bad faith” argument. Just because someone is part of a particular demographic doesn’t mean they are suddenly incapable of harming them.

You were so close to realizing class is the only thing that matters. But thankfully a good western education make that thought impossible.

[deleted]

Re: Android Developer Verification: Threat masquerading as protection

#410

Post by Revanche1367 »

transcriptase wrote: post #25

I think the most fun part with Google is that if some wayward algorithm decides it doesn’t like you, along with nuking your app and developer account it will probably nuke your 20 year old gmail, your kids Google Drive accounts, your wife’s YouTube premium, the Adsense account of some company you worked for in 2008, and disable your Nest cameras. And you’ll never reach a human to sort it out.

This almost happened to me 4-5 years ago. I don’t recall every detail but right around the time I was deep into a new job interview process, Google Pay decided it needed to verify my identity. It may have been triggered by one of my cards expiring but I don’t think I had ever used the service to actually pay for anything at that point and just had a card saved. Anyhow, I was almost immediately locked out of my primary email account as well and got delayed in sending documents to the potential employer and had to explain that I got locked out of gmail. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn my lesson and still use that gmail account as my primary email but I did at least open alternative accounts on other cloud providers.
Post reply on HN