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EU age verification app not planning desktop support

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Re: EU age verification app not planning desktop support

#401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I wrote "the bank" I meant, the bank in question, which is the one mentioned in the URL. Hope this makes it clearer for you. As for alternatives, yes there are, I'm still figuring which ones do not require an app on the smart-phone, though. I believe I've found a fair alternative after asking a few friends but, I have to account for other factors as well, like, how secure their infrastructure is. This is because…

Just use a strong password, then 2fa is redundant.

Not sure where gp lives. But most banks here restrict you to 4 digits as the password. So basically a PIN. If you are lucky, you get 6 digits or even letters. But be careful: if you use “fancy letters” (symbols, umlauts, …) you risk locking your account: you will be able to set this password, but the actual login form won’t allow you to enter it. Banks here are highly regulated, so don’t hope for competent competition.

They mitigate the obvious security thread with mandatory 2fa (actually mandated by regulation). Some use this as an opportunity to push their apps: no separate 2fa method, but only integrated in their bloated app, that checks for rooted devices and only supports the newest OS.

It’s quite hard to find out in advance, what 2fa methods with which fees each bank actually requires. I remember that some of them had funny ideas, what a customer should be billed for 2fa SMS. I think it was 50 cents per SMS.

Re: EU age verification app not planning desktop support

#402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Please get off of your high-horse and actually try to interact with wider world and not the IT bubble :) That seems pretty rude and uncalled for, why would you say that to me? Do you think that I don't have friends outside of the "IT bubble" myself, or that I don't have my own spouse who is a non-tech person?

What's so rude and uncalled for? It's just a statement without steeping to any offensive vocabulary.

And it's kidna funny that you are offended by it while you outright dismissed my comment with your "all knowing": "Unless you enter everyone's home to take an inventory of their devices, it stands to reason that you're going to see more smartphones than anything else by just looking around." - wouldn't you say that was offensive as well? But no - you feel entitled to this opinion and see nothing wrong with such silly rebutal :D

Re: EU age verification app not planning desktop support

#403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you can't use this method of identification, just like you can't use it now. Surely it won't be the only way to identify yourself online. If this provides a frictionless way to do this for 95% of people then it's already a huge win. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

Why can't we continue with an open web standard? We should have complete interoperability regardless of whether I'm using a google smartphone or a custom os I wrote in my garage or bsd or nixos. That is the entire point of web standards: to create the ability to communicate with one-another regardless of system design, so long as standards are properly implemented. This is a general computing crisis.

> Why can't we continue with an open web standard?

The EU wallet does use an open standard, and the wallet app itself is developed in public as open source.

Re: EU age verification app not planning desktop support

#404
post #229
post #5

This is hardware attestation in a nutshell: a double edged sword, and a sharp one at that. The biggest issue is that the attestation hardware and the application client is the same device with the same manufacturer, who also happens to have a slight conflict of interest between monetizing customers and preserving any sort of privacy. IMHO the pro-attestation forces are so overwhelming that we should all cherish the m…

My understanding of the "double edged sword" idiom is that the tool has both downsides and upsides. What are the upsides to restricting what I can do with the hardware I paid for?

If done well, a lot of identity theft surface area is secured - you get an integrated yubikey more or less.

Re: EU age verification app not planning desktop support

#405
post #5

This is hardware attestation in a nutshell: a double edged sword, and a sharp one at that. The biggest issue is that the attestation hardware and the application client is the same device with the same manufacturer, who also happens to have a slight conflict of interest between monetizing customers and preserving any sort of privacy. IMHO the pro-attestation forces are so overwhelming that we should all cherish the m…

The insane question here is, why would the EU mandate hardware attestation controlled by two private American companies in order to access services? That seems completely contrary to the spirit of EU laws and regulations, which tend to be about protecting the consumer, preventing monopolies, ensuring people can generally live their lives where all things that are mandatory are owned and ran by the state and foster a…

Because the EU is essentially designed to keep European countries weak and subservient to the United States.

Re: EU age verification app not planning desktop support

#406
post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the sort of solidarity that we need against this insanity.

And the sort of solidarity that unfortunately will never happen. Most people will just download the app and carry on. Very few people hold the very real concern about things moving in this direction. Your average phone user is already hostage to 7 hours of screentime daily. They don't mind installing more apps. The average person has hundreds of apps on their phone, many of which are never even used.

And they have a constant barrage of notifications, and they tap "Allow" on everything. It can be mind boggling if you spend your life in a developer-minded bubble. They watch ads. They sometimes like the ads and smile at them and don't skip them immediately.

Nothing much has changed since the times when you had to "fix" your aunt's computer in 2003 because it's "slow" and found a zillion toolbars and cleanup/speedup utilities.

Re: EU age verification app not planning desktop support

#407

> At present the project is focused on mobile platforms, specifically Android and iOS, as they cover the vast majority of users and real-world use cases. (..) Desktop support is not currently within the project's scope. This is the equivalent of a "Do you guys not have phones??"[1] but on a way larger scale. At least where i live i am able to use the bare minimum of phones, even working with tech. The friction is inc…

Maybe off-topic but I remember when people were worried about services becoming digital and older users no longer being able to access them without a personal computer.

Fast forward a few decades and now the old users are on desktop and we’re worried about services only being available for smartphones.

Re: EU age verification app not planning desktop support

#408
post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you people have phones? Edit: Sorry that reference was a deep cut, I was quoting the devs of that awful Diablo mobile game way back.

Was it Diablo? I thought it was Dungeon Keeper.

Diablo Immortal, 2018. (How the fuck was that 7 years ago already Christ…)

Re: EU age verification app not planning desktop support

#409
post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids will bypass any verification by secretly using an adult ID or just straight away asking them to do it. Hell the crazy things I used to do to connect to the internet after my mother went to sleep. She didn't wanted me using the internet because of phone charges so I secretly got into the roof to strip the phone wire bare and connect my own hidden cable that I would unroll and route it to my room to connect to my…

>Did my life got ruined by this? Well I'm an IT engineer Seeing you were on dialup, how board where you on dec 31, 1999? Me, I was up watching the systems work great, missing all the cool parties guzzling caffeine for 3 days. But it made managers happy for me to be there. If I tried that now, I would end up in the grave.

It was more like in 2001 and there wasn't broadband yet in my country. I was a teenager so no caffeine needed to go over night. In fact I can still just stay awake just fine if I am distracted with some game or watching something.

By the way I got hit by a considerable electric shock from that. By that time I had no idea phones carried enough tension to actually shock me.

Re: EU age verification app not planning desktop support

#410

> At present the project is focused on mobile platforms, specifically Android and iOS, as they cover the vast majority of users and real-world use cases. (..) Desktop support is not currently within the project's scope. This is the equivalent of a "Do you guys not have phones??"[1] but on a way larger scale. At least where i live i am able to use the bare minimum of phones, even working with tech. The friction is inc…

Another recent news about mandated app use: Ryanair now (from November) requires using their app for the boarding pass, no more printouts from the desktop. Also, they refuse to show the QR code for the boarding pass in a mobile browser via the website, you must use their app. https://www.msn.com/en-ie/travel/news/ryanair-s-new-check-in...

https://corporate.ryanair.com/news/ryanair-confirms-wed-nov-...
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