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The Vietnam government has banned rooted phones from using any banking app

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Re: The Vietnam government has banned rooted phones from using any banking app

#521
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Claim you don't have a phone, and they'll find a solution.

What is that supposed to accomplish? The service providers that require a phone will require one whether you have one or not.

It builds a case. You're not going to win with one clever move. We need to show that these policies systematically deprive honest customers.

Re: The Vietnam government has banned rooted phones from using any banking app

#522

The biggest "evil" that has been committed (and is still being committed) against computing has been normalizing this idea of not having root access to a device you supposedly own. That having root access to your computer, and therefore being the ultimate authority over what gets run on it, is bad or risky or dangerous. That "sideloading" is weird and needs a separate name, and is not the normal case of simply loadin…

It is also interesting that yet another government is prepared to increase its reliance on American big tech. I do not know whether Vietnam has any pretence of digital sovereignty, but many countries that do are doing this like this to actively move away from it.

Lots of American big tech is actually developed in Israel - like Microsoft Azure's cloud services. Israel also has a history of getting caught selling American technical secrets to countries like China. Almost every major VPN is owned and operated by an Israeli company.

Re: The Vietnam government has banned rooted phones from using any banking app

#523
post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or ... just don't install the apps and use the browser to do your banking.

My (Canadian) bank extorted me into installing their app, literally blocking me from doing transfers of my own money without it - I had to install it and take a picture of myself and my ID. After this I was able to switch to sms authentication and delete it, but they’re obviously trying to force people onto the app, and eventually they will do so more aggressively. Of course in Canada we have a banking oligopoly that…

Perhaps you need a tech person to partner with experienced bank people to create a new bank that isn't shit

Re: The Vietnam government has banned rooted phones from using any banking app

#524
post #5

I really don't understand this. My line of thinking is that if someone is technical enough to root his phone he understands the risks. Why would they force banking apps to detect and not work on rooted phones? Why would the government care so much?

It's a reliable signal for fraud. The legitimate users are simply noise against this backdrop. The police only think in one direction and never consider the broader consequences of their enforcement perogatives.

Re: The Vietnam government has banned rooted phones from using any banking app

#525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The evil is enshrining other people's choices into law, unnecessarily. There was never going to be anything preventing non-technical folks from buying iPhones. They can and should have what they like. Why should there be a law that forces that same compromise onto anyone who can only afford a single device and needs to use it to access their bank?

Because when you don't do this, people get scammed out of money. If there is a series of buttons you can press to circumvent the anti-scam measures, then the scammers simply walk you through pressing those buttons. If you cover them in giant warning labels the scammers simply add explanations into their patter. The buttons must physically not exist, for gullible people to not get scammed out of money. The next respon…

> Because when you don't do this, people get scammed out of money.

Bullshit. Big tech's war on general purpose computing hasn't stopped scam. It's a pretext for rent seeking and control and you know it. It's the reason we don't have a popular ecosystem of FOSS alternatives on mobile. It's the reason we can't run virtual machines on tablets when the hardware very much can.

If combating scam is a priority of big tech, I know where to start. Get rid of ads! That would actually be enormously effective as it gets rid of the primary entry point of scams.

> If there is a series of buttons you can press to circumvent the anti-scam measures

So the best you can come up with is an imaginary button on phones that can magically circumvent checks that should be implemented server-side? Have you any idea how software works?

Re: The Vietnam government has banned rooted phones from using any banking app

#526

The biggest "evil" that has been committed (and is still being committed) against computing has been normalizing this idea of not having root access to a device you supposedly own. That having root access to your computer, and therefore being the ultimate authority over what gets run on it, is bad or risky or dangerous. That "sideloading" is weird and needs a separate name, and is not the normal case of simply loadin…

Root access is irrelevant; modification detection is relevant. If your OS was sealed-attested, root wouldn’t matter (Macs have this in shipping production by default and it works fine for everyday users). For modding, go for it; your modded OS will be signed by your own crypto key (or none at all). Unfortunately, the media and the businesses and quite a lot of expert users confuse root-access-enabled as a convenient…

Put like this, root access is indeed irrelevant. The ability to modify is what we want, i.e. what freedom of general-purpose computation is. The very thing banks and other businesses take away from us.

Re: The Vietnam government has banned rooted phones from using any banking app

#527

The biggest "evil" that has been committed (and is still being committed) against computing has been normalizing this idea of not having root access to a device you supposedly own. That having root access to your computer, and therefore being the ultimate authority over what gets run on it, is bad or risky or dangerous. That "sideloading" is weird and needs a separate name, and is not the normal case of simply loadin…

I would guess it's because people blamed the device/OS manufacturer for when their device got infected with malware (which is almost always due to user error).

Through the 00s, Apple practically built their reputation on being "virus-free" which really just meant they locked out the user from being able to do anything too extreme.

Re: The Vietnam government has banned rooted phones from using any banking app

#528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would a government care Viet Nam is in the process of rolling out mandatory biometric identification and verification as part of the VNeID project [0], and mobile operators are in the process of rolling out identity stamping if mobile devices using VNeID [1] Viet Nam is also an authoritarian state who's current leader (To Lam) spent his entire career in Viet Nam's KGB (MPS/BCA). Unlike Westerners, Vietnamese kn…

I am not sure what you are saying with respect to red lines. Vietnamese government will not arrest a tourist foreigner for talking bad about the party or about Ho Chi Minh, it would decimate their tourist bottom line. If you don't deal with drugs or actively don't organise against the party, you will be fine. There is a growing surveillance (which you cited well) but mostly for locals. edit: oh I misread, you are Vie…

Yep! Tourists are excluded. Also, my SO is Viet turned Viet Kieu (not me), but we have significant familial and business ties in VN.

Re: The Vietnam government has banned rooted phones from using any banking app

#529

The biggest "evil" that has been committed (and is still being committed) against computing has been normalizing this idea of not having root access to a device you supposedly own. That having root access to your computer, and therefore being the ultimate authority over what gets run on it, is bad or risky or dangerous. That "sideloading" is weird and needs a separate name, and is not the normal case of simply loadin…

I would guess it's because people blamed the device/OS manufacturer for when their device got infected with malware (which is almost always due to user error). Through the 00s, Apple practically built their reputation on being "virus-free" which really just meant they locked out the user from being able to do anything too extreme.

Aiui, scammers were talking victims through rooting and getting them to install malware.

Re: The Vietnam government has banned rooted phones from using any banking app

#530
post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phones are no longer ours. A bit like bought ebooks, games, movies,and the like. we just payfor the right to use them. ok the phones we can keep, so we pay a lot for the hardware, but the OS: not. They like to advertise it as part of the phonev but it' not. The little surveillance machines.

If buying is not owning, pirating is not stealing. Piracy isn’t merely a virtue, but a moral imperative, an obligation to uphold civic freedom. It is immoral not to pirate. It is everyone’s duty to do their part in normalizing and encouraging piracy.

Pirating, I mean actual pirating, is absolutely stealing,

But that weak ass crime, that we like to call pirating in order to appear cool, No, that is not theft at all.

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