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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

#571

Post by deaux »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #438
ambicapter wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the only damage is personal (they lose their own money), why can't we make them responsible for their choices?

Because enough people losing their own money in the same way becomes a social ill. Much in the same way we try to limit physical addiction, which hypothetically only affects the person taking the substance, and gambling (though we're moving backwards on sports betting). Some hypothetical social ills: 1 If it's a good source of money, it becomes more ubiquitous. This leads to entire illegal markets, which will typical…

So let's advance the much bigger societal ill of smartphone addiction by making people more reliant on them.

No, your reasons are laughably bad, because the societal damage caused by these scams isn't even 5% of the societal damage caused by smartphone addiction in general, and not even 1% of "general smartphone addiction" + "tiktok/instagram/infinite scroll video feed addiction" + "gacha game addiction". Let alone "(sports) betting app addiction" for the many countries where this is a thing.

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

#572

Post by petterroea »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #461
pie_flavor wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. I don't care. Society doesn't exist to keep people safe from their own bad decisions.

One of the benefits or downsides of a government depending on who you ask is that it can help stop people from making bad decisions that hurt people around them. Bad decisions rarely hurt only one person.

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

#573

Post by Helmut10001 »

Roark66 wrote: post #460
Helmut10001 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I mentioned in another post: By 2026, you'll need two phones. My current setup: 1) An unmodified iPhone SE (2022 model) with OS support until 2032. This runs all my authentication, banking, health, etc. It is in airplane mode 99% of the time unless I need it. 2) The second is a Pixel 9a with Graphene OS for daily use, routing and internet access. This is expensive, but I found it to be the only viable solution to…

I have a similar setup, but no need for your "bank/govt app phone" to be an expensive device. A cheapest $120 smartphone money can buy is good enough. Then you choose the flagship device you're going to use 99% of the time on the basis of how easily you can unlock the bootloader/root.

Yes, I got my iPhone SE 2022 used for 150 EUR!

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

#574

Post by Helmut10001 »

barbazoo wrote: post #320
Helmut10001 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I mentioned in another post: By 2026, you'll need two phones. My current setup: 1) An unmodified iPhone SE (2022 model) with OS support until 2032. This runs all my authentication, banking, health, etc. It is in airplane mode 99% of the time unless I need it. 2) The second is a Pixel 9a with Graphene OS for daily use, routing and internet access. This is expensive, but I found it to be the only viable solution to…

Many of us would need the unmodified one to have a working SIM because a lot of those providers require SMS in their auth flow. Expensive for many of us. For me it'll mean I have to do these things on a computer. Until they come for that one too of course.

I use the eSim feature in my iPhone, this worked well.

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

#575

Post by Helmut10001 »

StrLght wrote: post #437
iso1631 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is expensive, but I found it to be the only viable solution to this problem. Is it really? £150 on backmarket for a phone which will last 10 years doesn't feel expensive. Makes sense to me to run any banking on a secure device anyway.

A £150 back market phone is not a secure device. It probably stopped receiving security patches a month after its release.

The iPhone SE 2022 I am speaking of above came 150 EUR used. It will receive updates till ~2032.

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

#576

Post by Helmut10001 »

jacobthesnakob wrote: post #204
Helmut10001 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I mentioned in another post: By 2026, you'll need two phones. My current setup: 1) An unmodified iPhone SE (2022 model) with OS support until 2032. This runs all my authentication, banking, health, etc. It is in airplane mode 99% of the time unless I need it. 2) The second is a Pixel 9a with Graphene OS for daily use, routing and internet access. This is expensive, but I found it to be the only viable solution to…

Why though? What are you doing on your Pixel that wouldn’t be more secure doing on an iPhone with a double hop or dual-encapsulated VPN?

My main reason is that I wanted to separate browsing/daily use from auth/banking. These two things just don't belong together, from my perspective.

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

#577

Post by tempodox »

ryandrake wrote: post #309

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…

This has nothing to do with security and everything with control. In whose interest is it that users have no control over what “their” hardware does or doesn’t do? Those OSs are not a product of Vietnam, they belong to, and are controlled by, Apple and Google. Now all Trump has to do is tell them to make all mobile phones in country X stop working, and they will do it. Now the U.S. government can brick a whole country with the flip of a switch.

Cory Doctorow lays it all out in his speech about the Post-American Internet: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition

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

#578

Post by Helmut10001 »

Helmut10001 wrote: post #106
Fiveplus wrote: post #82

So, if you cannot cryptographically prove to a remote server that your device is running essentially unmodified, vendor-signed software, you are locked out of the economy? The irrefutable part here is that the security model works. Locking down the bootloader and enforcing TEE signatures does stop malware. But it also kills user agency. We are moving to a model where the user is considered the adversary on their own…

As I mentioned in another post: By 2026, you'll need two phones. My current setup: 1) An unmodified iPhone SE (2022 model) with OS support until 2032. This runs all my authentication, banking, health, etc. It is in airplane mode 99% of the time unless I need it. 2) The second is a Pixel 9a with Graphene OS for daily use, routing and internet access. This is expensive, but I found it to be the only viable solution to…

Wow, my comment has really taken off! In both directions! Let me clarify some things.

- I bought the iPhone SE 2022 second-hand for 150 EUR. I think this is a fair price, but it's still expensive given that I leave it lying around 99% of the time, which I still feel is a waste of resources, regardless of my motivation.

- My main reason for having two phones is pretty simple. I think browsing and daily internet use just don't go together anymore with authentication, banking and health. I also didn't want to carry a critical key to my digital infrastructure around with me every day, especially in bars (etc.). Having a separate phone helps me to treat different aspects of my life differently. No worries, I don't have to carry two phones with me all the time.

- Yes, I do other things to generally reduce my digital footprint: I use different browsers for different things, such as admin work and social media (in those rare cases where I still use it). I also self-host behind VPN and have moved many apps to my internal stack, which gives me better control over what communicates with what. For example, I use WhatsApp Bridge so I don't have to use the app directly on phones anymore. I self-host Invidious with privacy-redirect for Fennec for YouTube, etc. Over time, all of this has slowly helped me regain my freedom, and it actually feels liberating.

- My path may not be your path.

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

#579

Post by mschild »

bethekidyouwant wrote: post #504
mschild wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that needs 2FA to login and guess what the only way to get the code is.

Does the government ban getting SMS messages on your rooted phone?

Not that I'm aware of but if banks don't offer it, which most dont, good luck.

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

#580

Post by jmyeet »

Paracompact wrote: post #468
jmyeet wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

So, let root access be opt-in rather than opt-out.

Have you ever listened to any scammers operate? People are, for lack of a better word, stupid. They're far too trusting. Anything from Nigerian prince scams to buying Walmart gift cards and giving some random person the number to whatever.

You might say "ah but this is social engineering" and that's true but so is "Hi, this is Brian from tech Support. We need you to change these settings and to install this app on your phone".

Let me put it another way: how do you feel about backdoors into crypto? Just the existence of a backdoor creates an attack vector regardless of whether the designated users misuse use it or not. Just the ability to "opt in" to root access for almost everyone creates way more problems than it solves.

And this is the key point: what benefit does it give users? Because nobody can really answer that other than some hand-waving about "freedom".

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