Hacker News
points by croniev 1 day ago | 0 comments
I have a Pixel 6 with eOS and am happy that my banking app works on here. If it were to suddenly stop working, I would be kind of screwed though.

Similar thing happened with my Health Insurance. Germany is pushing towards getting rid of health insurance cards in favor of a digital identity. To manage this, use the NFC functionality at the doctor, and log into the insurance app or website for fetching messages, documents or other information, you will in the future have to authenticate yourself using a new authenticator app. Now the problem is, that the app from my insurer does not work! Surely because of some "non-standard Android" b****. Contacting their support is obviously useless, as they have no tech knowledge and assume that I have even less, therefore just regurgitate the same "how to install the app" steps from the Q&A. All I have left is to switch to a different insurance, who's ID app works on my phone.

While this is all very annoying, I do see the point that especially banking and insurance has to be very secure. And they aim to achieve this by obfuscation. Against this one might argue that open code is more secure, as everyone can check it. But this goes both ways, for good and bad intentions. And are there not much more resources and energy behind the bad than the good intentions?

[–] Freak_NL 1 day ago
Just a heads-up from a fellow Pixel 6 owner: it has reached end-of-life last month, because the five years since the launch in October 2021 are up. Better start looking for a replacement soon.
[–] OsrsNeedsf2P 1 day ago
Why would someone want a replacement just because someone else tells them their hardware has reached end of life?
[–] microtonal 1 day ago
Because there will be no more security updates of firmware, drivers, kernels, etc., all while there are monthly high/critical CVEs.
[–] Freak_NL 1 day ago
Something which in the context of a thread about banking apps seems quite relevant too.
[–] realusername 1 day ago
If they banned all outdated roms why not but you can use all the banking apps on something not updated since 2019 if it's stamped by Google
[–] Freak_NL 1 day ago
I'm sure that will work for a while, but that doesn't solve the problem of that banking app sitting on an unpatched OS.
[–] realusername 1 day ago
That's the paradox going on here, by updating the OS to make it more secure, you lose access to the banking apps.
[–] drnick1 1 day ago
What prevents you from building an up-to-date Lineage version for old hardware? It isn't exactly difficult with Claude now.
[–] basilikum 1 day ago
there will be no more security updates of firmware
[–] drnick1 1 day ago
So what? Most vulnerabilities are not in the firmware and they would hardly matter for day to day use. There is no such thing as bug free software.
[–] ryandrake 1 day ago
Exactly. The User should decide when their device is "end of life" not the device manufacturer.