I just had an encounter of the turd kind with a banking app that I want to share.

I’m in the process of migrating to a new degoogled phone (GrapheneOS) and upon installing the app in question via Aurora Store, it gave me an error message, saying it had not been installed from a “trustworthy” source. It would, therefore, refuse to start and tell me to install it from the Play Store. (For anyone curious: it’s the Consorsbank app, and the issue is well-known at this point.)

In spite of being on GOS, I was faced with the prospect of

  • installing Play Services Framework (sandboxed or not, I don’t want that shit)
  • installing the Play Store (sandboxed or not, I don’t want that shit)
  • logging in to the Play Store (I definitely don’t want that shit!)

only to run a damn app.

I eventually used USB-debugging and ADB to trick the app into thinking it had been installed from the Play Store.

So even though everything is running fine now, this doesn’t feel like a victory. For the first time in a long while, I feel I have come head to head with a piece of tech that was not just maladapted for my janky way of running things and just needed some tinkering. This was outright malicious, refusing operation and trying to force me to use services I want nothing to do with. It only gave me the option to either give in or walk away and stop using their services. Now, I don’t mind doing that for non-essential things. I don’t have big tech-owned messengers, I don’t have social media (save Lemmy) and all the other stuff people these days feel they cannot live without.

Banking, however, is a different kind of beast. Banking is essential. Second factor authentication is usually done via apps these days. And if this kind of thing becomes normal for banking apps, and Google keeps locking down Android so hacks like the above won’t be accessible any more, things are looking grim.

Tonight has left me with more questions than answers. Is Android still the ‘right’ ecosystem? What are the alternatives if this thing becomes more wide-spread? How do we combat this? Put pressure on banks to keep technologies open? Revert to physical TAN generators? (Until those become phased out by banks as well…)

Author @IratePirate@feddit.org

  • Dyskolos@lemmy.zipEnglish
    3·
    1 hour ago

    Ah fuck. If you mean the tan-app, then you might forget about it, as the new app will effectively replace that one in a week or so.

    If you already meant the main app, then…ugh.

    That’s why I have one separate phone, with nothing but bare android and all banking and depotapps. On an extra WiFi, totally firewalled and isolated. With a fake google ACC…

    You can’t use www for all banks, and even if, they all want some 2fa. And no rooted phone and very much no virtual phone. I hate the enshittification of everything. I hate Smartphones and what they did. And I love tech and am a nerd for >40yrs.

    And to answer your questions: we can’t, we won’t. It’s what they want, and where they want us. Banks cling to “security”…