skuzz

The actual reason is control. VPN on the current Android stack makes it relatively easy for a non-technical user to sign up for a paid service that blocks telemetry-harvesting back to Google. Unlike Apple's platform, Google's historically heavily relies on a cloud connection for pseudo-real-time telemetry harvesting. If a person uses a VPN with ad/app/telemetry-blocking, Google gets cut off. That means things like, their Waymo cars not receiving real-time traffic updates, their WiFi geolocation database missing current information, their adtech arm not receiving user metadata.

Google's software is quite tenacious at attempting to connect to Google too. If you ever want to see how much, install RethinkDNS and start blocking core Google services. Check the logs. You will see the app try Google in your country, then Google in neighboring countries, then other devices in your home running Google software. Any connection they can find to relay telemetry back to the big G-spot.

Google's moves right now in lieu of any government taking action against them is to solidify their platform control and metadata harvesting pipelines. They're cutting off alternate ROMs, cutting off open source hardware drivers for newer devices, partnering with Samsung to encourage Samsung to close their devices down, reducing security patch frequency on older devices, partnering more closely with Apple to ensure a stream of healthy metadata from Apple, closing the ability to install third-party apps, and also getting heavier into military contracting.

Google is an information vacuum, always has been. When their leadership was more "altruistic", the trade-off was a contribution back to society. Now that they are in a late-stage profit phase, they're just doubling down on that vacuum role hard.

They will likely end up doing something similar to how Apple's network stack on iPhone works once they can figure out how to make the network stack work that way. Apple's devices are configured so even when you have a full-tunnel VPN, some local traffic, and connections back to Apple corporate always circumvent the VPN. There is no way to truly full-tunnel on an Apple device.

If that bank does not have an alternate way to 2FA, see if another bank does. They just want you to have an app dependency so they can harvest everything you do, everywhere you go, and sell it.

Banks will have to adapt when they realize people won't play their games anymore. At the end of the day, they like money, and will follow it.

This was one of the first original executive orders at the beginning of last year. Is this their whole game? Keep circling stupid idiotic ideas annually as if they are new, original, or make any sense. Drain the swamp.

What a bunch of useless dingii.

Plants growing in heightened CO2 end up picking up less nutrients and more heavy metals.

Each year is a planned step towards further death of the platform. Just found out the other day with a potentially malfunctioning app on Android, that one can no longer see /data/data/ even from ADB. One used to be able to browse that directory structure in a file manager, but then it was only via ADB, and now not at all, apparently. That is just one of many aspects of the OS taken away from the owner of the device. (Not "user".)

Android might be worse than iOS, in that they sold it as open, and then slowly took that away, the death by 1000 cuts approach. So more people feel comfortable using it, not realizing their freedoms are being removed with each new iteration. Apple at least said, "no it's closed, so you have a choice whether you are ok with that or not" right up front.

Of course, as choices dwindle down to two American Corpo OSes, we all still lose in the end.

Printers of this range back in the day could use a print server of your choosing.

❤️

They can't when it means their sleep mask doesn't exist anymore and they die in their sleep, for example.

Duh, and/or hello.

Another banking app thread, fun! Don't use phones for banking. One just trades privacy for perceived convenience. For "safety" you give your bank:

• Unnecessary lower-level system access than normal apps, for SAFETY!
• Your location as often as they can harvest it
• What apps you have installed
• Any metadata they can exfiltrate through trackers in the app that can be mated with metadata from other app trackers
• Any personal information they can gather from your phone

Furthermore, if you use tap-to-pay, which some banks require their app be installed to use, you're then giving every transaction you do, with or without tap-to-pay, to the operating system provider and any third parties along the way. Use your credit card at a store and the phone's at home? That transaction still gets scooped up.

Finally, you have this object you always carry with you, that has access to all your financial information, that a bad guy just has to punch you in the face to get you to log into your bank and delete all your money. Bravo! With a card, it can be shut off afterwards, and the bank can mark any transactions happening afterwards as fraudulent. With a phone app, they can Zelle themselves your money and the forward it to some cryptocurrency and good luck. Then clean out your RobinHood, your DraftKings, your CoinBase, your 401k, and anything else they find along the way.

Use the bank webapp if one is desperate.

Banking. On. Phones. Is. Stupid.

You're letting the bank know everything about you. What apps you have installed, how you use your phone, where you go, you're just letting them have access to your entire life for mild convenience. Just use the web site and make an icon on the home screen to get to it.