"sideloading" connotates something that is negative.
On systems before apple's locked-down iphone, it was just called "installing".
The PC revolution started with people just inserting their software into the comptuer and running it. You didn't have to ask the computer manufacturer or the OS vendor permission to do it.
And note that apple doesn't allow you to protect yourself. You cannot install a firewall and block arbitrary software on your phone. For example, you can not block apple telemetry.
I fail to see the difference between this and many other normal parts of life.
Want to renovate and change your home that you own? You need permitting and not all changes are allowed. But you own the home and land so why do you need permitting?
Say you want to modify your car that you own, again depending on the modification that's technically not allowed either (an aerodynamic wing in a place like Japan, for instance, can't be certain dimensions; but if you own the car you should be able to do what you want with it).
Maybe none of these types of things should be beholden to someone holding the reins of the thing you own but it's not like Apple not allowing sideloading is some wholly unique problem.
You can install your own OS on iPhone hardware, what you’re demanding is that Apple allow you to run your own software on their OS. It’s like saying that you don’t own your microwave or lawnmower unless they provide you with an API to build apps on it. Are you just renting your Xbox because you can’t run PlayStation games on it?
Then you kept electing capitalists expecting them to change their stripes. To the point that the capitalists that united with ethnic and religious zeal won out.
Sideloading sounds like sidestepping (synonyms: circumventing, avoiding, evading, bypassing, ignoring, dodging, escaping, skirting). I wonder if the term originated on iOS, where you did have to circumvent things to install programs manually.
No it doesn't, it just connotes not using the "integrated with the OS" install path. There has been a big push to differentiate "developers" from "users" in general, and that is co-opted in a corporate environment to try to restrict the "user" layer while only parceling out the ability to really leverage the system to those deemed "blessed".
If you consider developer has the right to determine who runs their software, it is actually.
My last 10 apk installs:
- 9 apps not available in the local store
- 1 app I changed some setting in the manifest
For less technical people it will also include some shady apk's for example promising free La Liga match broadcast but then scraping everything from phone.
I've found myself having to sideload more apps in Android lately, simply because they didn't update and were removed by Google from the Play Store. Great apps that worked for years and did what I needed them to do are now no longer good enough because the developer didn't choose to stay on a ridiculous treadmill.
> On systems before apple's locked-down iphone, it was just called "installing".
If the phone people could make a solid permissions system, this wouldn't be a problem. Applications should by default be able to read their own install files, and have dedicated directories for their local storage, caches, and such.
They can make network connections to their home site, if the user allows it. That's all they get.
That would cover almost every app that doesn't need camera, microphone, or GPS access to work. GPS access infuriates me, because so many lazy developers either don't allow the app to run without it, or never test it, so searching by zip code never works.
> I’ve been programming computers since 1986 and even I have never said it would be cool to side load on my phone.
Because you know about the options, and probably have at least one computer where you can install what you want. Imaging if 1986 you only had access to an iPhone, like most young people today, would you still be programming computers 40 years from now then? There are new computer science students in university that doesn't know how file paths work.
Is this a joke? The reason for TFA is precisely that this is quickly becoming impossible as Google closes down Android. It's already viciously impractical to install a privacy respecting OS like Lineage or Graphene, and now they're coming for the very possibility of installing software.
I have bought one. The problem is that all the good hardware is locked down because of people like you.
All of the services I need to operate my buisness (such as my banking app) are also locked down to locked down OSes thanks to the silent majority and viewers like you.
Answer is yes. But 'safety' is not the reason for the recent Google move.
It is a move taken in lockstep with EU's Chat Control and UK's Online Safety Act, and the proposed Kids Online Safety Act in the US. The common objective of all is total control of digital lives of citizens and allowing the government to snoop on all internet communication while not disabling end to end encryption. They need end to end encryption to lock out external adversaries (Russia China etc) but they need to see the contents of encrypted messages to monitor internal adversaries.
First step is blocking you from running any apps not allowed by Google/Apple.
Second step is putting in the systems to snoop on end to end encrypted communication apps on the endpoints, enabling intel agencies to detect thoughtcrime without exposing everyone's chats to Chinese/Russian intelligence. This will most likely be done by OSes recognizing the apps and extracting private keys on demand.
Last step is locking the bootloaders so you cannot have a phone which lacks the 'features' added in the second step.
We should be asking the opposite question - is it possible to give control over our computers to a handful of corporations and government, and remain safe from tyranny. Try starting a new political party, or even climbing up the ranks of an existing one, when the establishment knows every wrong opinion or indiscretion, of you and your associates, from when you were a toddler onward.
I wish Stallman wasn't so silent. For someone who cares so much about software freedom he hasn't said a damn thing about any of what's been going on these past few months with KOSA, the Online Safety Act, etc.
how then? just a rough idea would be nice. because don't see it. as much as it pains me, but i have to admit that i find the article convincing. i see these people around me every day. they have no experience with technology. they didn't even go to school long enough. yet they all have a smartphone with no idea what it is capable of, or what the consequences are. and they are used to the government taking care to protect them.
In the same way Windows and Mac computers can sidel...,ehm sorry, install software: we don't. Stores also sell guns, knives, chainsaws, highly addictive opiates, and 4 ton death machines capable of travelling at 100 mph. We do not restrict ordinary kitchen knives which have been used in terrorist incidents killing dozens, but draw the line at grandma sending $10k to a Nigerian prince?
Even if we are restricting installing apps, there are less heavy handed measures. By enabling .apk installs only via developer options/command line/adb in a way that the average user will never be able to figure out, for example. Sprinkle a few warning pages with scary red lettering and it's fine. Grandma will never figure out how to run adb commands on Gentoo.
There is a tradeoff between liberty and security. You can never guarantee security; the Google rules in the article won't ensure it either, as Google has been shown to simply not care about scam/malware apps published onto its own app store anyway. The whole security angle is a misdirection. The whole move is about control.
> "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Ok, so ignore your goveenment paranoia. Sure theyre out to get you.
But ask yourself, would business do this anyway? The answer is yes. Google needs a growth target and modeling app store lockin and fees is there.
Youre free to live in paranoid government land, but its an unnecessary abstraction. Its actually the EU and US rulings against their monopoly thats driving it.
This is just what you'd expect any government that is either competent or greedy to be doing, given the technologies at play.
Calling it "thought crime" is, of course, a bit glib. But things like "we want to monitor the communications of every pro Palestinian university student so we can take proactive disruptive actions" are very real and not so hidden desires and sentiments of modern Western governments.
The owner of a device should have the final say. The way a lot of this is set up basically deprives the owner of one of their core property rights, in particular the right of exclusion. Instead, in many systems the decision about what software to include or exclude is made cryptographically by a third party rather than by the device’s owner. I don’t think we should support limiting people’s property rights for “safety” or other reasons. iOS is probably one the worst in this regard and it sad to see android moving more and more towards this direction.
I have posted multiple times before that this effectively limits people’s property rights. Here are some other posts I have made on the subject:
There are two reasons to install an app: I personally want to install it or a powerful third party will bring down a wildly disproportionate punishment if I don’t. Nowadays the vast majority of app installs are in the second category, and in this category, being able to make it common knowledge that I physically can’t install your (parking app / apartment app / course selection app /banking app) as root with unlimited privileges even if you (tow my car / evict me / expell me / close my bank account) is super valuable. This value skyrockets further if a large section of the population has this same inability to root themselves, which apple coordinates. This is why people buy apple! ask anyone who buys an iphone for grandma. I would be quite pissed off if the government steps in and takes away this coordination mechanism.
Your coordination mechanism is to just to rely on the good will of a single company. How long do you expect it to last before apple starts cooperating with invasive parking apps, banking apps, etc?
What I am saying is the way the cryptography is implemented on locked devices such as iPhone your property rights are being trampled upon via cryptography. By using cryptography, the manufacturer reserves for itself; rather than the owner; the fundamental right to exclude or include what software can run on the CPU, even after the hardware is sold. The cryptography is not a legal agreement either like a lease/loan ect... So this being done via extra-legal means.
For example, let’s say you buy an iDevice and do not even intend to run iOS, but instead want to install/port Linux, or run some bare-metal code. You would have to ask apple to sign that code with their private key, which they won't do. The problem is a sale should have transferred all rights of property rights to you as part of the sale. The clue is you have to ask a third party to even hope to do this points to the fact your being limited on the full enjoyment of your property rights. This cryptography is not a contract or legal instrument either and you don't even have to agree to anything for it to be in effect. You could buy the device and have no intention to use the preinstalled software, and it's in effect before you even open the box.
The problem is the right of exclusion is very important, and can even derive most other property rights for example this paper "Property and the Right to Exclude" [https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/33139498.pdf]. The fact such an important property right is being blatantly impeded is the problem.
> I have posted multiple times before that this effectively limits people’s property rights. Here are some other posts I have made on the subject:
This is crazy long and not directly about the iPhone, but this is the most comprehensive explaination I've heard of why your plea will probably never be heard:
> Do we pour billions into educating users not to click "yes" to every prompt they see?
Yes, obviously yes. In the same way we teach people to operate cars safely and expect them to carry and utilise that knowledge. Does it work perfectly? Of course not, but at least we entertain the idea that if you crash your car into a wall because you’re not paying attention it might actually be your fault.
Computers are a critical aspect of work and life. While I’m a big proponent of making technology less of a requirement in day to day life—you shouldn’t need to own a smartphone and download an app to pay for parking or charge your car—but in cases where it is reasonable to expect someone to use a computer, it’s also reasonable to expect a baseline competency from the operator. To support that, we clearly need better computer education at all ages.
By all means, design with the user’s interests at front of mind and make doing the right thing easiest, but at some point you have to meet in the middle. We can’t reorient entire industry practices because some people refuse to read the words in front of them.
Now, I'm not going to say we shouldn't try to move the needle. More education around this is unquestionably a good thing.
But this sounds an awful lot like trying to avoid changing the technology by changing human nature. And that's a fool's errand.
There are always going to be a significant percentage of users you're never going to reach when it comes to something like this. That means you can never say "...and now we can just trust people to use their devices wisely!"
Fundamentally, the issue with people clicking things isn't really a problem because it's new technology. It's a problem because they're people. People fall for scams all the time, and that doesn't change just because it's now "on a computer".
> People fall for scams all the time, and that doesn't change just because it's now "on a computer".
But that's exactly the issue. You won't prevent someone from wiring money to Nigeria by restricting what apps they can install on their phone while allowing the official bank app which supports wire transfers.
If someone is willing to press any sequence of buttons a scammer tells them to then the only way to prevent them from doing something at the behest of the scammer is to prevent them from doing it at all.
But that's hardly practical, because you're going to, what? Prevent anyone from transferring money even for legitimate reasons? Prevent people from reading their own email or DMs so they can't give a scammer access to sensitive ones?
The alternatives are educating people to not fall for scams, or completely disenfranchising them so that they're not authorized to make any choices for themselves. What madness can it be that we could choose the second one for ordinary adults?
Personal vehicles have turned out to be A Bad Idea, and now the consensus appears to be we should be moving toward more -- perhaps exclusive -- use of public transport, rather than expect people to own a car.
I'm beginning to wonder if the same isn't true of personal "general purpose computing" devices. 99% of people would choose the locked down device, especially if it makes their favorite apps available: Instagram, Netflix, etc. Which it may not if it were open, because then it could not provide guarantees against piracy or tampering by the end user. But still, from an end user perspective, knowing that stuff from bad actors will be prevented or at least severely hampered is a source of peace of mind.
Nintendo figured this out 40 years ago: buy our locked down system, and we can provide a guarantee against the enshittification spiral that tanked the home video game market in 1983, leading to landfills full of unsold cartridges. It sold like hotcakes.
It's not sideloading, you are not doing anything nefarious,shady, on the side, on the edge. It's software installation on your device, your own device.
This newspeak is purposely invented to negatively portrait software installation from sources not controlled by Google/Apple
The term side loading pre-dates smartphones. The term was used to describe how you got media onto an electronic player. Literally by plugging into a port on the side and loading the media from a computer.
It's not sideloading it is installing an application. Don't use enemy words.
There are some comments attempting to trick people into thinking that some of the least intelligent people of society have more freedom than regular people.
Freedom of speech and to own your belongings is first. This includes installing what you want on your device.
> The first is that a user has no right to run anyone else's code, if the code owner doesn't want to make it available to them. Consider a bank which has an app. /../ I think the bank has the right to say "your machine is too risky - we don't want our code to run on it."
But should they? Should we also accept Google's browser signing and ban all browsers the bank doesn't like? Am I allowed to accept calls from people they haven't vetted or is it too much of a risk to the bank's bottom line that they might talk me into a scam.
I suppose we should also write off the inevitable privacy and freedom violations in the name of "security".[0] I don't have anything to hide after all.
Plenty of banks will say "only available in Chrome" or "you must be running version xyz of your browser".
There are also banks which are app-only.
You'll also notice that modern phones have a "spam caller" feature. It either gets data from the phone network or from another source. Should your phone block the most obvious spam calls? Your email client already blocks spam.
At a network level, STIR/SHAKEN is also trying to block you from answering fraudulent calls.
These things are happening right now. I expect most people think a reduction in phone spam is worth the occasional false positive.
> Plenty of banks will say "only available in Chrome" or "you must be running version xyz of your browser".
Despite bogus requirements like these, websites have to rely on hacks to figure out what browser you're using, usually making it trivial to spoof (especially between browsers using the same engine). More importantly, websites can't prevent extensions from running, which I believe was one of WEI's goals.
> You'll also notice that modern phones have a "spam caller" feature.
I have yet to see a smartphone that enforces such feature and does not allow the user to disable or configure it.
> At a network level, STIR/SHAKEN is also trying to block you from answering fraudulent calls.
I am unfamiliar with STIR/SHAKEN, but Wikipedia describes it as "a suite of protocols and procedures intended to combat caller ID spoofing". This is fraudulent in the sense of "the caller is not who they claim to be," and not "this caller is on our blacklist" or even "is not on our whitelist". YMMV as some countries require GSM subscribers to ID themselves, but it's still far from a central entity deciding who is allowed to call you.
> But should they? Should we also accept Google's browser signing and ban all browsers the bank doesn't like?
If you want to hold the banks liable for fraud committed against you (which is exactly what happens in many countries), then it’s hardly reasonable to say that they’re not allowed to use what ever technical options they can to prevent that fraud.
You can put forward the argument that banks simply shouldn’t be responsible for fraud committed against their customers. But we only need to look at world of cryptocurrencies to see how well that works in reality.
I think the premise that app stores, notarisarion and such protect users is false. It’s like saying sunglasses protect you from the sun - they help you not get blinded by it right away, but you still need sunscreen, wear a hat etc.
Apple/Google rejecting some obvious scam apps doesn’t mean people don’t get scammed or hurt in other ways. Just like online age verification doesn’t actually protect children or make you a better parent… its just straw man of sorts, designed to remove agency from users through a false sense of safety.
The iphone system protects people fairly well at the stuff it's designed for, ie installing malware. Obviously sunglasses don't stop you needing sunscreen and the app store doesn't protect me from crashing my car etc.
> It’s like saying sunglasses protect you from the sun
It is actually much closer than you think. There are the standard sunglasses and then you have actually rated sunglasses for various purposes. The more extreme the environment, the more the former gives a false sense of safety that just isn't there.
Readit News
On systems before apple's locked-down iphone, it was just called "installing".
The PC revolution started with people just inserting their software into the comptuer and running it. You didn't have to ask the computer manufacturer or the OS vendor permission to do it.
And note that apple doesn't allow you to protect yourself. You cannot install a firewall and block arbitrary software on your phone. For example, you can not block apple telemetry.
2. I try to install my own software.
3. I'm prevented in installing my software on my device without "permission" from manufacturer.
4. Therefore, I do not own said hardware; manufacturer still does.
5. Therefore this is a indefinite rental instead of a sale.
6. I was defrauded with a fake sale, and Apple is defrauding IRS by not being properly taxed over millions of rental units (phones, tablets)
Want to renovate and change your home that you own? You need permitting and not all changes are allowed. But you own the home and land so why do you need permitting?
Say you want to modify your car that you own, again depending on the modification that's technically not allowed either (an aerodynamic wing in a place like Japan, for instance, can't be certain dimensions; but if you own the car you should be able to do what you want with it).
Maybe none of these types of things should be beholden to someone holding the reins of the thing you own but it's not like Apple not allowing sideloading is some wholly unique problem.
It’s not indefinite, because the vendor won’t support the hardware indefinitely. It’s also not a rental, because you are free to resell the hardware.
But the terminology did seem to spring up with iOS. It makes sense to call it that there. But on a platform that allows it, it's just installing.
My last 10 apk installs:
- 9 apps not available in the local store - 1 app I changed some setting in the manifest
For less technical people it will also include some shady apk's for example promising free La Liga match broadcast but then scraping everything from phone.
If the phone people could make a solid permissions system, this wouldn't be a problem. Applications should by default be able to read their own install files, and have dedicated directories for their local storage, caches, and such. They can make network connections to their home site, if the user allows it. That's all they get.
This covers most games. What else does it cover?
If you want an open phone, buy one. But I instruct all of the older members of my family to buy iPhones and iPads.
I’ve been programming computers since 1986 and even I have never said it would be cool to side load on my phone.
Because you know about the options, and probably have at least one computer where you can install what you want. Imaging if 1986 you only had access to an iPhone, like most young people today, would you still be programming computers 40 years from now then? There are new computer science students in university that doesn't know how file paths work.
Is this a joke? The reason for TFA is precisely that this is quickly becoming impossible as Google closes down Android. It's already viciously impractical to install a privacy respecting OS like Lineage or Graphene, and now they're coming for the very possibility of installing software.
There are none that are usable.
All of the services I need to operate my buisness (such as my banking app) are also locked down to locked down OSes thanks to the silent majority and viewers like you.
It is a move taken in lockstep with EU's Chat Control and UK's Online Safety Act, and the proposed Kids Online Safety Act in the US. The common objective of all is total control of digital lives of citizens and allowing the government to snoop on all internet communication while not disabling end to end encryption. They need end to end encryption to lock out external adversaries (Russia China etc) but they need to see the contents of encrypted messages to monitor internal adversaries.
First step is blocking you from running any apps not allowed by Google/Apple.
Second step is putting in the systems to snoop on end to end encrypted communication apps on the endpoints, enabling intel agencies to detect thoughtcrime without exposing everyone's chats to Chinese/Russian intelligence. This will most likely be done by OSes recognizing the apps and extracting private keys on demand.
Last step is locking the bootloaders so you cannot have a phone which lacks the 'features' added in the second step.
You have already given in to tyranny when you've given that total control.
how then? just a rough idea would be nice. because don't see it. as much as it pains me, but i have to admit that i find the article convincing. i see these people around me every day. they have no experience with technology. they didn't even go to school long enough. yet they all have a smartphone with no idea what it is capable of, or what the consequences are. and they are used to the government taking care to protect them.
Even if we are restricting installing apps, there are less heavy handed measures. By enabling .apk installs only via developer options/command line/adb in a way that the average user will never be able to figure out, for example. Sprinkle a few warning pages with scary red lettering and it's fine. Grandma will never figure out how to run adb commands on Gentoo.
There is a tradeoff between liberty and security. You can never guarantee security; the Google rules in the article won't ensure it either, as Google has been shown to simply not care about scam/malware apps published onto its own app store anyway. The whole security angle is a misdirection. The whole move is about control.
> "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
- Benjamin Franklin
But ask yourself, would business do this anyway? The answer is yes. Google needs a growth target and modeling app store lockin and fees is there.
Youre free to live in paranoid government land, but its an unnecessary abstraction. Its actually the EU and US rulings against their monopoly thats driving it.
Again, the paranoia is just drivel.
This is just what you'd expect any government that is either competent or greedy to be doing, given the technologies at play.
Calling it "thought crime" is, of course, a bit glib. But things like "we want to monitor the communications of every pro Palestinian university student so we can take proactive disruptive actions" are very real and not so hidden desires and sentiments of modern Western governments.
> Its actually the EU and US rulings against their monopoly thats driving it.
Can you elaborate on this? Locking phones down like this would seem to make Google an even bigger target for future anti-trust suits, no?
Well, in this domain (government surveillance), probably not paranoia.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden
I have posted multiple times before that this effectively limits people’s property rights. Here are some other posts I have made on the subject:
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39349288
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39236853
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35067455
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40727203
That's the problem to attack - not user freedom. "Mandatory app" is an anti-accessibility anti-feature.
That may be the crux of the misunderstanding. The 'licensing' of music, movies, TV shows when you "purchase" them is coming / has come to hardware.
The owner of the device is who controls what you can do with it, not necessarily who paid to keep it in their pocket.
For example, let’s say you buy an iDevice and do not even intend to run iOS, but instead want to install/port Linux, or run some bare-metal code. You would have to ask apple to sign that code with their private key, which they won't do. The problem is a sale should have transferred all rights of property rights to you as part of the sale. The clue is you have to ask a third party to even hope to do this points to the fact your being limited on the full enjoyment of your property rights. This cryptography is not a contract or legal instrument either and you don't even have to agree to anything for it to be in effect. You could buy the device and have no intention to use the preinstalled software, and it's in effect before you even open the box.
The problem is the right of exclusion is very important, and can even derive most other property rights for example this paper "Property and the Right to Exclude" [https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/33139498.pdf]. The fact such an important property right is being blatantly impeded is the problem.
This is crazy long and not directly about the iPhone, but this is the most comprehensive explaination I've heard of why your plea will probably never be heard:
https://youtu.be/ZK742uBTywA?si=poDXl3Mz7lYwdUxa0
(TLDR: international treaties)
Yes, obviously yes. In the same way we teach people to operate cars safely and expect them to carry and utilise that knowledge. Does it work perfectly? Of course not, but at least we entertain the idea that if you crash your car into a wall because you’re not paying attention it might actually be your fault.
Computers are a critical aspect of work and life. While I’m a big proponent of making technology less of a requirement in day to day life—you shouldn’t need to own a smartphone and download an app to pay for parking or charge your car—but in cases where it is reasonable to expect someone to use a computer, it’s also reasonable to expect a baseline competency from the operator. To support that, we clearly need better computer education at all ages.
By all means, design with the user’s interests at front of mind and make doing the right thing easiest, but at some point you have to meet in the middle. We can’t reorient entire industry practices because some people refuse to read the words in front of them.
But this sounds an awful lot like trying to avoid changing the technology by changing human nature. And that's a fool's errand.
There are always going to be a significant percentage of users you're never going to reach when it comes to something like this. That means you can never say "...and now we can just trust people to use their devices wisely!"
Fundamentally, the issue with people clicking things isn't really a problem because it's new technology. It's a problem because they're people. People fall for scams all the time, and that doesn't change just because it's now "on a computer".
But that's exactly the issue. You won't prevent someone from wiring money to Nigeria by restricting what apps they can install on their phone while allowing the official bank app which supports wire transfers.
If someone is willing to press any sequence of buttons a scammer tells them to then the only way to prevent them from doing something at the behest of the scammer is to prevent them from doing it at all.
But that's hardly practical, because you're going to, what? Prevent anyone from transferring money even for legitimate reasons? Prevent people from reading their own email or DMs so they can't give a scammer access to sensitive ones?
The alternatives are educating people to not fall for scams, or completely disenfranchising them so that they're not authorized to make any choices for themselves. What madness can it be that we could choose the second one for ordinary adults?
Personal vehicles have turned out to be A Bad Idea, and now the consensus appears to be we should be moving toward more -- perhaps exclusive -- use of public transport, rather than expect people to own a car.
I'm beginning to wonder if the same isn't true of personal "general purpose computing" devices. 99% of people would choose the locked down device, especially if it makes their favorite apps available: Instagram, Netflix, etc. Which it may not if it were open, because then it could not provide guarantees against piracy or tampering by the end user. But still, from an end user perspective, knowing that stuff from bad actors will be prevented or at least severely hampered is a source of peace of mind.
Nintendo figured this out 40 years ago: buy our locked down system, and we can provide a guarantee against the enshittification spiral that tanked the home video game market in 1983, leading to landfills full of unsold cartridges. It sold like hotcakes.
If this is so, we need a lot MORE locked down tech. Most people on the roads are killers
There are some comments attempting to trick people into thinking that some of the least intelligent people of society have more freedom than regular people.
Freedom of speech and to own your belongings is first. This includes installing what you want on your device.
But should they? Should we also accept Google's browser signing and ban all browsers the bank doesn't like? Am I allowed to accept calls from people they haven't vetted or is it too much of a risk to the bank's bottom line that they might talk me into a scam.
I suppose we should also write off the inevitable privacy and freedom violations in the name of "security".[0] I don't have anything to hide after all.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...
There are also banks which are app-only.
You'll also notice that modern phones have a "spam caller" feature. It either gets data from the phone network or from another source. Should your phone block the most obvious spam calls? Your email client already blocks spam.
At a network level, STIR/SHAKEN is also trying to block you from answering fraudulent calls.
These things are happening right now. I expect most people think a reduction in phone spam is worth the occasional false positive.
You may have a different opinion.
Despite bogus requirements like these, websites have to rely on hacks to figure out what browser you're using, usually making it trivial to spoof (especially between browsers using the same engine). More importantly, websites can't prevent extensions from running, which I believe was one of WEI's goals.
> You'll also notice that modern phones have a "spam caller" feature.
I have yet to see a smartphone that enforces such feature and does not allow the user to disable or configure it.
> At a network level, STIR/SHAKEN is also trying to block you from answering fraudulent calls.
I am unfamiliar with STIR/SHAKEN, but Wikipedia describes it as "a suite of protocols and procedures intended to combat caller ID spoofing". This is fraudulent in the sense of "the caller is not who they claim to be," and not "this caller is on our blacklist" or even "is not on our whitelist". YMMV as some countries require GSM subscribers to ID themselves, but it's still far from a central entity deciding who is allowed to call you.
But otherwise I agree, I hate the same shit about requiring 2fa. Let me fucking decide about how much I care about my account being stolen.
If you want to hold the banks liable for fraud committed against you (which is exactly what happens in many countries), then it’s hardly reasonable to say that they’re not allowed to use what ever technical options they can to prevent that fraud.
You can put forward the argument that banks simply shouldn’t be responsible for fraud committed against their customers. But we only need to look at world of cryptocurrencies to see how well that works in reality.
Of course it's reasonable? You can give someone a job and also ask them to do it a certain way.
Apple/Google rejecting some obvious scam apps doesn’t mean people don’t get scammed or hurt in other ways. Just like online age verification doesn’t actually protect children or make you a better parent… its just straw man of sorts, designed to remove agency from users through a false sense of safety.
But it comes with the rather large price of a huge limitation to my personal choices.
It is actually much closer than you think. There are the standard sunglasses and then you have actually rated sunglasses for various purposes. The more extreme the environment, the more the former gives a false sense of safety that just isn't there.