Bot traffic? Anyone using Linux will get blocked because "they can't be trusted". Only people running an "approved" operating system from a billion dollar corporation will be allowed to access.
This is already what is happening with SafetyNet on Android. For now most applications don't require hardware attestation so you can pass by spoofing an old device that didn't support hardware attestation but I'm sure that will change within a decade.
Can confirm that it's palpable the segregation and poor treatment of Linux users. I need to make my browser talk as if it was on Windows just for websites to not treat me as garbage.
Look, it isn't that bad, but enough to make me do it. It's obnoxious.
You don't have to be a billion dollar corporation to become Play Protect certified.
Being able to trust the security of a client can protect against many attacks and it is up to web sites to evaluate what to do with into information that a client is proven to be secure.
- What is the least expensive device that can be certified like that? The least expensive process?
- What is the highest level of openness such a device can offer to the user, and why?
To my mind, it would be best to have an option of a completely locked down and certified hardware token, a device like a Yubikey, that could talk to my laptop, desktop, phone, or any other computing device using a standard protocol. As long as it's unforgeable, the rest of the system can be much. much less secure, without compromising the overall security.
>AKA as long as you don't give control to the user.
A system being secure doesn't mean that the user doesn't have control. The operating system should allow the user to control it, but only in a secure way that doesn't compromise the rest of the security of the system. The Windows way of having an administrator account or Linux of having a root account given to the user has been proven over time to be worse for security. Windows has been trying to roll back this mistake, but most Linux distributions don't do anything because they don't care that much about security compared to an operating system like Android.
SafetyNet means the app checks to make sure you're not rooted or running a custom ROM because those are considered a security risk. If you are not running a locked-down OEM ROM, you can't run many apps including banking apps.
Microsoft's Pluton on-CPU attestation technology means this is coming to PCs.
I am talking about "Play Protect certification." SafetyNet is deprectaed and has been replaced with the Play Integrity API.
>means the app checks to make sure you're not rooted or running a custom ROM
The purpose is to be able to tell if the user is running a version of the app is from the play store or to be able to tell if the device's integrity isn't compromised meaning that it can not rely on the security guarantees the OS provides. Banking apps are not against people using custom ROMs. They just want to ensure they are running on a secure operating system.
It could be good if it was my choice. But I actually want to be able to access my bank from my computer running open source software where I can modify configuration and apply patches.
I don't want to have to agree to Microsoft or Apple's ToS so that I can access my bank.
I do not look forward to trying to find a bank that doesn't require this of me because all of the major banks have jumped on board.
Usually banks don't let you disable antifraud protections. They prefer to make their business and the banking system more secure by reducing the rate of fraud. Fraud is expensive for them to deal with so it doesn't really make financial sense to let customers say that they are okay with having more fraud happen using their account.
>So the server is wildly insecure and wants to make it my problem.
Take for example a simple spam bot. The bot authenticates and then starts sending spam to people. Detecting spam and spammers server side is an imperfect art. It is a constant game of doing things to reduce the rate of spam. It can help a lot if you can ensure that only your client is able to work with your service. This means that attackers can't just write some python script and deploy it somewhere. They have to actually be running your app and actually liking the content in the app. This increases the costs for attackers and reduces the amount of spam.
This is already what is happening with SafetyNet on Android. For now most applications don't require hardware attestation so you can pass by spoofing an old device that didn't support hardware attestation but I'm sure that will change within a decade.