Thread

1. autoexec · 1790188120 · focus · HN ↗

   > Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said daily lives depend on satellites that power everyday technologies like mobile phones and banking apps, adding the loss of GPS would cost the UK economy £1.4bn a day.

   Oh no! Not our precious banking apps! What a weird thing to call out specifically. It's also kind of strange to talk at such length about how critical satellites have become to people's lives, national economy, emergency services, and people's "daily freedoms", only to conclude with "So now we're using ground-based systems to take out the satellites other countries depend on for all of those things"

   1. jameshart · 1790188448 · focus · HN ↗

      In a largely cashless society like the UK, ‘banking apps’ are effectively people’s wallets. Knowing you got paid, being able to pay your rent, being able to pay for goods and services… seem like pretty everyday concerns.

      1. b112 · 1790191557 · focus · HN ↗

         If you're bored, have Claude pull apart your APK and do a privacy report.

         Your banking app is almost certainly using a company like (horrible and evil) Yodlee, which is given data by your banking app under the guise of "organizing your transactions into categories". Yodlee then quickly de-anonymizes it, by the identifiers which are identical and given to firebase, and various other orgs. Yodlee has been caught doing this before, and they still operate.

         Lots of other companies do this, so if your banking app has any callbacks to anywhere but the bank itself, it's nothing but trouble.

         After deanoymoization, such data is of course sold to everyone, including intelligence agencies, domestic and foreign.

         1. TallGuyShort · 1790192638 · focus · HN ↗

            So yeah that sucks, but... what does that have to do with the concerns being discussed here?

            Digital banking in some form is pretty unavoidable for me unless I want a "live in the woods" type lifestyle and all the consequences of it. And I don't even live in the UK where they've embraced it more. My mortgage was sold to a very distant company and we've had mail problems. My dog recently needed middle of the night surgery and they wouldn't start without payment that exceeded normal cash reserves + daily.

            Yes, all these things suck, but shooting digital banking in the knee without a solution to all that isn't helpful.

            1. autoexec · 1790193067 · focus · HN ↗

               Digital banking might be unavoidable but what did your app do that you couldn't have possibly done via your banks website?

               1. TallGuyShort · 1790193361 · focus · HN ↗

                  You know, I didn't rush my laptop to the vet with me. If you're going to argue with the "mobile phones and banking app" line to this extent, I will freely admit: yes, if you want to be a Luddite, satellites are indeed unnecessary. You are absolutely right. But still not convincing me that's a weird thing for them call out here.

                  1. b112 · 1790194334 · focus · HN ↗

                     Realistically, paying your mortgage isn't giving any data a credit pull wouldn't. It's not a secret you live where you do. And one off emergencies aren't the problem.

                     It's foregoing cash for every single thing you do. That, combined with the telco selling data, Google linking that data to the number, and apps such as your banking app working in this same ecosystem, and companies such as Yodlee, your profile has a minute by minute location, plus what you spend and where.

                     It lets intelligence agencies, buying this data, create links between people. Who you know. Who you talk to. Where you go. What your hobbies are.

                     This gives the power of manipulation, for knowing who you are in the real world, combined with what you do online, means they know you better than you know yourself. And that's quite important, if you want to manipulate opinion.

                     All this may not matter to you, and if so, that's fine.

                     But this data is, quite frankly, what gives the Americans the power they have. The Americans aren't mighty due to guns, and weapons, and an army. They are mighty because of information.

                     Information is how you send a mere 40 dudes to kidnap the President and his wife from Venezuela. Information is how drone strikes perform targetted attacks. Information is how you manipulate elections in foreign countries. It's the sort of power that means you don't even have to fire a shot, to overthrow a government.

                     This information is what modern banking, and its apps, and companies such as Yodlee give to the Americans.

                     And as a Canadian, with the Americans blathering on about 51st state this and that, I am perhaps over sensitive to this fact. Because the last thing we need, is to give Americans power over us.

                     Any power.

                     Even the tiniest bit.

                     And information? Is more powerful than anything else they have.

                     1. TallGuyShort · 1790194558 · focus · HN ↗

                        You are discussing concerns that are completely orthogonal to the thread. The availability of digital banking was the concern. Not end to end privacy.

                        1. b112 · 1790194694 · focus · HN ↗

                           It's OK. You can talk about things tangential to the main thread. It happens all the time on HN. And I'm not blaming you for anything.

                           My frustration is likely just showing, on this specific topic.

                  2. [deleted] · 1790195385 · focus · HN ↗

                     [deleted]

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