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. [deleted] · 1790195385 · focus · HN ↗

                     [deleted]

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