banking and Free Software

[Alessandro Rubini]

> I'm curious to hear what you think about this topic.

In my opinion it is a serious problem. Not only about banks: everybody
and everything is willing to install trojan horses in our telephones.
And the telephone is becoming a bad SPoF -- but most users don't care
because everything is backed-up on the vendor's cloud system, so
nothing is lost if the telephone drowns in the lake.

But that's old news in this group.

I recently updated by ID card, and the papers I received suggest to
install the national app from the play store. Our public
administration is strongly suggesting to make an account on a foreign
private company.  I wasn't quick enough to tell the officer. When I
met a not-so-unsavvy friend who works in the same office (but another
town), he dismissed my complaint as irrelevant.  So that's the world
we live in.  And I live well withot that app, but the suggestion is
very strong.

> What's your experience with your bank?

My bank wants me to call a free-of-charge number and dial in the
digits it gave me on the web interface. Which is only accepted from
the registered telephone number. So I'm happy, in this respect, but
it's not common. Other family members installed the app of their
bank. My bank has the app, but it's not mandatory: they still accept
clients with real telephones, like mine.

I'm convinced that the only way forward is having two devices.  One
with our contacts and osm and such stuff, and one owned by the vendor
where we install the mandatory apps -- to be stored off and/or offline
most of the time.

But I'm scared. In the current social and geopolitical situation, all
minority groups are perceived as one and the same -- because very
often who is against common ideas and practices in one field is
against them on other fields too. As a result, we are easily
associated with conspiration theories, and thus disregarded by most
sensible people.