Many big institutions lean heavily on mobile apps and other gated computing.
I live in BC Canada and by far the easiest way to authenticate a login to provincial sources involves using the BC ID App as a second factor, even when logging in via desktop. Many banks now also use their app as a second factor, rather than a generic OTP option that can run on any hardware.
There were also issues like running Netflix DRM in browser on Linux for a while.
General purpose computers won’t go away, but they will continue to be gated from more and more services until you are more or less required to have a phone or locked down ecosystem device.
> Many banks now also use their app as a second factor, rather than a generic OTP option that can run on any hardware.
This is one I’m willing to tolerate, as long as it’s optional. Something I don’t understand though is banking app setup. When I got a new phone this year, the RBC app made me submit some kind of live selfie.
The thing is, I know they can scan your debit card with NFC and authenticate the PIN. I’ve used it for a password reset in the past. Why is a selfie better than that when they presumably have nothing to compare it to?
It would be quite a scandal, legally and socially, if it was discovered that a bank was creating a database of images of their customers without consent.
That's quite interesting! So in Canada, it seems PIPEDA means the banks can't use atm video footage to build client profiles. Cannot say the same for the US, unfortunately.
According to ChatGPT: Only Illinois, Texas, and Washington really constrain that, and Illinois is the only one with real teeth.
> Many banks now also use their app as a second factor, rather than a generic OTP option that can run on any hardware.
A financial institution I have an account with requires MFA to log in, and the only options they support are SMS MFA and their proprietary smartphone app. This is acutely annoying to me, because it means I have to get up and get my phone if I want to log into this site from my PC (or rig up a complicated Android emulator setup).
Many big institutions lean heavily on mobile apps and other gated computing.
I live in BC Canada and by far the easiest way to authenticate a login to provincial sources involves using the BC ID App as a second factor, even when logging in via desktop. Many banks now also use their app as a second factor, rather than a generic OTP option that can run on any hardware.
There were also issues like running Netflix DRM in browser on Linux for a while.
General purpose computers won’t go away, but they will continue to be gated from more and more services until you are more or less required to have a phone or locked down ecosystem device.