News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Nextcloud cries foul over Google Play Store app rejection by matheusmoreira on Tuesday May 13, 2025 @11:28AM (#43974020)
My bank's apps detect everything from developer mode to debug access to untrusted sources. "Fraud prevention" or some nonsense.

I tried to get away from it by talking to my bank's managers. They couldn't get rid of these checks for me. Talked to their developers about access to bank APIs so I could create a literally custom app just for myself. I discovered that due to regulations I need permission from my country's central bank to interface with the banking system. Even a read only app for a single account under my name needs government permission to exist.

It made me wish cryptocurrencies hadn't turned into stocks.

Re:Nextcloud cries foul over Google Play Store app rejection by nolist_policy on Tuesday May 13, 2025 @12:10PM (#43974493)
Hmm, I just checked: I have developer options enabled and untrusted sources (F-Droid). I checked my play integrity status[0] and it reports:

Labels: [MEETS_BASIC_INTEGRITY, MEETS_DEVICE_INTEGRITY, MEETS_STRONG_INTEGRITY]

So I don't think remote attestation is the issue here, but it could be the app detects it by some other way

[0] https://developer.android.com/google/play/integrity/addition...

Re:Nextcloud cries foul over Google Play Store app rejection by matheusmoreira on Tuesday May 13, 2025 @12:13PM (#43974524)
Remote hardware attestation is the problem. It's the only thing that prevents me from simply circumventing the bank app's silly checks.

Cryptography is great when it empowers us. It sucks when it's used against us.

Re:Nextcloud cries foul over Google Play Store app rejection by 63stack on Wednesday May 14, 2025 @06:24AM (#43982858)
It's great that your integrity status reports that today, what's the guarantee that it will stay like that in a year?

There have been so many examples of companies, especially big tech, rolling out updates in the name of "security", that just turned out to be a way for them to tighten their control over time.

Re:Nextcloud cries foul over Google Play Store app rejection by g-b-r on Wednesday May 14, 2025 @07:34AM (#43983239)
It's probably Play Integrity, indeed, which most of all checks if the user downloaded the app from the Play Store (and so requires a Google account, and being logged in to it on the phone).