Re: Banking apps
QR codes can be scanned using 3rd party desktop authenticator apps. My bank also has their own app, but I use Yubico Authenticator for their QR codes.
53 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Jul 2017
Over a year ago gave Linux Mint to two neighbors of mine, both 70+, and they could not be happier. Free, fast, non-intrusive, no bloatware, no malware, simple UI. Since then they've reported zero problems, including printing and scanning. Updates are set to automatic and the OS just does its job flawlessly.
This has been known for ages to those who work at hotel desks. When you book a place via their site, they send your name, credit card number and CVV directly to hotels. What hotels do? They most likely print out that information for future reference, I have seen such printouts many times while waiting for the hotel staff to return to their desk. This is a zero security model and it has been running for years.
"Hash the mail addresses and only publish the hashes"
NO. Such hashes would be broken in hours. New video cards can generate billions of hash values per second. And email addresses are NOT built from completely random characters, which makes the whole process much easier. Simply brute forcing them with some not-so-clever rules (e.g. string must end with '@gmail.com') is a task for a high school student.
"A real Linux distribution for phones": postmarketos.org
No Honey, there is a reason why specialized libraries exist and are used by millions of people. One day you will discover it, I am sure of it.
Meanwhile, you can still hope that your super-optimised hand-crafted code from last night is bug free and one day it will serve next generations.
OK, we are 3 or 6 months from now and this app is widely used. You've planned your trip, vacation or a business meeting. Or it's just your brother with his family coming to visit you from another country. And imagine that one day before that event your application starts beeping: hey, person A was close to person B, person B met with person C, person C and D were on the same bus a week ago. And you are person D, person A tested positive.
Will you cancel all your plans just because of that? Well, will you?
Comparable price tag and size, but:
- max RAM 64GB
- removable RAM/SSD
- faster CPU (not low voltage crap, but they are also available)
- 5 year on-site warranty (extra purchase, totally worth it)
- no "do not remove" sticker present. Dell actually posts instructions on how to disassemble each single component in the user manual and it is not against their warranty to do so.
OK, it is a bit heavier though. WHAT? Do I see a glossy screen up there? My Dell's matte screen rules then for good.
In 30 years people won't own cars. There's no such need, how many hours per week do you really use it?
Unmanned vehicles are the shortest path to "car as a service". You need a ride, you make a call, it's there for you in 3 minutes. And after your ride is over you don't care for it.
I once sat down with friends and we calculated the total ownership cost of car. Everything included: oil changes, insurance, gas, spare tires, etc. And then how much one mile really costs you. Enjoy your math!
"Notice how he never mentioned what the regressions are..."
See my first post: keyboard, wifi, etc. And from my perspective as a customer, I do not care what causes the issues. I switch to kernel 4.4, things work OK, I switch to 4.8, they don't. Back to 4.4, again OK.
ETC.
"Did you try reporting the problems you are having somewhere..."
Some of them I did. But most were related to my laptop brand, and testers would need the exact same model (or line) to reproduce them and fix.
"I would suspect that Windows has similar levels of change between major releases."
True, but there is a new Linux kernel version every 5-6 weeks now! MS handles it differently.
My grub lists over 15 kernels now, I can use whichever I want but this won't work for Linux newbies.
All of them were official distro kernels, all updates done via the package manager, no manual hacks.
I did investigate a few issues more deeply and they were genuine bugs i.e. reported problems found in the kernel code. As I said, if each kernel release means thousands of code changes, such things will happen.
Just a month ago I tested 6 different kernels (4.4- 4.10) with my quite new laptop. In each case at least one hardware competent did not work properly, from the lit keyboard to power management to wi-fi. And the newest kernel was not the one I decided to stick with.
The kernel should get stable at some point and stable means as few code changes as possible. 4.12 had over a million of LOC added, is there any other software piece which changes that much at that frequently?