Comment by codedokode a day ago
This looks like a loser's move, but if your bank has no other options except for mobile app, you can buy a cheap phone for that app only, and connect it over WiFi (without SIM card) so the bank would only get your IP address from this and nothing more.
> This looks like a loser's move, but if your bank has no other options except for mobile app, you can…
…switch banks.
In my country, creating a new bank used to require presidential approval. That was the status quo until only a few years ago. Things only started to improve after that requirement went away, and they certainly haven't improved enough.
It's hard to describe just how deeply entrenched institutions like banks are. Normal people see all of this stuff and they do not even react at all. It's all just mindless bureaucracy that they have to put up with. Nothing can be done about it. Can't be helped, so they just accept it.
So it's not wise to treat banks like normal corporations which compete with each other on the open market. They are directly legally and financially incentivized to do everything we are fighting against.
For example, our banks still require us to install "security modules" on our computers in order to log into our accounts. Once upon a time I tried to reverse engineer one of those things to see why they made the computer so unusably slow. I caught it intercepting every single network connection. Told me all I needed to know.
At some point society has to simply determine that it's immoral and make it illegal. It doesn't matter how much money they lose to fraud of whatever, just write it off as a business expense or something.
This is indeed a way to cope. But why should we have to merely cope? Why do we accept the world getting objectively worse? The necessary technology is cheaper, better and more abundant than ever – so why are we letting a few megacorps and some power-hungry politicians decide how we use it?