Can't say for your corner of the world but here I need a pin to wake up the phone plus a password to connect to the bank.

That said, I don't do anything that needs security through a third party wireless system – be it public wi-fi or cell-phone network.

Wrong on both counts.

The app is on my iPad but also got automatically installed on the iPhone – though I don't use it from there. I'll try deleting it when I whomp up enough interest.

I've been into computers since I played around with 8008s, 8080s and Z80's and built an Altair in the mid-70s. All programmed via a combination of assembler and direct machine code (all we had at the time) I have several computers in my house plus a LAN that goes all over with multiple network storage.

Why the offensive tone?

Edited By Peter Greene 🇨🇦 on 23/05/2023 00:08:11

Hi another Dinosaur here ! I agree completely and do the same, I don't have a contactless card — if they send one its returned with a request to send a standard PIN card — trust nothing digital or in other words don't trust that which you cannot see !

John

And yet another Dinosaur too. How can you have faith in a system that takes into account (bad pun) an allowance for electronic fraud? Seems that just like 'Sloths' updates, we are assumed to treat it with blind acceptance.

Regards Ian.

I checked My credit report 3-4 years ago and found out I had bought 3- 3d printers about 2000 miles away. One very quick call and the charges were removed. The credit card company ate the charges of $21,000+. It took 3-4 years to get the 5 ficticious house addresses removed off the reports. Scam evidentally started at My Daughters apartment complex where Someone picked up the CC number while it was in My wallet.

Plus 1 here.

Dinosaurs as an entire class were actually very successful creatures, dying out eventually through conditions entirely beyond their control …..

I don't believe in "because I can" with anything that has security implications, or even simply fashion. If something will genuinely benefit me or at least is genuinely necessary, I will consider it; but just because it's all new and fancy is not a reason for using it.

I do not have a so-called "smart"-'phone; nor do I have anything WiFi, let alone eavesdropping like Alexa. I do have an on-line bank account but never managed to make it work, and far prefer to visit the local branch while we still enjoy that choice.

Does it make me a "dinosaur"? Maybe in the eyes of those who cannot conceive or accept alternatives, but I don't care. It's far simpler and far safer to limit one's financial affairs and methods to the minimum. and always be alert to the hazards.

That was not the point I was trying to make, Dave.

I know "dinosaur" is used as a metaphor for "very old" but it's usually used as an attack.

By simple I do NOT mean insecure. Nor do I mean out-of-date security!

The precautions we need take are specific to the methods, and any object can be stolen if we are not careful, be it a wad of cash or a bank-card, though the latter would be the more serious.

The more complicated and variegated the methods we use, the greater the range of possible losses or failures. On the other hand, go too simple and you cramp yourself and the effect of a loss can be more serious in proportion.

It is like anything else: you don't select the means to suit what others perceive as the "must have" or the "now we all" way merely because they use that. You select your best means to your ends: giving you the results you want or need in the most efficient and safest way for you.

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I don't use my Internet bank-account, even if it's still active. I do though use cash, cards, cheques, standing-orders and bank-transfers according to individual transactions' needs; but I limit my on-line retail therapy, mainly to model-engineering! In all cases I take the appropriate security precautions.

About the only "now-we-all" way I don't and won't and anyway can't, use is the "smart"-'phone way.

Many of us would be happy to be behind if our world still works for us. Unfortunately the new tech often replaces the old, rather than co-existing, so it becomes a matter of being left out rather than left behind.

Me too. For one thing, if someone does steal my login credentials and tries to use them from another machine, the bank will detect the new machine and send me email to my own email address to verify. Or by telephone.

For someone perhaps getting access to my machine via wifi …. first that's harder I think than often believed. It can be mitigated by sensible precautions:

– don't broadcast your ssid (most people do broadcast it).

– don't fall for the "range extender" sales carp. In most cases the power of the basic wifi modem or access-point is more than sufficient and can often be reduced from the maximum.

– more of a nuisance but further protection can be had by limiting mac addresses that the modem will connect to.

– for direct infiltration via the internet, make sure you have a decent virus scanner.

You and I can probably never completely protect against threats but we can make it difficult enough for them to try further down the line.