Thomas T. Frost wrote:
Government and bank authentication systems increasingly require a smartphone, sometimes with an NFC reader (e.g. Denmark and the UK), to let you into their digital systems, so life without a smartphone is becoming increasingly difficult, whether we like it or not.
Well, I will not be bullied into buying an expensive piece of equipment that I don't want and have no other use for.
Two-factor authentication with an SMS code works on dumb phones but is not nearly as secure as app-based authentication. It has been hacked in various ways. I would expect that old authentication method to be phased out slowly.
I expect it's only matter of time until somebody hacks the apps. If they haven't done so already.
About your email support experience, support agents are often under pressure to solve a certain number of tickets per hour, so they don't read and understand users' emails properly and then copy and paste some boilerplate text. Some email support systems now use AI to generate a suggested answer, but the support agent should still check it.
I finally received an answer that reads as if it was written by a human being and is actually quite helpful. I now realise I had misunderstood the instructions on their website - which I attribute to their being poorly written, rather than any deficiency in reading comprehension on my part.
So I'll try again when I have time.
Hot on the heels of this human response came another computer-generated email asking how satisfied I was with their support.
Sigh!
I find their advice to either use somebody else's computer/phone or to do the verification in a public place quite alarming enough.
If you install the app, login, complete the authentication, close the app and uninstall it yourself, I don't see any problem. Danish authorities suggested a similar method for users having to enrol in the new public authentication system.
One of the most basic pieces of security advice these organisations offer is that, whatever authentication system you use, don't do it when somebody else is looking over your shoulder.
I do not see how that is compatible with verifying your ID in a public library, with or without the assistance of the librarian.
[Edited to delete superfluous comma]
[Edited at 2024-11-03 06:31 GMT]
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