Re: Online banking support for Linux?
Others have touched on workarounds if you face an issue and worked through policy documents point-by-point for you. I will instead offer personal experience. I also live in Ontario and have always done online banking (for 15 years, where does the time go...) and always from GNU/Linux (usually debian+firefox) and have never had an issue of any kind. Banks I have used include: RBC, Tangerine, Simplii, Ideal Savings, Libro credit union ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Online banking support for Linux?
First Internet Bank of Indiana On 6/15/20 7:53 AM, LM wrote: > On Sat, Jun 13, 2020 at 12:01 PM > wrote: >> I'm in Ontario, Canada. My credit union, Meridian, only supports >> Microsoft Windows and Max OS X for online banking. >> https://www.meridiancu.ca/About-Meridian/Privacy-and-Security.aspx under >> browser requirements. >> >> I doubt they have any legal or regulatory obligation to support Linux - >> but it's getting to the point where it's almost a necessity to bank >> online, especially with COVID-19. I think the government needs to step >> in to regulate online banking terms and conditions. >> >> Any thoughts on legalities? > I find the situation extremely frustrating as well. > > There may be some legal grounds based on impairments and > accessibility. In the US, there are 508E guidelines. Canada may have > something similar in place. However, I believe only government sites > are required to adhere to 508E guidelines. I do remember a legal case > where someone sued a large chain of stores over accessibility (even > though it wasn't a government site) and won. You can check with the > EFF regarding legal matters. > > One plus is that many people are no longer using computers and only > have phones. So, many banks are offering mobile apps in addition to > web access. If a bank offers an Android mobile app, that should make > it easier to access the services on Linux systems. There are several > projects in the works to run Android on Linux including libhybris. > One can also run Android-x86 or other similar Android distributions in > an emulator. Replicant might be another option to look into. Only > issue might be trying to get the app from the Android Play Store if > you don't want Play Store on your system. If you can get the apk > file, you can load it directly. > > ___ > libreplanet-discuss mailing list > libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org > https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
re: Online banking support for Linux?
On Sat, Jun 13, 2020 at 12:01 PM wrote: > I'm in Ontario, Canada. My credit union, Meridian, only supports > Microsoft Windows and Max OS X for online banking. > https://www.meridiancu.ca/About-Meridian/Privacy-and-Security.aspx under > browser requirements. > > I doubt they have any legal or regulatory obligation to support Linux - > but it's getting to the point where it's almost a necessity to bank > online, especially with COVID-19. I think the government needs to step > in to regulate online banking terms and conditions. > > Any thoughts on legalities? I find the situation extremely frustrating as well. There may be some legal grounds based on impairments and accessibility. In the US, there are 508E guidelines. Canada may have something similar in place. However, I believe only government sites are required to adhere to 508E guidelines. I do remember a legal case where someone sued a large chain of stores over accessibility (even though it wasn't a government site) and won. You can check with the EFF regarding legal matters. One plus is that many people are no longer using computers and only have phones. So, many banks are offering mobile apps in addition to web access. If a bank offers an Android mobile app, that should make it easier to access the services on Linux systems. There are several projects in the works to run Android on Linux including libhybris. One can also run Android-x86 or other similar Android distributions in an emulator. Replicant might be another option to look into. Only issue might be trying to get the app from the Android Play Store if you don't want Play Store on your system. If you can get the apk file, you can load it directly. ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Online banking support for Linux?
Hi Greg: I do online banking almost everyday here in Colombia and Ecuador with many banks and all except one work with Fedora 28 + Firefox. The other one works with Chromium. I do not need to change the user agent. In Spain it worked as well with Ubuntu + Firefox at that time. Best, Héctor On Fri, Jun 12, 2020 at 2:15 PM Greg Knittl wrote: > > Hi All, > > I'm in Ontario, Canada. My credit union, Meridian, only supports > Microsoft Windows and Max OS X for online banking. > https://www.meridiancu.ca/About-Meridian/Privacy-and-Security.aspx under > browser requirements. > > I doubt they have any legal or regulatory obligation to support Linux - > but it's getting to the point where it's almost a necessity to bank > online, especially with COVID-19. I think the government needs to step > in to regulate online banking terms and conditions. > > Any thoughts on legalities? > > From the > https://www.meridiancu.ca/About-Meridian/Privacy-and-Security.aspx > especially the section titled Your Online Privacy they describe fairly > vague security procedures that would be difficult to completely follow > even if I installed Windows or MAC OS X. I.e. if there were an issue I > have the feeling the "100% Security Guarantee" wouldn't amount to much. > Also these are not really platform specific requirements and they could > just as well apply to Linux. > > They have offered to support me remotely by paper mail and phone (I now > have a cell phone which I doubt is particularly secure) which I will > probably do for now. > > Any thoughts on technical issues? How would a financial institution > write platform independent online banking terms and conditions? I cringe > at how much attack surface a browser adds especially with javascript. > Maybe I've spent too much time on the command line, but sending > encrypted files back and forth by email or ftp or internet get/post > seems safer to me. > > Has anyone found an institution that officially supports Linux, > particularly in Canada? > > thanks, > Greg > > ___ > libreplanet-discuss mailing list > libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org > https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Online banking support for Linux?
Greg Knittl wrote: > My credit union, Meridian, only supports Microsoft Windows and Max OS X for > online banking. > https://www.meridiancu.ca/About-Meridian/Privacy-and-Security.aspx under > browser requirements. I suppose, that what they _support_ is orthogonal to what you can use. I can hardly realise, how it can be possible to write a modern webapp, that would be nailed to something lower than javascript VM. > From the https://www.meridiancu.ca/About-Meridian/Privacy-and-Security.aspx > especially the section titled Your Online Privacy they describe fairly vague > security procedures that would be difficult to completely follow even if I > installed Windows or MAC OS X. Letʼs see: | Protecting your computer | |Never leave your computer unattended while using banking services. |Always exit the Meridian Online Banking using the logout button and close your browser if you step away from your computer. Your browser may retain information you entered in the login screen and elsewhere until you exit the browser. Looks pretty sensible, is not it? |Prevention of Browser Caching (storing of pages) is enabled by default when using Meridian Online Banking. This prevents secure pages and page information from being stored on your personal computer. It is also a beneficial security feature if you are accessing the site from a shared computer, such as at a friend's house or through a publicly-accessible computer, such as at a library or airport. There is nothing to follow here. | Secure or erase files stored on your computer by your browser so others cannot read them. Most browsers store information in non-protected (unencrypted) files in the browser's cache to improve performance. These files remain there until erased. They can be erased using standard computer utilities or by using your browser feature to "empty" the cache. This is somewhat contradictory to the previous point, yet not difficult to follow, if you really want to. In Chromium: Ctrl-Shift-Del. | Disable automatic password-save features in the browsers and software you use to access the Internet. Given that webbrowsers tends to store passwords in cleartext by default, looks more that reasonable. Use encrypted storage, such as gpg(1) + pass(1) + browserpass-ce, for instance, instead. | Install and use a quality anti-virus program. As new viruses are created each and every day, be sure to update your anti-virus program often. It is recommended you update anti-virus definitions automatically. Scan all download files, programs, disks and attachments I am not sure, how relevant it is for GNU, but I believe itʼs not hard to do that when using MS Windows. | and only accept files and programs from a trusted source. That is the only point, which would be indeed extremely hard to follow if read as written, since the half of web is now completely broken without nonfree programs, that websites thrust into your browser to run, without asking or even notifying you. That is not the type of programs they really meant, though. | Install and configure a personal firewall on your computer to ensure others cannot access your computer through the Internet. Sometimes itʼs indeed needed, most of the time it would not harm; and there is nothing particular hard in doing it. | Install new security patches as soon as your operating system and Internet browser manufacturers make them available. This is must, do not you think so? > Any thoughts on technical issues? What technical issues? You have not described any technical issues. Do you have any? > How would a financial institution write platform independent online banking > terms and conditions? By targeting a webbrowser as a platform. > Has anyone found an institution that officially supports Linux No. There is really nothing for them to support at that low level. signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Online banking support for Linux?
Hi, Greg! One way to solve this is to just to tell the website that you are using an approved operating system even if you are not. This information is reported by your User Agent string. You can modify the string using a browser extension. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/uaswitcher/ Best, Michael McMahon | Web Developer, Free Software Foundation GPG Key: 4337 2794 C8AD D5CA 8FCF FA6C D037 59DA B600 E3C0 https://fsf.org | https://gnu.org ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
