Stanislaus Grumman

My university just released an "official" app to "chat with your friends, look up your marks, your timetables, see your enrolment details..."

Guess who developed it? The fucking Santander bank.

Guess what the Terms & Conditions say? That your data can be sold to third parties and that you will receive advertisements from third parties.

The app even has a "News" category that is, again, controlled by the bank.

FUCK, I'M ANGRY.

Jul 18, 2017 at 10:52amWeb
Show threadStanislaus GrummanJul 18, 2017

If you can chat with your friend and see your enrolment details, given that the app source is of course proprietary, we can assume that Santander can see your chats with your friends, your enrolment details and sell to you whatever they fucking want.

I hate Santander Bank. And now I hate a little bit my university.

Show threadStanislaus GrummanJul 18, 2017

The Director of communications of my university has just said that the security of the app is assured because the passwords are not sent in plain text but in JSON objects.

https://kosmos.social/media/xlDkfFYtb2Pp-Mp8B0c

Show threadBob MottramJul 18, 2017
@xiroux I don't know what your university is, but you may have some students capable of writing an app. Push the university to publish its data in an open format so that you can use your app of choice to access it.
Show threadStanislaus GrummanJul 18, 2017
@bob University of Granada, Spain, with a nic Computer Science School. We even have a Free Software Office, but the people at the top, the ones making the decisions, do not listen to anyone :(
Show threadBob MottramJul 18, 2017
@xiroux That sounds like a familiar story. If the university claims to promote intellectual freedom or open access to data then this might be usable as rhetorical leverage.
Show threadStanislaus GrummanJul 18, 2017
@bob We have been fighting this for years and we have tried everything.The work done at the Free Software Office has been really good for the community, and some things have changed: how some professors and some students see free software, for example, but the decisions up there are still the same :(
Show threadneville parkJul 18, 2017
@xiroux I would be so tempted to hack
Show threadEsteban Manchado VelázquezJul 18, 2017
@xiroux the worst is, a lot of people won't understand what the problem is even if you explain it :-(
Show threadStanislaus GrummanJul 18, 2017
@estebanm Here in Granada there's a small community of people really interested in these issues, and we are already preparing an answer, so let's see if the students understand the dangers of letting banks spy on your data.
Show threadBob MottramJul 18, 2017
@xiroux Welcome to the bank of Surveillance Capital
Show threadChrisJul 19, 2017
@bob @xiroux "We notice that you're going to have difficulty paying your tuition this month, can we interest you in a cardboard box to live in as a cost-savings measure?"
Show threadStanislaus GrummanJul 19, 2017
@csaurus @bob The use case seems clear, indeed.
Show threademi rozeJul 18, 2017
@xiroux booo that sounds awful >:(