Teknovis

I became increasingly frustrated with Twitter over the last few months, and therefore I setup a Mastodon account. You can follow me here: https://mastodon.ie/@Teknovis

I now use Mastodon on my desktop and my Android phone (using the official Mastodon app), and I am comfortable with the experience.

Therefore, I am going to stop posting on Twitter (perhaps indefinitely).

Tags: Mastodon, Twitter

Background

There is lots happening in the consumer banking space in Ireland at the moment. Two banks are leaving (KBC and Ulster Bank), and the others are vying for the business.

Thankfully these departures do not impact me because I use Bank of Ireland. However, I really dislike Bank of Ireland for the following reasons:

• The mobile app experience is horrible. It uses really old technology. I think that it is simply a web browser wrapper for a mobile website.
• The mobile application looks really dated. Perhaps it would have looked good 15 years ago.
• The mobile application is extremely cumbersome to use.
• The mobile application does not provide any notifications relating to money entering or leaving the account.
• The desktop interface is equally horrible – especially on a widescreen display.
• The ability to self-service is very poor.
• There are no analytics.

Requirements

So I started looking around for a new bank. My initial intention is that the new bank account will complement (rather than replace) my existing bank account. This can obviously change if the new bank account works well.

I do not use a wide range of banking services. Instead there are a few services that need to use a lot. So my criteria are fairly simple:

• Support for Google Pay/Google Wallet.
• Full support for both mobile and desktop interfaces, because I use both my phone and my computer for banking.
• Send and receive money within the Eurozone using IBANs (but not particularly urgently).
• Free or low cost for basic services.
• Primarily for use in the Eurozone (not only Ireland).

I am not interested in ATM withdrawals, savings schemes, foreign exchange, travel services, crypto currencies, and any general gimmicks.

Options

Irish Banks and Financial Institutions

I looked at the Irish banking options, but none particularly excited me. If I had to use an Irish option, then I think that the Credit Union option looked the most promising.

Revolut

Next on my list was Revolut. I know many people who happily use it, but my general impression is that it is aimed more at teenagers, and that it focuses more on gimmicks rather than core services.

Nonetheless I investigated Revolut, but ultimately there were two things about which I was unhappy:

• Russia and the UK feature in its ownership and operations.
• The desktop interface appears to only provide a subset of services.

N26

I had heard of N26 before, and it is generally mentioned in reviews of online banks, such as the following:

• Revolut Vs N26 In Ireland
• N26 versus Revolut – how do they compare?
• N26 vs Revolut

So I decided to proceed with N26 after reading as many reviews as I could online.

Fun fact: N26 got its name form the number of cubes in a Rubik’s Cube!

Opening the Account

The N26 website stated that I would be added to a waiting list before I tried to open my account, but there was no waiting when I opened my account. The process for opening the account was very straight-forward.

I initially opened a free “Standard” account. However, my intention was to then upgrade to a “Smart” account (more about this later). My reasons for updating were that I was interested in:

• Spaces
• Shared sub-accounts

You can see the differences between the various accounts in Find a plan for you.

Physical Card

You can order a physical card with the Standard account, but I have not dine this yet. I will probably get one as a backup, although I do not currently see any need for it.

One thing that I dislike about all of the cards is that they look so bland!

I would love (in other words, pay) to be able to upload my own image for printing on a physical card!

Experience to Date

I have been using the account for a few months now and so far I am loving it!

The mobile and desktop interfaces are lovely. I use the dark themes, and they look great! I love that retailers’ logos appear alongside their associated payments. It makes finding a particular payment very easy.

Electronic transfers, online payments, and contactless payments all work flawlessly, and I have had no problems so far. I love that I get notifications on my phone when money enters or leaves my account.

One thing that I am not very clear on is how contactless payments above 50€ work. I have had one purchase that was almost 100€. The merchant told me that it accepted contactless for this, so I used my phone. I was asked for a password, but it was not clear to me which password I should use. I tried one, it did not work, and then I paid using a different method because I did not want to lock my account.

Problem

I have only had one problem so far… My partner tried to open an N26 account at the same time as me, but this application was rejected with an unhelpful message:

We’ve reviewed the information you provided and we must inform you that according to our current verification procedures, we’re unable to offer you an N26 bank account at this time.

It is a useless message, because it does not explain what the problem is, or how it can be solved. This is where a bank with a physical presence would be better than an online bank.

I do not understand what went wrong, because my partner and I have almost identical backgrounds (from a financial perspective).

I pursued this with N26’s online support. The assistance was very understanding of my problem, and I was assured that this would be investigated.

As promised, we received a follow-up email a few days later However, it was also equally useless:

We couldn’t confirm your application to open a new account, since your user information could not be validated.

I have two theories about the cause of the problem:

• My partner’s passport seemed to be more reflective than my passport, so maybe the details could not be extracted from it.
• Perhaps some version of my partner’s address was not matching the current address that we provided.

Conclusions

N26 is great so far! However, unless my partner is able to open an account then I will definitely not upgrade to the Smart account, and it is quite likely that I will move to another bank.

The next step is to try opening an account for my partner by changing some of the details (such as using better lighting for the passport photos, using an alternative postal address).

I will follow-up with another blog post…

Tags: Bank of Ireland, Google, KBC, N26, Revolut, Ulster Bank

Wow! I realise that it is a long time since I blogged…

Anyway, a friend recently told me about Null Island! It sounds like a great place!

Unfortunately, it is difficult to actually get there, according to If You Can’t Follow Directions, You’ll End Up on Null Island.

I have been threatening for ages to write-up some thoughts on Mobile World Congress, but at this stage I am writing less than I originally planed, and much later than originally planed! However, it is better late than never!

The major themes this year (based upon walking around) appeared to be:

• Virtual Reality: This was probably the biggest new area, and there were many impressive demonstrations!
• Phone Cameras: Lots of advancements here, and I think that the smart phone manufacturers are finding new ways to differentiate themselves (e.g., dual lenses, dual pixels)
• Wearables: Nothing here really impressed me!
• Connected Vehicles: Every large stand had some sort of vehicle present, although very few actually needed them present!
• 5G: There was very little about 5G, which was a surprise to me!

Perhaps the show has peaked in technical terms, and it is becoming more focused on consumer products!

Some other non-technical thoughts that struck me were:

• I did not see a single booth babe!
• I think that there were less local university students than in previous years promoting products that they did not understand!
• Local model makers probably did good business!

I live tweeted photos and thoughts during the event, and you can view these on my Twitter feed.

Tags: Mobile World Congress, Spain

I have a small (or perhaps average) collection of DVDs. Some are old, some are new, and there are many that I have not yet watched. There are also some that I have seen several times. They are a mix of films and series.

The way that people consume media has changed dramatically over recent years, and I am no exception to this phenomenon! So it has been a while since I last looked at a DVD. There are probably two significant reasons for this:

• I no longer have a laptop with a DVD player
• I use my phone for accessing online content

However, I would like to watch some of my DVDs. So I decided that it was time I learned how to rip them!

Unfortunately the process turned-out to be slightly more cumbersome to get started than I expected. I was told by colleagues to use HandBrake. It is a neat application, and it is easy to get it running. However, the videos that it produced were stuttering and pixelated. I spent a while playing with settings, and browsing the web site to no avail :(

I then came across this very useful and up-to-date article: How to Rip a DVD to Your Computer. It transpired that my problems were being caused by not having libdvdcss installed! So I installed the latest 64bit version (rather than the version linked to in the article), and everything worked smoothly!

The “normal” preset plays back perfectly on both my computer (using VLC media player) and my mobile phone!

Tags: Handbrake, VLC Media Player

I was searching for a new secure instant messaging app, and I previously described my requirements in Secure Instant Messaging App Requirements. My search has finished, and I have a winner :) Let me explain how I got to this point :)

There are lots of messaging apps available that claim to be secure. Indeed, they may well be depending on what is meant by secure. My requirements were very clear, so it was relatively easy to reduce the field to an initial short list of four (in alphabetical order):

• Open Whisper Systems (also referred to as TextSecure on Android and Signal on iOS)
• Surespot
• Telegram
• Threema

All of these apps are covered in the Secure Messaging Scorecard by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. I found that was a very useful resource.

Surespot was the first to be eliminated. This was an easy decision, because there are rumours that it has been compromised. I am not sure that I believe all of these rumours, but they are enough to scare me away! See any of the following:

• Has secure IM app Surespot been compromised by the feds?
• Opinion: Is Surespot the latest cryptowar victim?
• #FBI Others Have Probably Compromised #Surespot App

Telegram was next to be eliminated. It has several good and bad features, and the main ones of interest to me are summarised in the table below.

Good	Bad
Available for desktops	Founded by, and run by, Russians
Provides end-to-end encryption, but only for secret chats	Group chats do not use end-to-end encryption
Scored 4/7 in normal use, and 7/7 for secret chats	Uses phone numbers
Available for both Android and iOS	There are some concerns over its use of a very custom protocol

It was fairly to easy to eliminate Telegram, because I do not like the way that it only provides end-to-end encryption in the secure chat mode. It would be too difficult for me to educate my target audience in the differences between the various types of chats.

This left Open Whisper Systems and Threema, and I spent the most time studying both of these. Obviously I looked at their respective web sites, and I also found the following two resources very useful:

• How Secure is TextSecure?
• Threema Cryptography Whitepaper

The main good and bad features of Open Whisper Systems in my opinion are summarised in the table below.

Good	Bad
Open source	Based in the US
Includes voice support	Funded by the US government
Great endorsements (Bruce Schneier, Edward Snowden)	Previous links with Twitter, and current vague links with Whatsapp/Facebook
Scored 7/7	Linked to the device’s SIM
Provides end-to-end encryption (using elliptic curves)	Integrates with the native messaging app
Provides end-to-end forward secrecy
Includes identity verification
Available for both Android and iOS

Similarly, the main good and bad features of Threema in my opinion are summarised in the table below.

Good	Bad
Provides end-to-end encryption (using elliptic curves)	Does not include voice support
Provides end-to-end encryption for group chats	No desktop version
Cryptography provided using a respected library (NaCl)	Not free
Scored 5/7	Does not provide end-to-end forward secrecy
Not linked to the device’s SIM, so it can be used on devices without SIMs
Hosted in Switzerland
Standalone app
Includes identity verification
Available for both Android and iOS

Of course I realise that some of my opinions are very subjective (such as the nationalities of the people behind them). I am also aware that I must have a certain amount of trust in the app provider, and that no secure app in the world can compensate for a compromised operating system!

So what app did I ultimately select? Threema :) So far I have been extremely happy with my choice!

However, I have been impressed by Open Whisper Systems, and I am considering using it for work purposes. (I like to keep my personal apps separate from my work apps.)

Tags: Facebook, Open Whisper Systems, Surespot, Telegram, Threema, WhatsApp

Lately I have been on a mission to find an instant messaging app for my mobile phone. The initial plan is to use it for personal purposes with immediate family members, and I am in the position of being able to move them all to a new app. I am less concerned about less immediate family and friends.

If there is a suitable app, then I want to be able to use it for work purposes also.

The obvious choice is WhatsApp, but I detest it in principle for a few reasons:

• It is owned by Facebook, which I do not use – nor do I want to use it!
• It is tied to a specific device, and it uses the phone number as an identifier. This is such an outdated approach!
• I am very sceptical of its security model (i.e., there is none), and I dislike allowing an entity in the middle of my communications to have access to them!

In fairness to WhatsApp, the user interface is very polished and easy to use!

So my main mandatory requirements are:

• Easy to use
• Uses well established cryptography
• Uses end-to-end encryption
• Not dependent upon a mobile phone number (and hence capable of running on devices without SIMs)
• Capable of sending and receiving photos
• Supports group chats (less than 10 people)
• Available for both Android and iOS
• Trustworthy (whatever that means!)

Nice to have features include:

• Available for Windows desktops
• General verification features

Aspects that do not concern me:

• Having to pay (a reasonable) once-off fee for it
• Voice call features
• Corporate features
• Recalling messages
• Remotely deleting messages
• Establishing secure communications with people that I do not meet in person

I will create a new post in the near future describing what apps I eliminated, and what app(s) I decided to use!

Tags: Facebook, WhatsApp

I was browsing the Amazon site recently, and I came across the following advertisement:

I am extremely sceptical about the claim that it is “Lighter than Air“! Is this false advertising?

However, if it is true then I think it must be very inconvenient!

Tags: Amazon

I came across this fascinating map showing mobile phone types today – Mobile Devices + Twitter Use.

Tags: Mobile Phone, Twitter

I read a nice preview article about Ubuntu Touch today – Exploring Ubuntu Touch, the other Linux OS for your phone. I must admit that I think it look slick!

For more details see Ubuntu for phones and Ubuntu on tablets.

Tags: Ubuntu