Comment by jeroenhd
4 months ago
Developer registration doesn't prevent this problem. Stolen ID can be found for a lot less money than what a day in a scam farm's operation will bring in. A criminal with access to Google can sign and deploy a new version of their scam app every hour of the day if they wish.
The problem lies in (technical) literacy, to some extent people's natural tendency to trust what others are telling them, the incompetence of investigative powers, and the unwillingness of certain countries to shut down scam farms and human trafficking.
My bank's app refuses to operate when I'm on the phone. It also refuses to operate when anything is remotely controlling the phone. There's nothing a banking app can do against vulnerable phones rooted by malware (other than force to operate when phones are too vulnerable according to whatever threshold you decide on so there's nothing to root) but I feel like the countries where banks and police are putting the blame on Google are taking the easy way out.
Scammers will find a way around these restrictions in days and everyone else is left worse off.
My guess is that Android 17 will show the registered name of the developer of the app you're trying to install. With stolen IDs you can only get accounts for individual developers not for organisations.
When a scammer pretending to be your bank tells you to install an app for verification and it says "This app was created by John Smith" even grandma will get suspicious and ask why it doesn't show the bank's name.
When someone is getting scammed by "special agent John Smith of the Federal Banking Enforcement Commission", the name "John Smith" won't cause any suspicion.
This trick only works if the general public is aware of what the app developer label does, what it is used for, what it protects against, and what it's supposed to say. However, if that's the case, you already have all the info you need to deduce that you shouldn't be installing APKs sent by a guy over the phone anyway.
> Stolen ID can be found for a lot less money than what a day in a scam farm's operation will bring in.
Well, in that case, Google has an easy escalation path that they already use for Google Business Listings: They send you a physical card, in the mail, with a code, to the address listed. If this turns out to be a real problem at scale, the patch is barely an inconvenience.
So they'll have a lead time building up a set of verified developers. These scams are pulled by organized crime syndicates, using human trafficking and beatings to keep their call centers manned with complicit workers.
Now they'll need to pay off a local mailman to give them all of Google's letters with an address in an area they control so they can register a town's worth of addresses, big whoop. It'll cost them a bit more than the registration fee, but I doubt it'll be enough to solve the problem.
> Now they'll need to pay off a local mailman to give them all of Google's letters with an address in an area they control so they can register a town's worth of addresses, big whoop. It'll cost them a bit more than the registration fee, but I doubt it'll be enough to solve the problem.
Yeah, this is a huge amount more work than, like, nothing.
8 replies →