I am noticing an increasing trend in my online life where I am required to use devices and applications that must report a secure environment for the code that runs. This was first noticeable for me when I was unable to take screenshots of apps on android but has pretty much become ubiquitous at this point.

It seems like I am a back seat driver on my devices more and more, for example I can’t take a screenshot of my banking app’s previous transactions. I think it may be that my Bank think I’m incapable of keeping that information safe to the point where they actively disallow the otherwise pretty standard feature. I’ve become something that must be managed and protected from danger.

Devices No Longer Trust Their Owners

The same problem exists when I do a screenshare of a video I’ve watched and want to share it with a friend, or clip it for a video, I watch the video back and it’s a blank screen with no audio and just the subtitles.

I have to allow anti-cheat to inspect my computer’s memory at runtime. I recently wanted to play Battlefield 6, which required me to enable secure boot on my machine, which meant going into my BIOS and turning on the feature. The game will not start without it.

Rooting is becoming a hostile battleground

I used to run a rooted device to record my calls. I’d set up my device many years ago, but root has become a cat and mouse game of applying new compromised keys and patching against root detection SDKs.

I recently had a scenario where I simply couldn’t use any of my banking apps, for whatever reason my device had become no longer secure under the integrity API and I now was locked out of paying my credit card bill, I’d read online about people in similar scenarios as I. It used to be rare this existed but now attestation is everywhere.

It was fine when I was a teenager and equivalent web-apps existed. But now I need these apps to function. I recently did an identity check and failed it to the point where the app no longer allowed further videos of my face side to side with flashing colors, I feel this was because my device was rooted but I have no way to prove it.

Code Signing, Walled Gardens and Anti-cheat

I’m not sure what the future of development looks like, but I think it’s going to be more like Apple’s ecosystem.

I’m not to be trusted running code or applications, I’m a danger to myself and others it seems.

A device attesting its security isn’t proving safety for me. A device used to be something I own, but its becoming something the manufacturer and or software owns that I am permitted to access part of.