3 ms·
I've also taken issue with Plaid. [0] In Plaid's case, the issue is twofold: (a) the chilling effect of "training to get scammed," as you mention; (b) the fact
by chatmasta 8y ago
I've also taken issue with Plaid. [0]
In Plaid's case, the issue is twofold: (a) the chilling effect of "training to get scammed," as you mention; (b) the fact that Plaid's servers log into your bank account on your behalf without clearly disclosing that to the user (unless you have 2FA enabled, in which case they will helpfully instruct you to "disable extra security settings at sign-on"). In fact, it's worse than no disclosure, because Plaid imitates the branding of the login page of your bank.
The solution is obvious, although maybe less than palatable to the Plaid marketing department. Plaid needs to be extremely clear that it is logging into your bank account on your behalf (including detailed statements about security architecture and data retention). They should also stop appropriating the logos and login branding of banks.
In the case that Plaid is not doing this (maybe a few years from now every bank finally has an API, or maybe you use a bank that has one now), then they should use proper third party authorization flow with the bank, where the user explicitly grants privileges from their bank account to Plaid.
Regarding the topic at hand -- Stripe Checkout -- it's a bit disingenuous to equate its flow with Plaid's. The major difference is that Stripe is not logging into your bank account on your behalf without informing you.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18654880#18655712 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18654880#18655712
- zaksoup 8y agowait, does plaid actually recommend that users disable 2fa?
- chatmasta 8y agoThe quoted language in my comment is some I have seen in a plaid powered app, where you need to press a button at your bank that says "disable extra security at sign-on" in order to disable 2FA. The fact is, if you have 2FA enabled, plaid cannot login on your behalf. That said, it does seem technically possible for plaid scrapers to login, tell you to expect 2FA from your bank, and then echo your response back to the bank. But from what I've seen, they did not do this. Perhaps because they need to login at a later time, so they want to save your password and be able to login then.