Not sure if this is a good place for this post or not, but here goes.

I reject outbound connections to meta domains at the firewall. I noticed this banking app refuses to prompt for login credentials unless I am on mobile or a public WiFi network. I watched my FW logs and noticed many rejected connections to graph[.]facebook[.]com.

I contacted their support team, but they denied the connection was their app. I shared the screenshot on this post and they closed my case without comment.

I emailed the address on the Google play store and they also denied the connection was their app. I shared the screenshot and they asked if I downloaded the app from the play store, implying the official app doesn’t do this, but of course it does.They closed my case without proper resolution as well.

Just thought I’d share this here so people know that some banks make direct connections to Facebook to share analytics, without your knowledge or informed consent, and they lie about it when called on it.

  • ChatGPT@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It’s probably NTP a lot of banking apps have extra protections and if it can’t determine the time from its own trusted authority it may not allow the connection.

    • RCMaehl [Any]@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Launchdarkly is likely a culprit as well. Just doing a background search reveals that the service allows dev teams to do A/B testing, enable new features without releasing a new version, and various other “dynamic” functions.

      OP is on the wrong side of Occam’s razor

      • stardust@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        This is definitely probably it. I can’t believe more things aren’t broken by blocking launchdarkly

        • Radium@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          If you set it up correctly it defaults to a specific flag state if it can’t connect. I.e. always show the user the old treatment instead of the new if you can request the actual state of their enrollment.

          They get blocked constantly and my old company just routed the requests through our domain so they’d stop getting blocked

        • ChatGPT@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I have it blocked in NextDNS haven’t seen any issues in 4 years without it. Blocking ntp.org has definitely caused issues especially with IOT devices.

      • randomguy2323@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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        1 year ago

        It is not only Facebook that is been block if you take the time to read the log you will see the NTP connection is being block too.

        • XIN@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          The app in the screenshot is just capturing packets. The list shown are connections made during the capture and closed just means the connection is not currently active.

          That said, I downloaded Ally, ran that same packet capture but never saw anything sent to Facebook. I got to the login screen just fine.

      • Pope-King Joe@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It doesn’t.

        OP is claiming that disallowing the connection to Facebook is stopping the log in, but it might be blocking the connection to the ntp server instead.

      • EpicFailGuy@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        @14th_cylon

        @s38b35M5 @ChatGPT

        It doesn’t, the implication is that it’s not the connection to FB what’s making the app not work, but the lack of NTP sync.

        Plenty of apps reach out to FB for widgets, or those stupid “share your experience with your friends” buttons that no one uses … that’s why we block them in the first place.

        • Action Bastard@lemmy.world@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Meta provides a lot of other backend B2B services beyond just Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

          You think that’s the only way they have of scarfing down data? Absolutely not, they make other useful tools as well that businesses can use, because if they can’t get their info directly from you, they can get it from the people you have to regularly interact with instead.

            • Captain_Ender@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              A lot of companies have massive backend services they don’t really advertise. Amazon makes most of its profits from AWS which is pretty much the primary distribution hub of the entire Internet.

            • grue@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              It’s yet another reason why folks who suggest boycotts instead of legislative solutions to corporate abuse are deluding themselves.

      • almar_quigley@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The implication is that OP’s assessment is incorrect and the blocked requests to launchdarkly are what’s preventing them from logging in. The Facebook requests don’t show a source so they could be from another device.

    • s38b35M5@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      When I unblock the Facebook address, the app opens as expected.

      I’m not blocking any NTP. My home servers rely on it (just TrueNAS checks time every 3 minutes…), but I do block DNS outbound to force using my own DNS.

        • heyitsmikey128@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I’m going to assume that hopefully OP knows how DNS works and meant he blocks all outbound DNS requests from his devices and sets a specific DNS for his external queries from his FW/Router. I do the same thing.

          However, he is blocking NTP right there so who knows.

          • XIN@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            PCap is just a packet capture. “Closed” in this context just means the connection is no longer currently active.