axby

Unfortunately I think this is the norm with big banks in Canada, and it is similar to a credit union in the US from when I briefly lived there. Security seems to be a second priority to people losing access (presumably only briefly, since they have brick and mortar locations everywhere).

Wealthsimple and Questrade seem to support TOTP but I’m not sure if you can still bypass it with SMS. I don’t think so but I haven’t dug into it.

I’ve used CIBC before and they also seem to require keeping SMS 2FA enabled. Also they send me fraud alerts over SMS, “respond Y to authorize this suspicious transaction”, and I’m dreading the day where I have to enable roaming while travelling just to send a text. They send push notifications through the app to login on a new device though, so maybe in 10 years they’ll do it for transaction approval too.

Also aside about TD: is there really no way to download a CSV file of all your transactions? My partner uses them and I think we were limited to 18 months, and may have even had to download each much separately (luckily I can use use a program like cat to workaround this, but that seems like a pain for most people). CIBC has irritated me in a lot of ways but I think I can download transactions from back to 2012 when I first opened my credit card, maybe earlier.

Do you or anyone know about other big banks? My partner and I are looking into a joint account and I want to be able to download all transactions to CSV. Ideally we could get TOTP only (no SMS 2FA) but I’m not counting on it.

Thanks, I edited my comment. No idea how I missed that it was 30 seconds for all this time. It looks like my own TOTP codes are even 30 seconds so I don’t know what I was thinking.

It looks like you may be able to disable SMS 2FA entirely? It’s unclear to me (edit: if this is a viable option):

Can I stop getting Short Messaging Service (SMS) messages for CRA's Multi-factor authentication?

Yes. You can text "STOP" to 27223 or reply "STOP" to the message containing your one-time passcode to stop receiving SMS messages to that telephone number in the future. However, it is important to note that CRA's Multi-factor authentication (MFA) service is mandatory and a passcode is required to sign in to the CRA's sign-in services. Texting "STOP" will prevent your telephone from receiving an SMS message with your passcode in the future. Without the passcode, you will be unable to access the CRA sign-in services using this option and will need to choose an alternate MFA option to use. This option applies only to Canadian telephone numbers.

I’ll probably leave it enabled anyway just in case (given that I only log in to CRA once per year or so), but I applaud the potential of relying on TOTP only, and not allowing SMS 2FA as a “back door”.

Also big pro is that they allow third party TOTP apps instead of making their own like TD and even Steam (bundling it into their main app).

Not OP but I wanted to read more (edit: about CRA’s approach to TOTP, before getting the chance to try it myself), I searched and found this: https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/e-services/cra-login-services/multi-factor-authentication-access-cra-login-services.html#toc3

What is a third-party authenticator app?

A third-party authenticator app can be installed on an app enabled mobile or desktop device to be used for MFA. The app store offers many free third-party authenticator app options to choose from. Users will need to download an app that is compatible with the CRA sign-in services.

Using the app, the user scans a QR code with a mobile device when prompted. If unable to scan the QR code the user can manually enter the setup key the CRA provides into the app. The app will now be set up and the user will not have to complete this step again.

The app will then generate a 6 digit Time-Based One-Time Passcode (TOTP). When signing in to the CRA sign-in services users will be required to enter a one-time passcode provided by the app. For security, the app will generate a new TOTP every 30 seconds.

Edit: This is awesome, I’m so glad I can switch away from SMS 2FA on yet another service (and such an important one). But I am curious about a few things, see below.

Some thoughts:

• (edit: my bad, I thought 60 seconds was more common but I checked my other TOTP and they seem to be 30 seconds) ~~why is it 30 seconds instead of 60 seconds? I’m pretty sure every other TOTP I’ve seen is 60 seconds. What is the benefit of this? Someone has 30 fewer seconds to read the code over your shoulder and log in on their device?~~
• TD offers a passcode generator app, but it seems like you can’t disable SMS 2FA, so if you’re worried about SIM jacking then you are out of luck. Presumably they’re worried about people losing their device with the TOTP secret, but I usually back that up on multiple devices and have recovery codes. I think all the big banks are similar. Edit: I’m curious to know what CRA does, but I’m away from my PC right now.
• nit: the previous login requires you to re enter the code from SMS 2FA or the grid thing every 8 hours I believe. But most other services seem to let you persist a cookie on the device for 30 days or so, presumably because cookie theft isn’t a huge risk, and because entering your password alone is enough to prevent other people with access to your computer from accessing your sensitive CRA account

Anyway, sorry for the negativity. This is a great step and I shouldn’t focus on negative things. I just hate how accounts I don’t care much about like Facebook (and formerly Runescape) accounts seem to be more secure from malicious logins than my bank and possibly CRA accounts.

I really like Aegis for 2FA/TOTP:

https://github.com/beemdevelopment/Aegis

Edit: also Element, a matrix client, for messaging: https://element.io/download

Edit 3: Feeder for RSS (Google Play), (F-Droid), I really like how you can extract the text of articles without ads.

Edit 4: Simon Tatham’s Puzzles, a bunch of simple puzzle games, no ads or BS (Google Play) (I think this is the right one: F-Droid). Fun fact: he created PuTTY.

Edit 2: also minidlna (apparently called ReadyMedia now) as a UPnP/DLNA server to host music and videos on your PC, then you can easily watch using VLC on a phone/computer (and any smart TV with the VLC app, probably) within the LAN. I’d be interested to hear any recommendations for how to easily access my UPnP server from outside my network from my phone. I’m sure there’s some way to do it with a VPN, but I’d rather only route the media streaming traffic through my home network, not all my phone’s traffic.

Thanks a lot! Excited to use darkly-pureblack now on web.