The mailing list for users of the eduroam Configuration Assistant Tool (CAT)

[Paul Dekkers <paul.dekkers AT surf.nl>]

Hi,

On 05/10/2022 14:56, Martin Pauly (via cat-users Mailing List) wrote:
> Am 05.10.22 um 11:41 schrieb Tomasz Wolniewicz (via cat-users Mailing 
> List):
> > If you got to cat.eduroam.org and select University of Malta and you 
> > are using an Android device then you should be shown the correct 
> > download profile, that would read either "Android 8 and higher" or 
> > "Android 4.3 to 7". When you click the download button you will be 
> > shown information that you should first download an app: "geteduroam" 
> > for the newer devices and "eduroamCAT" for older. The download button 
> > tells you exactly which one it is.
>
> Technically, this is correct. But wouldn't you rather want to ban 
> "Android 4.3 to 7" from eduroam
> because of the lack of security updates? 90% of the really old OSes 
> that show up in our helpdesk
> have some kind of trouble anyway (newer Apps not supporting old OS etc.)
> Note: I do no mean you should throw away the device itself. Either you 
> get some custom ROM to run on it,
> or you still get updates (e.g Fairphone 2 gets Android 10), or you can 
> put it to internal, limited use --
> but rarely as a traveler's device on eduroam.

I think there are many campuses that never see users with Android 
devices below version 8, but there are definitely 
countries/regions/continents that have students that are not as 
fortunate to be able to buy the most modern equipment, and have this as 
their only device to work with. Since eduroam is a global service, we 
have to consider all eduroam users.

Unfortunately it looks like it's a bit harder to restrict access to Apps 
in the play store for newer devices, Google only makes it easy to 
exclude older devices based on RAM/CPU for instance. We should monitor 
the download popularity over time, of course. And/or maybe there's an 
option that I overlooked :-) that would be good.

Regards,
Paul