Google is working on essentially putting DRM on the web
github.com
The much maligned "Trusted Computing" idea requires that the party you are supposed to trust deserves to be trusted, and Google is DEFINITELY NOT worthy of being trusted, this is a naked power grab to destroy the open web for Google's ad profits no matter the consequences, this would put heavy surveillance in Google's hands, this would eliminate ad-blocking, this would break any and all accessibility features, this would obliterate any competing platform, this is very much opposed to what the web is.
Note of amusement: The GitHub issues tracker for that proposal got swamped with tickets either mocking this crap or denouncing it for what it is, this morning the person who seems to be the head of the project closed all those tickets and published this blog post, in essence saying "Shut up with your ethical considerations, give us a hand in putting up this electric fence around the web". Of course that didn't stop it.
Also somebody pointed out this gem in the proposal, quoted here:
Quick edit: This comment on one of the closed tickets points out the contact information of the Antitrust authorities of both US and EU, i think i'm gonna drop the EU folks a note
Edit: And they disabled commenting on the issues tracker
My favorite part is when they ask you to give them the benefit of the doubt, but also anyone who disagrees with them in a way that doesn't fit their expectations is "noise."
And if you have issues with the "use case" itself, you're shit out of luck, shut it, shithead!
If you raise legal issues with the 'use case' of their 'web platform' thing, ppl will just not respond to you!
Meaning: we don't care if the shot we plan might be illegal, and we won't be stopped by you fucks telling us if it is or not "
What benefit of the doubt?
The absolute best possible case is repulsive.
My favorite part was "even if you notice we intend to break the law just be quiet about it"
Benefit of the doubt, as in "I doubt this is a good idea"
Wow, that blog post is truly nauseating and infuriating to read, knowing the context.
Fuck Google. They're the Nestlé of tech.
I don't think Google has recently insisted that child slavery is just a thing we all have to be OK with if we want chocolate, or starved millions of babies by convincing their mothers that their breast milk is dangerous. But I also wouldn't be shocked to learn that they had...
Ha! Fair point. I guess the Internet is ultimately peanuts compared to the real world.
But as far as relative negative effect on its sphere of influence, I'd say they're comparable.
No, but they accepted to publish political fake news ads for one of the running parties (the fascistoid one, of course) in the last elections here in Brazil.
That party has lost, but it was too close. In the 4 last years, during their mandate, hunger, violence, discrimination rape, and other problems rose to the highest levels in the century.
Google and other big tech companies have been influencing elections in a lot of places, and the consequences are enormous.
.....?
What is this, "Good vibes only?"
"Good vibes only" seems to be embedded in the culture of web development today. Influential devs' Twitter accounts have strong Instagram vibes: constantly promoting and congratulating each other, never sharing substantive criticisms. Hustle hustle.
People with deep, valid criticisms of popular frameworks like React seem to be ostracized as cranks.
It's all very vapid and depressing.
Do you have an article about react? I'd love to read it. And yes tech is chock full of egos and fakers.
Alex Russell is a good read on React. His position gives him a broad view of its impacts and has kept him from being sidelined. This Changelog podcast is a decent distillation of his criticisms – it was recorded earlier this year, a few days after his Market For Lemons blog post.
(Sorry for the late reply! I've been a bit swamped lately and away from kbin.)
The amount of noise IS the signal
Never seen it work? These faang people are totally delusional. Google keeps putting off their third party cookie retirement exactly because of outcries like this.
We developers should stop just looking at the technical side of our work only. There's social, economic and values to be taken into account when we put our minds to solve a problem. We tend to go blindly into it, without thinking what it can cause when it is released into the world.
It's like if we put a bunch of developers into a secret project to develop an Internet World Wide Nuclear Bomb a là Project Manhattan... the leaders shouldn't really have to hide what they were about to do, just throw the developers and engineers troubles to solve and they wouldn't mind what it will be used for. It's just tech, right?
At least this guy seems to fit the type: I want to do this technology I've been tasked for, I'm trying to solve a technological problem. The rest of the world is telling him «Man, this is a bad idea to implement.» and he whines saying «I want solutions to this technology, not what is wrong with it!»
(And if you aren't one of those developers, congratulations, we need more of you!)
This is why we need Firefox.
And Firefox needs to be a market that can't be ignored.
@TheYang Exactly! Came here to say this. Everybody actively using chromium based browsers is a part of the problem.
Or even if Microsoft edge disables this
Stop with this excuse and stop Insulting people. I've been on Firefox for nearly 20 years, but Mozilla has ruined it for me little by little. The last straw has been the horrible UI redesign. So I switched to a Chromium browser. Tell Mozilla to make a better browser and to listen to their community, instead of blaming people for using what serves them best.
What does your UI gripe have to do with this biased tabloid piece you shared?
Firefox is fine and works even better than it ever has. If you cared about the UI so much you'd have tried any of its forks that use different and older designs.
Firefox depends on google for funding though. Google could probably deal a killing blow quite easily.
i think they probably donate so much to make sure they have at least one competitor so they don't get busted up like Standard Oil
I'm skeptical if the government would even do that given how stacked it is with cronies
Don't know what government you're referring to, but if the EU anti-trust regulation kicks in it will affect everyone. EU agencies are slow but they do their job eventually.
Yeah I think they are still in court with the EU. If Mozilla fell, the EU would almost certainly come after chrome immediately.
Man, I hope the EU pulls the trigger on Google. They are way, way overdue for getting broken up. It's insane how easily they can change the entire internet on a whim with zero oversight. The Biden admin will never do it.
They are not donating, if I remember correctly fairly recently Microsoft outbid them and bing was default for a bit.
But maybe I'm not remembering correctly tbh.
Vote with your wallet. I recently increased my monthly donation to Mozilla.
I thought I read somewhere that donations to Mozilla legally can’t go to Firefox.
Indeed. Donations go to Mozilla Foundations for their activities (advocacy and whatever). Firefox is developed by Mozilla Corp.,whom can't legally receive donations.
They do that because of Firefox goes, Google is open to being trust busted. Killing Firefox would be literal suicide for Google
Mozilla is trying to reduce its dependency on the Google search deal. The dependence is big, but Mozilla has some reserves and receives the money for channeling searches to Google. They could and already make such deals with other search providers.
I've never donated to Mozilla before, but will now.
Great idea, Mozilla does good things for the internet. Though, please keep in mind that donations to Mozilla never reach Firefox. That is, as donations go to the foundation, a non-profit, while Firefox is developed by a for-profit subsidiary.
Firefox will most likely support this, if it doesn't want to get cut off from most of the web.
However, it would be nice to have a Firefox or Chromium fork with a switch to disable the "feature", an option to remove any links to websites requiring this stuff, and some search engine free of links to websites requiring it.
However non technical folk will not be able to or really be interested in all that and will just download the regular browser and leave the option enabled. This only gets traction if the option it turned off by default.
well, if more people used Firefox websites couldn't just throw them under the bus, which is why I said it's so important.
We'll have to see, but I'd hope Firefox puts up at least some resistance.
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Please drink verification can
Or they just ban you without recourse and poof all your data and accounts are dead.
Edit: consider using Google Takeout to download your data periodically as a hedge against trouble with your account. This will help prevent data loss in the event your account suddenly goes poof. It won't help you with the apps you bought though.
Don't forget you also lose all the android apps you purchased. Oh wait, isn't there a community that helps you avoid that?
!piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Sorry, can't run code not signed by an attester recognized by your hardware manufacturer.
Please enable bootlock and wipe your device to regain attested status.
Can't enable bootlock, your device's attestation expired 1 months ago, please use an up to date device if you wish to use attestation.
Rip Linux, Android custom roms.
Kind of. Several apps already refuse to run without bootlock or on a rooted system if it wasn't for Magisk, this will make web apps to refuse running too.
Thanks for this. I skimmed the proposal doc itself and didn't quite understand the concern people have with it – most of the concerns that came to my own mind are already listed as non-goals. The first few lines of this comment express a realistic danger that's innate to what's actually being proposed.
Being listed as a non-goal means nothing though. Who says it won't become a goal later on?
Glory to
Arstotzka... I mean Alphabet.Thank you for choosing Google!
I'm sorta sitting here in that same scenario. My iphone screen was severely broken last week, I don't use any other apple services. When I tried to get into it, my phone went into security lock mode. Coincidentally all of my 2FAs for my other accounts did their monthly checkin. No phone, no checkin so now I'm locked out of nearly all of my work accounts. Apple ID will renew in a few days, but I didn't think to take my broken phone with me on a trip, so my SIM with my phone number is now 1000s of miles away. So now I'm boned til I get home. 2FA works well until it works too well.
Please write for black mirror!
I would just move on at step 3
THIS IS NOT (just) ABOUT GOOGLE
Currently, attestation and "trusted computing" are already a thing, the main "sources of trust" are:
This is already going on, you need a Microsoft signed stub to boot anything other than Windows on a PC, you need Apple's blessing to boot anything on a Mac, your smartphone manufacturer decides whether you can unlock it and lose attestation, all of Microsoft, Apple and Google run app attestation through their app stores, several governments and companies run attestation software on their company hardware, and so on.
This is the next logical step, to add "web app" attestation, since the previous ones had barely any pushback, and even fanboys of walled gardens cheering them up.
PS: Somewhat ironically, Google's Play Store attestation is one of the weaker ones, just look at Apple's and the list of stuff they collect from the user's device to "attest" it for any app.
Not necessarily, most motherboards and laptops (at least every single one I've ever owned) allow users to enroll their own Secure Boot keys and maintain an entirely non-Microsoft chain of trust. You can also disable secure boot entirely.
Major distros like Ubuntu and Fedora started shipping with Microsoft-signed boot shims as a matter of convenience, not necessity.
Secure Boot itself is not some nefarious mechanism, it is a component of the open UEFI standard. Where Microsoft comes in to play is the fact that most PC vendors are going to pre-enroll Microsoft keys because they are all shipping computers with Windows, and Microsoft wants Secure Boot enabled by default on machines shipping with with their operating system.
For now. They're boiling the frog slow.
Microsoft doesn't control the standard, and the entire rest of the industry has no reason to ban non-Windows operating systems.
Widnows doesn't have the stranglehold over the market that it once did.
It's not just Microsoft, it's capitalists in general.
I hope you're right. Microsoft could try incentivising a shift.
The entire internet depends on machines running linux as servers. I highly doubt that any company has the power to change that
Yeah, it's not likely for server racks. Laptops, though, seem somewhat plausible. I'm actually pretty happy with the momentum on tech issues now, on the other hand. I hear stories about right to repair in normal media, my country is in a straight-up showdown with big tech, and GDPR is well established.
Windows 11 is saying you're required to have tpm 2.0 enabled in your bios in order to upgrade. Didn't know what it was on my self built computer until recently when windows said my system wasn't compatible to upgrade.
Tpm modules are pretty good. And you can buy them separately like another card. Motherboards usually have a slot for them. They are tiny like usb drives. They essentially are usb derives but for your passwords and keys. You can even configure Firefox to store your passwords in tpm
TPMs are a security threat. If malware manages to infiltrate it, then that malware is now impossible to remove and has unfettered access to the entire system. You have to junk the entire computer.
No they don’t. Worst case known attacks have resulted in insecure keys being generated. And even if malware could somehow be transferred out of it you wouldn’t have to trash your whole computer - just unplug the TPM
I'm afraid you are sorely mistaken. Here's an RCE vulnerability in the TPM 2.0 reference implementation.
Your own article says it’s VMs. The tpm itself can be bricked. Ok that sucks. Still not persistent like you describe.
The vulnerability is not specific to VMs. Malicious code running with privileges on the host operating system can also exploit it.
But yes, this can also be used to escape the VM sandbox, and since the TPM has full access to the entire system, exploit code can then gain full privileges on the host.
Can the TPM firmware not write to the flash where it's stored? If it can, then an RCE exploit can do so too, and thereby make itself persistent.
Basically, any successful RCE exploit in a TPM equals total and permanent compromise of the entire physical machine. That's why the TPM is a security threat rather than a security feature.
TPM and SecureBoot are separate UEFI features. Windows 11 requires TPM 2.0. If your system meets the CPU requirements, then it should support this without needing to install a hardware TPM dongle. However, until recently, many vendors turned had this feature turned off for some reason.
Where some confusion comes in is another Windows 11 requirement, that machines be SecureBoot capable. What this actually means in practice is that your system needs to be configured to boot in UEFI mode rather than CSM ("Legacy BIOS") mode.
You can't disable secure boot if you want to use your Nvidia GPU :( though. [edit2: turns out this is a linux mint thing, not the case in Debian or Fedora]
Edit: fine, there may be workarounds and for other distros everything is awesome, but in mint and possibly Ubuntu and Debian for a laptop 2022 RTX3060 you need to set up your MOK keys in secure mode to be able to install the Nvidia drivers, outside secure mode the GPU is simply locked. I wasn't even complaining, there is a way to get it working, so that's fine by me. No need to tell me that I was imagining things.
Hogwash. Running Fedora on closed source nvidia drivers with secure boot disabled.
"works for me"
What does that even mean?! Yes it works for me. That’s the whole bloody point of saying it. Someone was saying “it won’t work for anyone” and I was saying “well it works for me”.
“We can’t land at the moon!” “Eh, we already have” “‘Works for me’, so that’s not really valid”
Head_scratch.gif
Source?
Me installing Linux Mint on a 2022 laptop with a Nvidia GPU (had windows 11 preinstalled, this was an alongside install). I disabled secure boot at first, but still had to go all the way back and set up my MOK keys and turn on secure boot properly with another password to unlock the GPU.
Pro tip if you want to use Linux: don't rely on non-free drivers.
That's not a protip. A protip would be how you do that :D
Literally buy anything but Nvidia. Intel, AMD have upstream drivers that work regardless of secure boot. Various ARM platforms also have free drivers.
It used to be that there waa only bad choices, now there really is only one bad choice left.
Intel Arc still has some teething problems, particularly with power management on laptops, but AMD has been smooth sailing for almost a decade now.
Please help me understand why this is such a huge issue.
For many reasons. Nvidia requiring secure boot in this case, which is not available for all distros or kernels on all computers.
The other is requiring a workable kernel module and user space component from Nvidia, which means that as soon as Nvidia deprecates your hardware, you're stuck with legacy drivers, legacy kernels, or both.
Nvidia also has it's own separate userspace stack, meaning it doesn't integrate with the whole DRM & Mesa stack everyone else uses. For the longest time that meant no Wayland support, and it still means you're limited to Gnome only on wayland when using Nvidia AFAIK.
Another issue is switcheable graphics. Since systems with switchable graphics typically combine a Mesa based driver stack (aka everyone but Nvidia, but typically this would be AMD or Intel integrated graphics) with an Nvidia one, it involves swapping out the entire library chain (OpenGL or Vulkan or whatever libraries). This is typically done by using ugly hacks (wrapper scripts using LD_PRELOAD for example) and are prone to failure. Symptoms can be anything as mild as everything running on the integrated graphics, the discrete graphics never sleeping causing poor battery life or high power consumption, to booting to a black screen all or some of the time.
If these things don't bother you or you have no idea what these things mean, or you don't care about them or your hardware lasting more than 3-5y then it probably isn't a big deal to you. But none of the above exist when using Intel, AMD or a mix of those two.
In my experience the past twenty years, proprietary drivers are the root cause of I would say 90% of my issues using Linux.
When are people gonna learn to stop buying NVIDIA products?
Never heard of this before and couldn't find anything about secure boot being required to be enabled to use the Nvidia drivers with Linux.
But since you used dual boot you need to have secure boot enabled anyway, because win 11 would not work without it, would it?
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=343833
You can search duckduckgo for Nvidia mok secure boot mint and you'll see what I'm talking about.
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/535434/what-exactly-is-mok-in-linux-for#535440
This is about signing the driver when secure boot is enabled. It doesn't say that Nvidia won't work with secure boot disabled.
I'm using Nvidia with debian and secure boot disabled btw. So the statement, "Nvidia won't work with secure boot disabled" is still wrong. Might be some Linux mint bug, but not a problem of Nvidia per se
fair enough, I had not tested any other distros, my bad.
I used fedora in 2022 with an Nvidia GPU and used the proprietary drivers just fine. Perhaps there was something different between your system and mine. Newer GPU perhaps? Mine was a 1080.
RTX3060, I suspect this is the case for newer laptops, yes.
My experience is that Nvidia plays nicer without secure boot. Getting Fedora up and running with the proprietary Nvidia drivers and fully working SecureBoot was quite a headache, whereas everything just worked out of the box when I disabled it.
But this is very much an Nvidia problem and not a SecureBoot problem. There is a reason basically no-one else provides their drivers as one-size-fits-all binary kernel modules.
I started looking at Mac's for my next computer. Due to this amazing project. https://asahilinux.org/
False. Every PC I've had has allowed Secure Boot to be turned off, and some of them allow me to add another trusted certificate as well.
False. The Mac boot process is completely unlocked, at least on Intel Macs.
My Pixel 6 allows me to unlock the boot loader at any time.
Attestation exists, unfortunately, but it's not nearly as pervasive as you seem to think.
Uh, there was huge pushback. That's why even a Microsoft Surface won't stop you from installing Linux.
GOTO 10
My point is that at least some smartphone manufacturers make phones with unlocked boot loaders. As long as there's at least one such manufacturer, does that not disprove your argument?
On Modern Macs, the process is somewhat convoluted, but you are able to boot into a custom compiled boot loader / operating system while secure boot is enabled. It just needs a few minor hoops to sign the boot loader - steps that would be difficult to social engineer around but perfectly reasonable to do them intentionally if installing an alternate operating system is your thing.
iPhone is, of course, a different story. Hopefully that changes some day. The CPU and boot process is the same as a Mac, so there's no reason it couldn't be unlocked. Might require government intervention though.
Does that not create a barrier for entry for non-technical people looking to use an alternative operating system?
Umm, you don't see the oxymoron there?
By doing that, you no longer pass SafetyNet, and some apps refuse to work without it. If unlocking your device removes features, then you aren't really allowed to do so.
Can you expand on this? Maybe I'm just misunderstanding you, but a "pc" is not a Windows made machine. It is a collection of disparate computer parts made by different companies with no requirement to run Windows as the exclusive OS once put together.
Even on a Windows OS, I can run any program I want (that's made to operate with Windows). I may get a warning if it's not a "known" developer, but I can still run it. Did I miss a big update to how 11 works with unknown software or something?
PCs have been switching to UEFI instead of legacy BIOS startups, one of the features of UEFI is Secure Boot, which ensures all code being run during the boot process is signed with a valid key, which most PC manufacturers have been choosing to be a Microsoft key by default because Windows requires Secure Boot and most PC users want to run Windows. Depending on the manufacturer, you may be able to switch to "legacy BIOS" boot, add your own keys, disable the check, or use a Microsoft signed stub for your alternative OS. Only the last one is guaranteed to work, though.
Windows 10/11 Home in S mode only allows running programs from the Microsoft Store, you need to upgrade the license if you want to "sideload" stuff.
I have yet to encounter a PC where Secure Boot can't be turned off.
If i recall you can toggle s mode off inside the Microsoft store and use it normally, you just cant turn it back on without a reboot.
Interesting. I wasn't aware of all that. Troublesome.
S mode?? Man that feels like using a PC with a child lock turned on.
I believe he is talking about secure boot
https://wiki.debian.org/SecureBoot
While I agree in general, and the overall sentiment/direction here to steer towards (morally) is clear… let’s stick to facts only.
Bootloader is unlocked and alternative OS exist. Or what else did you mean by that?
Macs with the T2 could be configured to unlock the bootloader, but from my understanding, the new Apple Silicon Macs (M1, M2) come with the bootloader locked.
Your understanding is incorrect, I think.
Apple specifically chose to leave it (or some part of the chain, I don’t actually know, not an expert lol) open, otherwise, a project like Asahi Linux would not have had a chance from the getgo.
I might try to read up on it when I find the time whether they still have to rely on something signed by Apple before being able to take over in the boot process.
I see.
I was going on the fact that the T2 has a "No Security" option for its Secure Boot config, while according to Apple Support the Apple Silicon ones (I don't have one) only offer "Full" or "Reduced" security, which would still require signing: Change security settings on the startup disk of a Mac with Apple silicon
Dunno how the Asahi folks are planning on doing it, but they do indeed say there is no bootlock 🤔
Update: according to the Asahi docs, I seem to understand that Apple Silicon devices allow creating some sort of "OS containers" that can be chosen to boot from separately from the Mac OS one, and in such a custom container the security can be set to "permissive" limited to that container: https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Open-OS-Ecosystem-on-Apple-Silicon-Macs Interesting.
Yep, that’s a fitting term. You definitely still have to rely on macOS (and keep a copy of it around, e.g. for firmware upgrades, which of course basically only come bundled with macOS versions), but other than that, you can do more or less what you want to – as long as you’re outside of it.
I quite like this idea though if I’m being honest, normie users get all the hardened security from the regular boot chain without experiencing basically any difference/downsides, while hardware enthusiasts and (Linux) tinkerers still have options open (well, options that you can get if you have a new chip on a rarer architecture with previously no third party OS).
It's time for Alphabet to be broken up into separate letters.
Or have some letters removed all together.
The number of people protesting against them in their "Issues" page is amazing. The devs have now blocked the creation of new issue tickets or of comments in existing ones.
It's funny how in the "explainer" they present this as something done for the "user", when it's clearly not developed for the "user". I wouldn't accept something like this even if it was developed by some government – even less by Google.
I have just reported their repository to GitHub as malware, as an act of protest, since they closed the possibility of submitting issues or commenting.
Yeah, as if github aka Microsoft is going to do anything about it ... but hey, anything to keep the pressure up and not letting this go through.
Give me Firefox or give me death.
Ad blockers are my best disability accommodation. The things they do with ads to capture attention f with my brain. I'm really going to struggle if this happens. And I'm dependent on the internet for so many things, from groceries to prescriptions to people.
This is why you donate to Mozilla, Thunderbird, and/or the EFF.
It's also why you use non-Chromium/non-Webkit browsers.
Gonna play devil's advocate here.. I think most Mozilla money comes from Google and i think the reason Google keeps the money flowing to Mozilla is for Chrome to have a real competitor, Firefox to date is the only popular web browser with different engine and all that. Maybe it's fair for me to say that it resembles a tiny tiny fraction of why Intel keeps AMD alive back then.
As for EFF, i viewed them as just another NGO. For me most NGOs will have a non achievable goals, because it will be the dead of an NGO if they ever achive their goals. (No more money for them).
I'm not against people donating to Mozilla or EFF or Thunderbird Foundation. I think it will be better (yet longer process) if government can regulate big tech, much like what the European Union did with GDPR.
Did you forget Safari? It has orders of magnitude more users than Firefox and it doesn't use the same rendering engine as Chrome.
It's still Webkit, no?
Yep, Safari is still WebKit.
Safari thankfully hasn't switched to Blink (the engine powering Chrome and all Chromium-based browsers), which forked from WebKit over a decade ago (April 2013).
Safari is only available on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. In fact, every browser on iOS/iPadOS is WebKit-based, as it's the only browser engine Apple permits on their phones and tablets. (Yes, this includes the so-called "Firefox", "Chrome", and all the other browser apps on iOS/iPadOS.)
GNOME Web (aka: Epiphany) is also WebKit-based and is available on Linux.
There's no current Windows WebKit browser that I'm aware of. (Apple shipped Safari for Windows a long, long time ago, but also discontinued it shortly after.)
There are embedded ports of WebKit for various devices in the form of WPE Webkit. (WPE stands for Web Platform for Embedded.)
Hey i have Epiphany installed on my laptop, i love its clean interface! I think just last week i received an update via flathub and i feel it runs smoother now when i browse heavy website such as Google StreetView.
Safari is only available on Apple platforms though so if Mozilla goes away the option will either be to switch to chromium or buy an iPhone/Mac
The government won't regulate big tech if that doesn't give them any benefit. Governments want to control big tech to gain more power.
Governments like the EU do not just regulate to gain power. No need to spread disinformation just so you can be more pessimistic.
The government that tried to ban encryption? Yes of course https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/eu-commissions-new-proposal-would-undermine-encryption-and-scan-our-messages https://www.wired.com/story/europe-break-encryption-leaked-document-csa-law/
That's one way to kill the WWW.
I'm a non-techie and don't understand half of this, but from what I do understand, this is a goddamn nightmare. The world is seriously going to shit.
My ELI5 version:
Basically, the 'Web Environment Integrity' proposal is a new technique that verifies whether a visitor of a website is actually a human or a bot.
Currently, there are captchas where you need to select all the crosswalks, cars, bicycles, etc. which checks whether you're a bot, but this can sometimes be bypassed by the bots themselves.
This new 'Web Environment Integrity' thing goes as follows:
I hope this clears things up and if I misinterpreted the GitHub explainer, please correct me.
The reason people (rightfully) worry about this, is because it gives attesters A LOT of power. If Google decides they don't like you, they won't tell the website that you're a human. Or maybe, if Google doesn't like the website you're trying to visit, they won't even cooperate with attesting. Lots of things can go wrong here.
And the attester will know where you're navigating, always.
It sounds like VPN's would also get flagged as bots? Or could easily be treated as such.
They could get rid of ad blockers, anonymity, Tor, VPNs, Firefox, torrenting sites, independently hosted websites, open-source servers and non-Google Linux clients all in one go. It would be a corporate dream come true.
Or we could stop using their tools and services and fork off the internet run for people from the internet run for profit. It doesn't need to be big or slick; it just needs to be there.
I like the idea of Internet 2.0. Kinda like what we are doing here on Lemmy. Corporate ruins it, we build it anew!
There are even alternative root-servers so we can even escape from the TLD hell
Your final paragraph is the real kicker. Google would love nothing more than to be the ONLY trusted Attester and for Chrome to be the ONLY browser that receives the "Human" flag.
And I'm sure Google definitely wouldn't require your copy of Chrome to be free of any Ad-Blocking or Anti-Tracking extensions to get that "Human" flag /s
Too late.
Microsoft, Apple, and most hardware manufacturers have been the ONLY trusted attester on their own hardware for years already.
Also Microsoft on most PCs.
Appreciate you and everyone else who broke this down for me!
The rest already works like that.
You can replace Google with Apple, Microsoft, any other hardware manufacturer, or any company hardware attestation software.
So, a lot of the replies are highlighting how this is "nightmare fuel".
I'll try to provide insight into the "not nightmare" parts.
The proposal is for how to share this information between parties, and they call out that they're specifically envisioning it being between the operating system and the website. This makes it browser agnostic in principle.
Most security exploits happen either because the users computer is compromised, or a sensitive resource, like a bank, can't tell if they're actually talking to the user.
This provides a mechanism where the website can tell that the computer it's talking to is actually the one running the website, and not just some intermediate, and it can also tell if the end computer is compromised without having access to the computer directly.
The people who are claiming that this provides a mechanism for user tracking or leaks your browsing history to arrestors are perhaps overreacting a bit.
I work in the software security sector, specifically with device management systems that are intended to ensure that websites are only accessed by machines managed by the company, and that they meet the configuration guidelines of the company for a computer accessing their secure resources.
This is basically a generalization of already existing functionality built into Mac, windows, Android and iPhones.
Could this be used for no good? Sure. Probably will be.
But that doesn't mean that there aren't legitimate uses for something like this and the authors are openly evil.
This is a draft of a proposal, under discussion before preliminary conversations happen with the browser community.
This is a total affront to the ethos of the web and everyone involved in drafting this awful proposal should be publicly shamed. Stick sandwich boards on each of them saying "I tried to build the Torment Nexus", chain them together and march them through the streets while ringing a bell and chanting "shame".
Here you go
If only Ben was wiser.
Those names read like some characters in a bad novel....
This is nothing less than a brazen attempt at total control of the primary large-scale communication mechanism of humanity.
This is so silly. There is no technical solution to trust. What if Russia or China want to run a bit farm? Or the US goverbment? Are you not going to trust their signatures, and face legal action i their markets? This stuff is so stupid, just be honest that you want people to watch your ads. Than we can all refuse and move on with our lives.
Google knows this. Trust isn't really the problem they're trying to solve.
This is my biggest issue, it's such a bare-faced lie!
It's completely insane for the browser to need to trust the client. Instead, you implement zero-trust, and require authentication and authorization for anything sensitive.
The server absolutely shouldn't trust the client isn't malicious, instead it should assume it is malicious until proven otherwise
Well good thing they have a company slogan of do no evil...... Oh wait.
Like everyone else, I was an avid google user and used google for all its services. Then I started to learn about privacy and switched to chrome to firefox with duckduckgo. Until yesterday I was also often using an adblocker for advertising, I then realized that this does harm to companies and sites that I am interested in. Advertising is fine, I enjoy it if it's on the site, but I want to be given a choice to behave. That's it. Tradotto con DeepL https://www.deepl.com/app/?utm_source=android&utm_medium=app&utm_campaign=share-translation
Years ago i would have agreed with you, but on this era of heavy capitalist surveillance you don't want to give them the chance, they'll get every bit of data they can get about you. That and ads are strong dissemination vectors for malware. If i want to support something i'd rather do it directly, ads have proven to be noxious.
I wish there was some kind of "ethical ad" standard, such that we can be served ads, maybe even "relevant" ads (with relevant topics picked by users), but without any tracking or malware, and in fact, with some kind of technology that prevents tracking instead of certifying to the advertisers that the user didn't "tamper" with their pc so they can track as much as they want (I'm not aware of such a standard or technology. Genuine question: is there such a thing?).
Heck, I'd be even in favor of a standard to "pay to disable ads", with reasonable fees, so that websites I like get their per-view dues, but without tracking or ads. If there was some kind of technology to send money to others without being tracked, kinda like back in the day when we used to buy newspapers at the newsstand with actual cash, but digital ... who said "cryptocurrency"? Right, I heard they were actually invented to be used as currency, rather than high risk investing/speculation device ... anyways, let me not digress (too much) ...
duckduckgo shows basic ads when you search for anything
Can't agree too much with you. Here, take this as a sign of my appreciation🎖
Yep, that sounds like a very Mega-Corp thing to do.
OTOH, this will create a massive "in" group, and a much smaller "out" group. It almost formalizes the Indie Web, which would take us back to the early 90's, but with better bandwidth. I'd be into that.
Until you're required to use their software for, say, banking or legal procedures. You DO NOT want this to become the status quo
I was not advocating for it at all. Just looking on the bright side.
Indeed, IDK if you remember back in the bad old days but you used to need a specific browser, and if that browser was IE, good luck if you weren't on Windows. Sites would just block you.
I really hope this doesn't become a thing again - it's already stupid with so many "best on chrome" stuff, but at least I think Apple and Safari put a dent in that because Apple users are a big enough group, and generally identified to have and spend more money than Android / Linux / Windows users so there's that. And Firefox is... well... something. 10% now? IDK, it's hard to be single browser now adays, but with these "for security" things? Who knows.
I guess if Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla all refuse to go this way, it'll break it. The other option is something like Lets Encrypt being big enough they can't delist the attester, but it just attest everything so turns into garbage. Or enough accepted attesters (if it's like SSL PKI) "attest" that you paid them $50 that year and that's about it, so again, everyone who cares gets a Comodo attestation or whatever and use a browser / extension / proxy / OS / whatever that just sends valid garbage or spoofed stuff to them, like many do for the various existing non-secure identity fields.
I've never in my life used IE, and did just fine without it. I've been using Firefox since it was called Netscape, and before that was Mosaic or something. I'm not supporting what Google is trying to do, I'm saying it will have consequences they don't intend. They play whack-a-mole and the moles dig deeper.
I just had to change my domain name because Google wouldn't stop blocking my personal server webpage for being a "phishing" website, there was no way it could be interpreted in that way at all and it didn't matter, my personal server apps were basically blocked on 80% of browsers.
If you hosted a compromised app once, or ever messed up the setup of your mail server... that's what happens.
I was only flagged as phishing, with full SSL certs etc
Certs only prevent others from making it look like it was you, they don't stop someone from exploiting a vulnerable webapp you might be hosting, or using a misconfigured mail server as a relay.
If you have anything open to the public, then you either have to keep it read only, or stay on it to make sure it's updated, secured, sanitized, and so on.
Personally, I've switched to using client side certificates, so everything is effectively "not public".
Does CloudFlares HTTPS resolve that issue?
Why do people have a problem with this? It explicitly says browser extensions, like ad blockers, will still work. It says cross site tracking won’t be allowed. It all sounds pretty good.
It sounds like most are not liking it because of some potential future abuses rather than what it actually is?
This is part of a broader plan:
Only basic extensions and ad blockers will work with compiled apps (Manifest V3 is part of that plan). Accessibility features will be as good as those of Flash.
What most are not liking, is the change in power dynamic on the WWW:
Before: "you give me some data and I'll decide what to do with it"
Upcoming: "we'll give you some data and you will do exactly as we tell you with it"
The time might be coming to create a "libre WWW", parallel to the "corporate WWW".
Even more "we'll decide if you are worthy to get my data"
I'm mostly in agreement but ... what's wrong with webassembly? that's just another way to compile webapps into, or parts of webapps, other than javascript. What am I missing?
"Compiled" is the key: a non-reversible operation that implies loss of syntactical and grammatical content. Meaning, it's harder to analyze, reason about, or modify. As the "assembly" part indicates, it's intended to be as hard to analyze, reason about, or modify, as possible.
First there was Java, then there was Flash, now there is Webassembly... all compiled to bytecode, all running in their VM, all intent on converting all apps everywhere, and to lock "proprietary" elements away from the prying eyes and hands of content blockers, analyzers, or even worse: control by end users.
Webassembly and attestation just go hand in hand to create a remote-controlled enclave on a user-owned device that will make it as hard as possible for the user to control.
Some may see it as an inherent exploitation of the user's resources (already used for cryptominer exploits), others as an attack vector that will be difficult to mitigate by design, others as an unnecessary duplication of the JVM.
Look, I hate this proposal from Google as much as anyone else here, but let's stick to the facts.
The "assembly" is just a reference to machine instructions, a.k.a "assembly language".
Minified javascript, on the other hand, is made with the express purpose of obfuscation and as well, minimize load times, but mainly obfuscation in practice.
That's to say, you don't need webassembly to make it hard to reverse engineer. At least webassembly is a standard.
First, there were machine instruction, then people invented handy mnemonics for those and called "assembly language". Then there was C, then C++ (let's skip the basic, pascal, etc) and those weren't meant to be hard to analyze, they were and still are meant to be close to the machine, to be fast. Webassembly has similar goals. They can be relatively easily decompiled, just as much as webassembly I'm sure, unless they are purposefully obfuscated.
Just like native machine code and javascript, it can be decompiled/reverse engineered, and also obfuscated, but that's not its goal, not as stated nor in practice.
You went a bit too far back, I was talking about compiled languages intended for the web.
There is nothing easy sbout decompiling native code, even before we start with jumps into the middle of instructions and polymorphic code. Reverse engineering obfuscated JavaScript is orders of magnitude easier than that, and most minified JavaScript isn't even obfuscated.
The only saving grace for Webassembly is that it requires keeping stuff in blocks, with if, then, else, etc. reasonably delimited, and (I think) it doesn't allow too many shenanigans with indirect calls. But stuff like
br_table, doesn't make me particularly eager to tackle decoding what someone meant.If I, potentially, wanted to abuse a system, I'd probably come up with a way to modify that system such that I can abuse it, but with a plausible explanation as to why I'm not actually going to do that, so that others will agree to it.
But let's assume, for the sake of the argument, that Google and/or the people who wrote this are actually acting in good faith. That still won't stop other large companies like Microsoft, Apple, etc. or even future Google employees from abusing the system later on.
Yes, the potential for abuse is the big deal here. And you know humans, if it can be abused, someone will try.
Sure, but this is also a solution for the existing abuse that runs rampant. Which abuse is better?
I’m sure these same arguments against this were made for anti-virus software back in the beginning. “They’re only doing this so in the future they can flag all their competitors programs as viruses” and “they’re only doing this so they can choose who can use what”. The parallels are strong.
Is there a way to stop the existing abuse without introducing a different kind of abuse? Ideally, that's what we should aim for, if possible at all.
If that's not possible, restricting people's freedoms in the digital world (or the real world, for that) to prevent some from abusing such freedoms doesn't sound such a great proposition. As for "which abuse is better", I'd argue that if I have to be abused one way or another, I'd prefer to be free and in control so I have a chance to stop it myself ;)
(what freedoms, you might say? freedoms to run my own choice of operating system, my choice of browser, etc. on a computer that I own, maybe even built myself, and not be prevented from accessing the internet at large)
And I'm sure some of those companies, or some of those companies' employees, wrote some viruses themselves ;) But really, we can only speculate. Most are definitely legit and helpful.
The key here is, who is in control: the user of the software, or the company that made it? I'd say even for antiviruses, the user is in control, can choose a different antivirus or no antivirus at all (like me). In this Google proposal, it seems Google and other big corporations will be in control and not the user. That's the reason why it's bad. If I have to be abused, at least I like being in control so I can (try to) prevent it.
Maybe somebody can do a better job of boiling this down than I can.
Basically, right now, if you ask for something on the internet, it gets served to you. Sure there are lots of server side protections that may require an account to log in to access things or what have you, but still you can at least request something from a server and get some sort of response in return.
What this does is force attestation through a third party. I can ask for something from a server and the server turns to the attester and goes, "Hey, should I give this guy what he's asking for?" and the attester can say "No" for whatever reasons it might. Or worse yet, I can get the attestation but the server can then decide based in turn that it doesn't like me having that attestation and I get nothing.
You can make arguments that this would be good and useful, but it's so easy to see how this could go sideways and nobody with any sense should be taking Google or any of these large corporations at their word.
From my understanding, there's no reason whatsoever to do this besides censorship, for better and for worse. There's a possibility good, and I'm sure the good would happen, but there's an even greater possibility it would be bad for users which would surely happen.
Sorry, yes, still trying to wrap my head around it. It's one of those things where there is quite obviously no direct benefit for the user. The company is trying to sell it as improving their content, moderation, security, etc. which may have indirect, knock-on effects for the end user but whether that would even be true or if it would be perceptible to your average person is MUCH more questionable.
It's the same kind of thing when you see people defending exclusivity on consoles. I mean sure, it helps prop up your favorite company/developer in hopes that the market benefit may someday come back around and help them to produce more content/games that you like, but people seriously need to start looking out after their own self interests first and corporations be damned. They earn money by providing actual value, don't ever argue against yourself.
It will stop bots/scrapers/etc dead in their tracks seems to be the main reason.
Ah yes, Google pinky promises it won't use this to screw us over, we're good to go!
Alright, I'm kinda slow today, so tell me if I got it right: We, the users, will be "kindly asked" to get one thingamabob signature/identifier of "integrity", so websites "know" whether we're good or bad guys?
Your hardware and OS already gets asked to verify whether it's safe to run an app on it (see: banking apps).
Same thing, but now with web browsers.
Can someone explain to me how this is different to the trust system used by SSL Certificates?
I think that the main difference is that with SSL you only encrypt the data, and then you can modify at will(as in making changes to every page your browser renders - ad block, grease monkey like extensions etc. With DRM, you won't be able to modify the pages at all
I was meaning more in the "trusting Google" sense, how is this different to trusting VeriSign?
This is only my opinion, but basically you cannot trust no one. Having that said, certificate providers make their money by ensuring you will get the page from the server you asked for, and also for the encryption. Ignoring the certificate is possible, since it is the browser's choice. My point is, SSL providers have a lot to lose by exploiting the certificates for malicious intents(such as modifying the data, or changing to a different host etc) while the DRM of google is by design meant to allow us less freedom with how we use the web.
So i think that you can choose who is less trust worthy by figuring out what they will gain
Ugh. DRM. I freaking hate DRM. I "buy" a book from Amazon and it's all DRMed. I like the Kindle app so I keep buying there. But when I can I buy physical books at a LBS