Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For

techdirt.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 427 posts

Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For

#361

Post by TheCoelacanth »

maccard wrote: post #61
worrycue wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not how I remembered it. Chrome really was a good browser and I would argue is still a good browser (for now). IE got displaced by Firefox’s predecessors because MS got caught napping - they disbanded the IE team thinking they have won. Firefox simply got outcompeted by Chrome as Google went crazy making it faster and faster. Firefox fell behind often enough that Chrome managed to take almost all of its market…

> Firefox simply got outcompeted by Chrome as Google went crazy making it faster and faster. I disagree - if that was the case then people would be switching back to Firefox now. Firefox got outcompeted by chrome by Google adding a "works better in chrome" button to their home pages.

Also by paying a bunch of black-hat marketers to use malware to trick people into installing Chrome unintentionally.

Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For

#362

Post by NoobPretender »

progbits wrote: post #164
NoobPretender wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did OpenAI do? I know they refused to share their proprietary model even though they're called "Open", is this what you're referring to?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35960125 Regulatory capture attempts to prevent others from releasing actually-open models.

Thanks! I wasn't aware of this, sounds like a dystopic horror story in the making :|

Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For

#363

Post by gumby »

yencabulator wrote: post #330
gumby wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's actually perfectly fine to lose money; you have to invest before you can start making a profit, and services like Google Cloud can be money printers once they're established. It's not fine if you use a monopoly in one area to buy your way into another. That's one of the core tenets in antitrust (back when it was being enforced, at least).

Google Cloud is quite far from a monopoly...

No, it’s using their de facto advertising monopoly to get into a new market (cloud hosting).

Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For

#364

Post by IshKebab »

account42 wrote: post #295
IshKebab wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt their motivation was "now we want to be evil". Probably more like "evil isn't actually well defined and people keep pointing to this and having dumb arguments about it".

Hint: If there are "dumb discussions" about whether what you are doing is evil, it probably is.

Do you really think the world is neatly divided into good and evil?

Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For

#365

Post by metalcrow »

wzdd wrote: post #324
metalcrow wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you can still lie, it's just made more difficult. Unless i'm missing something, running your OS under a hypervisor with a virtual TPM (or a forked browser with TPM access stubs and custom kernel drivers) still allows you to do whatever you want. It's certainly more difficult, and unreasonably so, but it's still quite possible. While i'm not familiar with Safteynet, i'm sure it's also possible to bypass it tha…

My understanding is that the vendor installs keys in the TPM which can't be retrieved. So no, a virtual TPM wouldn't work, because you don't have the vendor's keys. Or rather, you would be in the same situation as before, because you can install your own keys and then have the challenge of getting third parties to trust you.

They'd have to install them before you even get the parts then, right? Otherwise they'll just install them on your virtual tpm. I know apple does that because they own their own chip fabs and have limited (relatively) production runs, but i don't think google is going to manually etch a unique (and it has to be unique otherwise it'll leak) private key into the silicon of every single tpm for mobile and desktop ever. Or are they planning to only allow you to access websites on Google made hardware, and cut out 90% of the world's population?

Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For

#366

Post by yencabulator »

gumby wrote: post #363
yencabulator wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Cloud is quite far from a monopoly...

No, it’s using their de facto advertising monopoly to get into a new market (cloud hosting).

So, like Amazon used their de facto book sales monopoly to get into cloud hosting? How Microsoft used their huge desktop & office software market share to get into cloud hosting? How IBM used their huge typewriter market share to get into computers? It's normal for large companies to use their revenue to expand into new market segments.

Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For

#367

Post by wzdd »

metalcrow wrote: post #365
wzdd wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the vendor installs keys in the TPM which can't be retrieved. So no, a virtual TPM wouldn't work, because you don't have the vendor's keys. Or rather, you would be in the same situation as before, because you can install your own keys and then have the challenge of getting third parties to trust you.

They'd have to install them before you even get the parts then, right? Otherwise they'll just install them on your virtual tpm. I know apple does that because they own their own chip fabs and have limited (relatively) production runs, but i don't think google is going to manually etch a unique (and it has to be unique otherwise it'll leak) private key into the silicon of every single tpm for mobile and desktop ever.…

Correct, this is what they do. Google requires hardware manufacturers who want to use Play etc to get their stuff signed with their root certificate, which the TPM then verifies. See https://developer.android.com/training/articles/security-key...

In particular:

"""

If the root certificate doesn't contain the public key on this page, there are two likely reasons:

[It is from an old version of Android, or]

The other likely reason is that the device isn't a Google Play device. In that case, the device maker is free to create their own root and to make whatever claims they like about what the attestation means. Refer to the device maker's documentation. Note that as of this writing Google isn't aware of any device makers who have done this.

"""

In other words, to get into the Google attestation party you have to get your device Google Play certified. Obviously device manufacturers are strongly incentivised to do this.

Edit: If this were to be applied to desktops as well, the obvious approach would be to partner with Microsoft and make use of their trust root, because Microsoft's keys are installed in ~every TPM.

Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For

#368

Post by metalcrow »

wzdd wrote: post #367
metalcrow wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'd have to install them before you even get the parts then, right? Otherwise they'll just install them on your virtual tpm. I know apple does that because they own their own chip fabs and have limited (relatively) production runs, but i don't think google is going to manually etch a unique (and it has to be unique otherwise it'll leak) private key into the silicon of every single tpm for mobile and desktop ever.…

Correct, this is what they do. Google requires hardware manufacturers who want to use Play etc to get their stuff signed with their root certificate, which the TPM then verifies. See https://developer.android.com/training/articles/security-key... In particular: """ If the root certificate doesn't contain the public key on this page, there are two likely reasons: [It is from an old version of Android, or] The other li…

Ahhh, ok that makes sense, they're in effect replicating Apple's method then. That does mean this can't really work on desktops atm, due to the low amount of pre-signed TPMs there, so this API is only actually unbreakable for Google and Apple hardware owned mobile devices. Which is already pretty bad, and allows them to boil the frog on desktops! Thank you for the explanation!

Edit: I wasn't aware Microsoft was already pre-signing basically all desktop TPMs, that's crazy. Makes sense thinking about it now, especially with Windows 11 requiring it.

Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For

#369

Post by wzdd »

metalcrow wrote: post #368
wzdd wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, this is what they do. Google requires hardware manufacturers who want to use Play etc to get their stuff signed with their root certificate, which the TPM then verifies. See https://developer.android.com/training/articles/security-key... In particular: """ If the root certificate doesn't contain the public key on this page, there are two likely reasons: [It is from an old version of Android, or] The other li…

Ahhh, ok that makes sense, they're in effect replicating Apple's method then. That does mean this can't really work on desktops atm, due to the low amount of pre-signed TPMs there, so this API is only actually unbreakable for Google and Apple hardware owned mobile devices. Which is already pretty bad, and allows them to boil the frog on desktops! Thank you for the explanation! Edit: I wasn't aware Microsoft was alrea…

Yeah! I agree Apple is the "pioneer" here..

Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For

#370

Post by jamesgill »

I’m fascinated by this rose-tinted view of Google as once being ‘good’, but somehow being ‘evil’ now. I watched this film lay out with Microsoft over decades, too.

But, TL;DR: Google and Microsoft have always been ‘evil’. We’re just arguing about which circle of hell they rule over.

Post reply on HN