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Google Cloud Fraud Defence is just WEI repackaged

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Re: Google Cloud Fraud Defence is just WEI repackaged

#121
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The only real solution is to aggressively name and shame the engineers who build this tech. They should feel uncomfortable opening their door, walking down the street." What do you think this is a call for, if not harassment?

There is a fine line between harassment and pointing of for socially bad actions. Harassment involves usually calling by names, making threats etc. You can definitely shame people with a diplomatic language.

I don't like this proposal but engineers should not be shamed for doing their regular jobs. We all do it in some form or the others.

Re: Google Cloud Fraud Defence is just WEI repackaged

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People forget that Sundar Pichai's entire claim to success at Google was injecting the Google Toolbar into the Adobe Reader installer which would hijack your search and browsing data on IE, and the launch of Chrome, which was then also injected into the Adobe Reader installer, occurred because Google was concerned IE might block or limit their toolbar. People absolutely did like Google at the time, but the majority o…

I recommended everyone to use Chrome simply because Microsoft couldn't be bothered to provide built in PDF viewing and creation. There was a good, long period where Microsoft just decided to let the market run amok with malware for critical software, instead of providing something like Preview on macOS. As a result, the safest option for most lay people was to use Chrome, where they could quickly and easily view, and…

Yeah I remember when Windows lacked every basic utility that Mac OS had. The most common malware was PDF readers, because a very common search was "how to open pdf." Same with zip.

Re: Google Cloud Fraud Defence is just WEI repackaged

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange analogy considering that RMS got to where he is precisely by finding nails to hit much, much more than occasionally, and much, much more than most hammers.

The analogy works if you think of RMS as a nailgun.

A nailgun hitting nails? This is going nowhere..

Re: Google Cloud Fraud Defence is just WEI repackaged

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome has gone off doing their own standards to some extent, but you're forgetting what it was like when Internet Explorer dominated. You basically couldn't use the web without IE because they broke so many standards and implemented them in closed source. Then there was ActiveX on top, straight up Windows binaries in web. And besides there being a dominant engine, only one browser could use that engine. Trading that…

Chrome didn't solve that though. Quoth Wikipedia: > Firefox usage share grew to a peak of 32.21% in November 2009, with Firefox 3.5 overtaking Internet Explorer 7, although not all versions of Internet Explorer as a whole; Firefox was the browser that embraced open standards and was unseating IE. And ActiveX was used for corporate stuff, not general web sites, so the main reason it died was that Microsoft gave up.

Eh, it was brief and never majority. Chrome was the first to truly usurp IE.

Re: Google Cloud Fraud Defence is just WEI repackaged

#127
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they didn't. Firefox unseated Internet Explorer. Chrome then got big by putting its installer right on the Google homepage and harassing users to install it. And they had it bundled with other software, and would install as a user so that locked down computers could still run it. They absolutely did not win by embracing open standards.

I recall Chrome being a superior browser in the early days, prompting many to switch and evangelizing it.

It was the first to do a separate process per tab, which had security and stability benefits. But it also used like 2x the RAM from the start.

Re: Google Cloud Fraud Defence is just WEI repackaged

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rapidly becoming Always has been. Google was creating cartels like the "Open Handset Alliance" literally decades ago. Via their control of Chrome and Search which are both monopolies, Google holds absolute authority on how websites are rendered and if websites can be found.

It cracks me up when people say Chrome is a monopoly, because a massive amount of computing devices do not even ship with Chrome. Windows computers, Macbooks, and iPhones require users go search out and install Chrome on their own out of their own volition, shipping with entirely functional and decent browsers out of the box that they have lots of patterns to push. Even many Android phones ship with browsers other th…

I’m constantly badgered by google apps on my iPhone to use Chrome. In fact I’m not able to just click a link and open my default browser, I have to see the big chrome logo and a smaller link to choose my default browser.

Re: Google Cloud Fraud Defence is just WEI repackaged

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think that some people simply disagree with the idea that this is bad? Or like maybe the CAPTCHA company who put out the post has an agenda here? So you want to go after engineers personally? I wonder what you've done that might warrant harassment? Look at how complicated CAPTCHAs are getting to try to be unsolvable with AI - it's a losing game. This and the WEI proposal are trying to solve a very, very rea…

> You don't think that some people simply disagree with the idea that this is bad? Where are they? Where? Can you point me to one person in this thread who "disagrees with the idea that this is bad"? Apparently even you don't go that far.

Me.

I think the idea is sad and tragic, but also that we are at the point where we have no choice but to do something.

AI/LLM's have created a vector for abuse that previous tools are failing to protect against, and the problem is only getting worse.

I'm sick of the increase of LLM slop on websites in comments and posts. I'm sick of how fraud and spam and abuse can be increasingly automated in ways current tools can't catch. I'm sick of hosting costs exploding as hobby websites get hammered for no reason.

I don't realistically see any alternative but for some kind of reliable signal that a web request is most likely coming from a real person (not a perfect guarantee, but something good enough). Which means some kind of attestation that it's a real hardware device that costs at least a few bucks and is making human-level numbers of requests (not millions per day), or else some kind of digital ID attestation system.

And I much prefer device attestation that keeps you personally anonymous, as opposed to identity attestation that will inevitably allow the government to track your browsing.

So this seems like the lesser evil. If there are other ideas I'm very open to them as well, but I basically see something like this as a sadly necessary and inevitable evil. Something is necessary and this is less worse than the alternatives. And the fact that website owners choose whether to enable this or not means that those who want to keep an internet open to all devices and web requests can do so, if they're willing to handle the additional costs in handling abuse.

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