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Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

grapheneos.social

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Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#81

The EU Digital (identity) Wallet EUDI requires hardware attestation by Google or Apple, effectively tying all the digital EU identities to American duopoly. Talk about digital sovereignity. Apparently protecting the children > sovereignity. https://gitlab.opencode.de/bmi/eudi-wallet/wallet-developmen...

I wrote to the EU contact about this, got a patronising reply about how good it is, app being open source and what not.

Clearly tailored to the regular normie without technical skills.

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#82

The EU Digital (identity) Wallet EUDI requires hardware attestation by Google or Apple, effectively tying all the digital EU identities to American duopoly. Talk about digital sovereignity. Apparently protecting the children > sovereignity. https://gitlab.opencode.de/bmi/eudi-wallet/wallet-developmen...

[deleted]

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#83
Is it possible to dual-boot on android? It sounds defeatist but I no longer believe it’s possible to change course - the increasingly authoritarian governments, google and most moneyed interests are all on the same side, so it’s just a matter of when.

Being on the palantir-approved google ranch for the few Apps You Need + graphene (or some other alt OS) for everything else would be quite inconvenient, but still better than carrying two phones, which nobody wants to do.

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#84
post #3

Asymmetric cryptography and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. I’m not even joking all of the centralization of power and the rise of totalitarianism tech is driving is downstream from asymmetric cryptography.

My introduction to asymmetric cryptography had to do with protecting myself from the authorities while buying drugs on the internet.

One of its first applications anywhere was protecting anti nuclear protestors from government provocateurs.

We could prevent so much fraud of we could only convince the credit card companies to start using it (instead of printing a symmetric secret on the outside of the card).

It's predominantly a force for good. If anything, its a bit anarchical.

What you're noticing is not the leading edge of set of harms brought about by asymmetric cryptography, but rather the late stage of adoption where the bad guys realize that their enemy's sword has had two edges all this time. Every technology that mediates an adversarial relationship goes through this eventually.

With the printing press came temporary freedom followed by intellectual property. So too with radios and the FCC. So too with social media. It's useless to blame the technology. Blame the people.

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#85

It's so obvious to me states need to create a soul bound identity system, replace social security numbers with it, and then let everyone else use cryptography on top of that (which is now cheap when you don't care about sybil attacks) to do private stuff.

My driver's license should have some anti-tamper identity proof that can do a challenge response. Or let me go pay a few bucks for an identity proof at the post office. There must be a dozen other ways smarter people can think of but identity verification kills profits so the smart people don't work on them IMO. It's more profitable for social media to be an astroturfed shithole. It's more profitable to remove contro…

Social media in an ad economy serves two masters.

End users should be authenticated so you can prove you're selling real eyeballs in the demographic mix you claimed to marketers and to provide lip service for the 'think of the children' regulators.

But anyone who's paying for ads should have as little friction as possible to dropping money and spewing garbage.

I'm surprised nobody is looking at some sort of "corporations are people" angle here-- we've attested the device ownership, but it's owned by the Lorem Ipsum Corporation, which is a legal/demographic dead end and spawned just long enough to buy the device.

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#86
I am reminded of the period when secure boot was being developed for PCs.

Microsoft certainly wanted to be the only company whose OS was allowed to boot with secure boot turned on.

Google should not be allowed to close the supposedly "open" ecosystem they created any more than Microsoft was allowed to.

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#87

The EU Digital (identity) Wallet EUDI requires hardware attestation by Google or Apple, effectively tying all the digital EU identities to American duopoly. Talk about digital sovereignity. Apparently protecting the children > sovereignity. https://gitlab.opencode.de/bmi/eudi-wallet/wallet-developmen...

Came here with roughly the same thought. Given the stated importance to many of sovereignty and not being dependent on the US, why isn’t there more opposition? I assume it’s just ignorance?

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#88
post #2

This is a really good thread on why this technology is becoming a problem for "open" anything. The argument "we can create our own separate web" is fine until all of your services are behind the web that locks you into owning a Google approved or Apple approved mobile device.

Are there enough of us to run our own country? It makes me feel dumb, but this is a serious question.

Ideally, we just run our own lives, collaboratively. That's the anarchist default position that we all start in.

What we really need is to meaningfully participate outside of the hierarchical monopolistic systems that demand our participation. That doesn't just mean that we create and hang out in distributed networks: it also means that we make and do interesting shit there, too.

The biggest hurdle I see is that we only really use uncensored spaces to do the shit that would otherwise be censored. We don't use distributed networks to plan a party with grandma, or bitch about the next series of layoffs. We don't use distributed networks to share scientific discovery or art.

I think part of the solution is to make software that is better at facilitating those kind of interactions, and the other part of the solution is actually fucking using it. How many of us are only waiting for the first part?

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#89
post #87

The EU Digital (identity) Wallet EUDI requires hardware attestation by Google or Apple, effectively tying all the digital EU identities to American duopoly. Talk about digital sovereignity. Apparently protecting the children > sovereignity. https://gitlab.opencode.de/bmi/eudi-wallet/wallet-developmen...

Came here with roughly the same thought. Given the stated importance to many of sovereignty and not being dependent on the US, why isn’t there more opposition? I assume it’s just ignorance?

There is some opposition, but none of it is making a dent. It's depressing. I can't decide if it's incompetence, corruption, or malice.

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#90
post #2

This is a really good thread on why this technology is becoming a problem for "open" anything. The argument "we can create our own separate web" is fine until all of your services are behind the web that locks you into owning a Google approved or Apple approved mobile device.

I like to ride my bicycle with my friends in rides organized by the (Pacific Northwest) Cascade Bicycle Club. They require that I solve a Google reCAPTCHA in order to register for a ride. Google is already completely locking me out from being able to do that. When I try to click on the squares to select whatever items it's asking, it indefinitely loops. When I try using the audio version, it completely blocks me from…

I hope you contacted them to explain why. People usually think I’m a nut when I do it, or are too stupid to understand and think it’s a tech support issue, but it’s worth at least trying to make it clear that you are choosing not to use/do/pay something because of their choice to use recaptcha
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