Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler • Hacker News Board

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#211

Post by EmbarrassedHelp » Sun, May 10, 2026, 9:48 PM UTC

matthewdgreen wrote: post #166

miohtama wrote: post #56

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...

One of the major problems with on-device identifiers is that they must by tied tightly to devices, due to the risks of cloning. This is particularly true for privacy-preserving identifiers. That's why device attestation is so important, because you can't ensure that identity (keys) are locked to a device unless you can verify that the hardware prevents users from extracting keys. The worst part of this is that motiva…

Don't hardware identifiers also mean that Google can blacklist your device from vast portions of the internet whenever they feel like it?

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#212

Post by krupan » Sun, May 10, 2026, 9:48 PM UTC

thecatapps wrote: post #103

With all of the discourse around hardware attestation, digital ID, and age verification in recent weeks/months, is there actually any good solution to the problems these existing tools (Privacy Pass, WEI, Fraud Defense, uploading IDs) claim to solve? Are there open and privacy-preserving standards that can solve the problem of bots and minors? If not, what would be required to establish one, and is it realistic? Busi…

What even is the problem? I keep my kids computers in the living room where it's easy to see what they are doing. Their lan shuts down at night when I'm asleep. They don't get full control of their own cell phone until they are around 16-years old. Bots on social media discourage me from using it which is a Good Thing if you ask me.

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#213

Post by xinayder » Sun, May 10, 2026, 9:48 PM UTC

lxgr wrote: post #193

userbinator wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hell yes. I was going to post the same comment. I don't give a flying fuck how it's implemented. Remote attestation is inherently evil. I remember the WEI apologists trying to do the same thing to derail the argument. The problem is the goal, not the details. Just say no: DO NOT WANT!

Remote attestation is a technology, not a policy or a political effort, so it can't be inherently evil. You can disagree with all its known or proposed uses, but then I think it makes more sense to name these.

DRM is a technology and is inherently evil. Web attestation is DRM for the web, and is inherently evil. Age ID is a technology and is inherently evil.

We have over 30 years of the world wide web and for these more than 3 decades this was never a problem. Suddenly, we "need" to create new technology that seem to be security features, but are essentially just being used for evil, thus being inherently bad.

It's not like these technologies were created for the greater good and misappropriated by bad actors. They were proposed by bad actors in the first place, they cannot not be inherently good.

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#214

Post by krupan » Sun, May 10, 2026, 9:50 PM UTC

derelicta wrote: post #153

Mark my words: in ten years from now on, the Chinese web will be more free and open than any Western country.

Isn't half the reason companies push for these sorts of controls is so they are allowed by the Chinese government to do business there?

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#215

Post by tamimio » Sun, May 10, 2026, 9:50 PM UTC

The best workaround for now is -as the solution is always to change these regulations not the technical workarounds- is to have a secondary smaller phone that has the sim card, google botnet services, etc., and use that for any verification needed or login to banks or whatever, and keep this device turned off in your house so they don’t track you too and use it where needed. That while also pressuring web services not to use recaptchas and similar invasive services.

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#216

Post by surgical_fire » Sun, May 10, 2026, 9:51 PM UTC

EmbarrassedHelp wrote: post #201

armada651 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's actively harmful to your own cause when you suggest corruption without any evidence. Just because politicians don't take action on an issue you think is important doesn't mean they're corrupt. It's more likely that the issue you think is important is simply not important to most voters. Suggesting politicians are corrupt without any evidence will make that worse. If people think their politicians are cor…

The EU Commission was caught breaking the law in order to lobby for Chat Control: https://noyb.eu/en/gdpr-complaint-against-x-twitter-over-ill... The EU Commission also gave a foreign tech company called Thorn (they pretend to be a charity), special access to government officials: https://netzpolitik.org/2022/dude-wheres-my-privacy-how-a-ho... I think both of those cases would be examples of lobbying and corruption.

The thing is that "The EU commission" is an entity composed os politicians, appointed by member states.

It's little coincidence that national governments want Chat Control (laundering that through EU), and the EU parliament is the entity that shots it down (coincidentally the entity that is most beholden to the public).

It would be nice to learn which comissioners are lobbying for it.

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#217

Post by userbinator » Sun, May 10, 2026, 9:52 PM UTC

krupan wrote: post #207

userbinator wrote: post #161

In 1999, Intel received an absolutely massive amount of opposition when they decided to include a software-readable serial number in their CPUs, so much that they reversed the decision. Then the "security" and Trusted Computing authoritarians continued pushing for TPMs and related tech, and contributed to the rise of mobile walled gardens. Windows 11's TPM requirements were another step towards their goal. The amount…

Totally with you until you brought in AI, a completely centralized and proprietary tool.

Local models exist, but there's also irony in using the tools to spread the message of the opposition.

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#218

Post by dathinab » Sun, May 10, 2026, 9:53 PM UTC

retired wrote: post #66

miohtama wrote: post #56

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...

So with a single flip of the switch, the president of the USA can shut down our EU Digital Identity Wallet. Why was this decision ever made?

> Why was this decision ever made?

because it wasn't made

the decision which was made was having a digital ID wallet, that this needs hardware attestation (or something comparable) is somewhat of a direct consequence of existing laws/regulations regarding making IDs forgery safe

it also is a phone only application

the huge huge majority of phones runs Googled Android/iOS, so you support them

if there where a relevant 3rd party competition it would (most likely) supported it, too

going back to the "the president .. shut down .." argument: The US can shut down >90% of all smart phones used in the EU. I don't think the US being able to shut down something which in the end is fundamentally just a minor convenience feature is making much of a difference here.

But I also think that whole identity wallet (the regulations behind it) is approaching things from the wrong direction, carrying a credit card sized ID with you isn't really a problem or very inconvenient. So instead of having the whole attestation nonsense it would be more practical to simply not have attestation and in turn allow the digital ID only for usage where the damage it can cause is quite limited. Especially given that device attestation systems have a long history of being circumvented...

As a side note this whole app is distinct from the "use you ID with through your phone/NFC with applications" thing many EU countries have, through that solutions also tend to have attestation issues in most cases. But again most relevant use-case of it can be done just fine, without the security level attestation tries to provide, if approached pragmatically.

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#219

Post by krupan » Sun, May 10, 2026, 9:53 PM UTC

iamkrazy wrote: post #29

It's still not too late. With the help of Claude et. al, we can make a truly open mobile OS from ground up. We can make an app translater that can translate Android and iOS apps to our OS. We can make deals with manufacturers to start shipping phones with this OS. We have the will, there's enough of us on this site to make an impact. All ee need is good leadership. Please somebody with enough clout step up.

You really don't know the limits of LLMs. They can't make anything "from the ground up" they are only as capable what they were trained on. Someone had an LLM make a C compiler and they found code regurgitated verbatim from existing compilers. You better believe that any OS it writes will look astonishingly similar to an existing open source one.

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#220

Post by armada651 » Sun, May 10, 2026, 9:54 PM UTC

EmbarrassedHelp wrote: post #201

armada651 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's actively harmful to your own cause when you suggest corruption without any evidence. Just because politicians don't take action on an issue you think is important doesn't mean they're corrupt. It's more likely that the issue you think is important is simply not important to most voters. Suggesting politicians are corrupt without any evidence will make that worse. If people think their politicians are cor…

The EU Commission was caught breaking the law in order to lobby for Chat Control: https://noyb.eu/en/gdpr-complaint-against-x-twitter-over-ill... The EU Commission also gave a foreign tech company called Thorn (they pretend to be a charity), special access to government officials: https://netzpolitik.org/2022/dude-wheres-my-privacy-how-a-ho... I think both of those cases would be examples of lobbying and corruption.

Neither examples are evidence of corruption. That doesn't mean they're not problematic, but there's no evidence here of a politician receiving a kickback for any of these actions.