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Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

grapheneos.social

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Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#231

Post by userbinator »

voakbasda wrote: post #20
samplifier wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Where would you do that? Realistically, the question is one that cannot even be asked safely: are there enough of us to overthrow the existing systems and replace them with something better? The answer to either question, really, is no. The powers that be have systematically implemented policies that keep us divided to prevent that eventual outcome.

In terms of headcount, and especially those who are working on this hostile stuff, Big Tech is not even that big compared to the rest of the population.

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#232

Post by nolroz »

armada651 wrote: post #139
varispeed wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corruption. A taboo topic people prefer to downvote and pretend it does not exist. But even bigger problem is that institutions designed to prevent this from happening are not doing their job. Thousands security service and civil servants take their wages and look the other way.

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…

I think a hearty fuck off is warranted for responses like this. What the shit do you base the converse off? Pretend there's no corruption and there won't be any??

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#233

Post by pphysch »

vanviegen wrote: post #145
andy99 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Digital sovereignty has only become a serious political topic in the EU over the past year. It may take a decade to see the effects of this in laws and policies.

It's more than that, before recently the very idea of "digital sovereignty" was framed as a dangerous Russian conspiracy by the West's top info warriors.

Example: https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2021/july/information-sovereignty

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#234

Post by lxgr »

xinayder wrote: post #213
lxgr wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 lik…

DRM is arguably a specific use of various generic technology ranging from whitebox cryptography to trusted computing.

I don't think remote attestation (or even more so its umbrella technology, trusted computing) is nearly as specifically targeted as DRM.

> 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.

I agree that requiring remote attestation for generic web use is evil. It's way too heavy-handed an approach better reserved

I still don't think this somehow outright disqualifies the technology itself.

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#235

Post by lxgr »

bigyabai wrote: post #225
lxgr wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not necessarily being surveiled just because you're forced to authenticate yourself. It often is the case practically, but it's not inherent, and mixing the two up makes the discussion too imprecise in a technical forum. Hardware attestation often also has problems of centralization, but that's something else as well. By just labeling it as an abstract bad thing without seeing nuance, I'm afraid you won't be c…

> It often is the case practically, but it's not inherent Oh my god. It's 2026, and we're still repeating the "I trust Apple/Google/Microsoft enough to resist the government" spiel. Hardware attestation is a surveillance mechanism. If China was enforcing the same rule, you would immediately identify it as a state-driven deanonymization effort. But when the US does it, you backpedal and suggest that it could be implem…

> Oh my god. It's 2026, and we're still repeating the "I trust Apple/Google/Microsoft enough to resist the government" spiel.

Who is?

> But when the US does it [...]

I don't live in the US, and while US is often setting global trends, in this case I don't think that's actually that likely, unless it somehow goes significantly better (i.e., the benefits actually vastly exceed the collateral damage to anonymity and resiliency via heterogeneity) than expected.

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#236

Post by PunchyHamster »

OhMeadhbh wrote: post #228
tardedmeme wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can also shut down all European payment cards.

Maybe not all of them, but certainly a few large, popular ones. You bring up a good point though, it seems surprising that Wero/PEPSI don't have more momentum. Maybe Europeans hate their continental neighbors more than American financial conglomerates.

Just big systems having even bigger inertia

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#237

Post by otterley »

ryandrake wrote: post #202
zozbot234 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that argument is that there really is no such thing as public opinion at scale. You can poll people/the general public on just about any issue and the answers are going to differ massively depending on framing effects. In the end, it's hardly better than just flipping a coin.

Even if public opinion is unified, if they want something to happen, they are just going to ignore the public and do it anyway. Like the recent cases of data enter projects where they just ignore the public voting against them. Democracy’s weakness it it requires people to follow the rules, but if nobody voluntarily follows the rules, then we don’t really have one.

> Like the recent cases of data enter projects where they just ignore the public voting against them

Do you have an example? And was this a binding or non-binding vote?

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#238

Post by armada651 »

nolroz wrote: post #232
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…

I think a hearty fuck off is warranted for responses like this. What the shit do you base the converse off? Pretend there's no corruption and there won't be any??

Of course not, if there's evidence of corruption then those involved should be rooted out and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

What I'm saying is that if there's no evidence of corruption, then simply assuming corruption will harm your cause because it will make it seem like political activism is futile in the face of supposedly hidden corruption.

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#239

Post by like_any_other »

reactordev wrote: post #227
dathinab wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Have you seen our President? Minor conveniences are what trigger him into launching full blown DOJ investigations, wars, and economic disaster. If he realizes he can just "turn off" the EU, oh, he will threaten that on Truth Social tonight in a rant about how they should make a deal or else.

An open threat like that would be the best case scenario, as it would (hopefully) cause a reaction in EU countries trying to get rid of this yoke. Instead usually it happens through backroom dealings, or just the services being a nuisance to competitors while being helpful to friendly companies, and thus the target country is drained of its resources and economic independence, slow enough to not provoke retaliation.

With the exception of the current US administration, hostile countries and corporations try to appear non-hostile when possible.

Re: Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

#240

Post by userbinator »

krupan wrote: post #223
userbinator wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The local models are still centralized and proprietary. They are basically closed source software.

Closed or open source doesn't matter; it's the ability to control them that's important. People have been cracking and patching for decades without source, but they have that control.

Contrast this with remote attestation, where they might show you the source code for everything but you're still powerless to do anything.

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