Absolute worst spec I've ever seen. Google needs to be loaded into a cannon and fired into the sun. > How does this affect browser modifications and extensions? > Web Environment Integrity attests the legitimacy of the underlying hardware and software stack, it does not restrict the indicated application’s functionality: E.g. if the browser allows extensions, the user may use extensions; if a browser is modified, the…
Web Environment Integrity Explainer
11–20 of 47 posts
Re: Web Environment Integrity Explainer
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is sarcasm right? Because otherwise it sounds like going to the bathroom during a commercial would be illegal.
Kellner did add "I guess there's a certain amount of tolerance for going to the bathroom." But if your bathroom breaks become too frequent, I guess you run the risk of "actually stealing programming".
Re: Web Environment Integrity Explainer
#13Absolute worst spec I've ever seen. Google needs to be loaded into a cannon and fired into the sun. > How does this affect browser modifications and extensions? > Web Environment Integrity attests the legitimacy of the underlying hardware and software stack, it does not restrict the indicated application’s functionality: E.g. if the browser allows extensions, the user may use extensions; if a browser is modified, the…
Trusted computing is all about ensuring that your machine is trusted to run payloads and you can't observe or interact with them. Sad! I see why the free software people call it treacherous computing
Re: Web Environment Integrity Explainer
#14The first use case they mention is restricting ad fraud (and, presumably, ad blocking): > Users like visiting websites that are expensive to create and maintain, but they often want or need to do it without paying directly. These websites fund themselves with ads, but the advertisers can only afford to pay for humans to see the ads, rather than robots. This creates a need for human users to prove to websites that the…
"Your contract with the network when you get the show is, you're going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an ad-supported basis. Anytime you skip a commercial or watch the button you're actually stealing programming." Jamie Kellner's words still ring true today. When corporations make content available supported by advertisements, they are assuming a moral obligation on your part to see those…
I live in Norway, and even "serious" advertisers shows me alcohol and gambling advertisiments. This is strictly forbidden by norwegian law, yet I have seen multiple advertisements of this kind from Google, Facebook and Discovery. Discovery in particular has just recently agreed to follow the law for television broadcasts, to be fair.
GDPR is also violated a lot, especially by advertising corporations. I have never consented to the vast amount of tracking that I'm subjected to when browsing the internet, even though I have that right.
It's not like they are obligated to provide services to my country either. If european laws are too strict, they can always leave instead of violating our rights.
Re: Web Environment Integrity Explainer
#15The first use case they mention is restricting ad fraud (and, presumably, ad blocking): > Users like visiting websites that are expensive to create and maintain, but they often want or need to do it without paying directly. These websites fund themselves with ads, but the advertisers can only afford to pay for humans to see the ads, rather than robots. This creates a need for human users to prove to websites that the…
"Your contract with the network when you get the show is, you're going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an ad-supported basis. Anytime you skip a commercial or watch the button you're actually stealing programming." Jamie Kellner's words still ring true today. When corporations make content available supported by advertisements, they are assuming a moral obligation on your part to see those…
Re: Web Environment Integrity Explainer
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kellner did add "I guess there's a certain amount of tolerance for going to the bathroom." But if your bathroom breaks become too frequent, I guess you run the risk of "actually stealing programming".
Verification can solves this.
McDonalds!
Re: Web Environment Integrity Explainer
#17In the present day, are alternative browsers popular enough that we can avoid the worst-case scenario? Do enough people compile these alternative browsers from source code (meaning each binary is slightly different) to make a difference?
Re: Web Environment Integrity Explainer
#18Absolute worst spec I've ever seen. Google needs to be loaded into a cannon and fired into the sun. > How does this affect browser modifications and extensions? > Web Environment Integrity attests the legitimacy of the underlying hardware and software stack, it does not restrict the indicated application’s functionality: E.g. if the browser allows extensions, the user may use extensions; if a browser is modified, the…
Trusted computing is all about ensuring that your machine is trusted to run payloads and you can't observe or interact with them. Sad! I see why the free software people call it treacherous computing
Another use case is multiparty computation. Three people wish to compare some values without a risk that anyone will see the combined data. TC can do this with tractable compute overhead, unlike purely cryptographic techniques.
Observe what this means for P2P applications. A major difficulty in building them is that peers can't trust each other, so you have to rely on complex and unintuitive algorithms (e.g. block chains) or duplication of work (e.g. SETI@Home) or benign dictators (e.g. Tor) to try and stop cheating. With TC peers can attest to each other and form a network with known behavior, meaning devs can add features rather than spend all their time designing around complicated attacks.
These uses require you have a computer that you do trust which can audit the remote server before uploading data to it. But you can compile and/or run that program on your laptop or smartphone, the verification process is easy.
But exactly because TC is general it doesn't distinguish based on who owns the machine. It doesn't see your PC as morally superior to a remote server, they're all just computers. So yes, in theory a remote server could demand you run something locally and then do a HW remote attestation for it. In practice though this never happens anymore outside of games consoles (as far as I'm aware), because most consumer devices don't have the right hardware for it, and even if they did you can't do much hardware interaction inside attested code.
Re: Web Environment Integrity Explainer
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trusted computing is all about ensuring that your machine is trusted to run payloads and you can't observe or interact with them. Sad! I see why the free software people call it treacherous computing
TC is value neutral so the FSF slurs don't make sense. Consider what happens when the machine in question is a cloud VM. Then you can run workloads on a rented machine without the risk of the cloud vendor spying on or tampering with your server. Likewise if the machine gets hacked. These are highly desirable properties for many people. For example Signal uses TC so the mobile apps can verify the servers before doing…
The issue client-side is that if a single vendor or TPM design is compromised, threat actors have ample motive, resources and ability to exploit this compromised hardware, whilst everyone else has few choices, such as dumping at great expensve some more e-waste. And critically, you as a user are blocked by your acceptance of TPM attestation technology from discovering attacks and auditing your own system security, as you ceded control of your own systems. Instead, your systems are controlled by a few technology companies that have a proven terrible track record of fulfilling their alleged intent of keeping your systems and data secure. And why should they care if it doesn't lead to a higher profit at the end of the year?
[1] https://github.com/binarly-io/SupplyChainAttacks/blob/main/M...
[2] https://github.com/binarly-io/SupplyChainAttacks/blob/main/M...
[3] https://github.com/binarly-io/SupplyChainAttacks/blob/main/L...