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The boiling frog of digital freedom

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Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#11
post #5

> 2025: Google removes the ability to install Android apps from outside the Play store, citing security concerns. Yeah no, would be a direct violation of DMA at that point[1] [1] - https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/index_en

I mean, all you need to do is make it so that it violates some kind of “integrity” protection on the device, after which banking apps, android wallet etc stop functioning.

Its enough incentive to kill third party app stores for the vast majority of people.

Staying within the letter of the law is pretty easy.

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#12
> Chrome drops official support for Linux, citing the impossibility to satisfy Web Environment Integrity (WEI) checks

Nah, the whole point of kernel_lockdown and uefi attestation is so they can roll out WEI without having to do this.

Of course compiling your own kernel, or doing anything else interesting, will break the WEI checks as well as break most of the web...

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#13

[flagged]

Which begs the question, what would a good investigation look like here? Why is this important? Who are the actors? How can we know their end goals and strategies? What things have happened in the past that we can predict will be attempted again in the future?

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#14
post #5

> 2025: Google removes the ability to install Android apps from outside the Play store, citing security concerns. Yeah no, would be a direct violation of DMA at that point[1] [1] - https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/index_en

Knowing EU it could be altered to "Google removes the ability to install non-sanctioned alternative stores which don't have strict content filtering and anti-piracy policies, as per the EU directive" while preserving the (high) level of plausibility.

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#15

And it will keep getting worse as long as the majority of the population lack proper core values to oppose it.

I don't think it's a values problem. The technical issues here are complex. Can you explain bootloader locking or remote attestation to your grandmother?

Personally I think a better approach is to push the phrase "right to recycle and repurpose" as much as possible. People get that. Everybody personally has seen the unsettling amount of e-waste that passes through their ownership and into a landfill somewhere.

Right to repair isn't enough, because these restrictions don't block you from keeping things working the way they did when you bought the device. Recycling and repurposing is something everybody can understand. It answers the question of "wait don't only evil hackers care about that?"

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#16
Sad but true. Same thing as millennial/genZ authored websites who check for Chrome, and throw a tantrum/refuse to work otherwise.

I'm looking at you, vivaticket, booking, and many others I can't keep count of

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#18
post #5

> 2025: Google removes the ability to install Android apps from outside the Play store, citing security concerns. Yeah no, would be a direct violation of DMA at that point[1] [1] - https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/index_en

And yet you can only install through the AppStore on iOS.

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#19
There is one interesting force acting against that though (or it would probably already have happened). It is the simple fact that most people that are competent enough to actually implement these things also understand the problems with doing so. For the most part anyway. If we could just agree to not do that... well, what are "they" going to do?

And of course: we owe it to the web to use Firefox. The Chrome clones are only stalling; not counteracting the impending monoculture even one bit. It doesn't matter how fancy their marketing is.

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#20
post #5

> 2025: Google removes the ability to install Android apps from outside the Play store, citing security concerns. Yeah no, would be a direct violation of DMA at that point[1] [1] - https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/index_en

And yet you can only install through the AppStore on iOS.

Not much longer.
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