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An experimental Android WebView Media Integrity API early next year

android-developers.googleblog.com

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Re: An experimental Android WebView Media Integrity API early next year

#141

Post by Wowfunhappy »

nolist_policy wrote: post #137
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #126

I don't understand how this works. > The new Android WebView Media Integrity API will give embedded media providers access to a tailored integrity response that contains a device and app integrity verdict so that they can ensure their streams are running in a safe and trusted environment, regardless of which app store the embedding app was installed from. But this only applies to the Android WebView API, not standalo…

All this is about attesting authenticity to the server .

But only Android WebViews can attest their authenticity. Are servers going to block standalone web browsers?

If they are, why even use a WebView? Just make it part of your app.

Re: An experimental Android WebView Media Integrity API early next year

#142

Post by ethbr1 »

dmoy wrote: post #140
mcpackieh wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "P.S. I'd love to discuss this with y'all like professional adults. Can we do that?" You can tell somebody is a snake when they aren't from the South but use "y'all" . It's become a sort of corporate snake shibboleth.

Uhhh, what? I use y'all 'cus that's how all the kids in my school talked growing up. I ditched a lot of the lexicon because after my family moved to the suburbs, I got made fun of by my new friends, literally calling me "less white". So no more finna', for example. I will die on the hill of having a good second person plural pronoun though.

Once you've used English with a second person plural pronoun, you can't go back.

PS: "Yous guys" doesn't count

Re: An experimental Android WebView Media Integrity API early next year

#143

Post by JohnFen »

rezonant wrote: post #100
JohnFen wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a place that applications can store such data without my knowledge or control, and I don't trust applications enough to be comfortable with them having that ability. Don't get me wrong, it's not a major issue for me, it's just uncomfortable. It just means I prefer my machines to not have TPM hardware in them.

They can store that data, but they cannot retrieve that data. That's because the data it stores are cryptographic secrets (private keys). If they store a private key there and then delegate encryption/decryption to the TPM, you can also ask the TPM to perform said encryption/decryption using that key as the system owner. The entire point of a TPM is ensuring that private keys intended for a specific device are never…

> They can store that data, but they cannot retrieve that data.

Right, which means software can engage in encryption that I can't decrypt because I can't get the keys.

You're right, RA (when the user can't change the keys) is a much more concerning thing. It can be used to prevent me from exerting full control over my own hardware.

My problem with TPM isn't really the TPM itself, it's that I have very little trust in software and so want to be able to keep a close eye on it and audit things as needed. I want to be able to do things like decrypt data streams sent over the wire, etc.

And, as I said, this is a relatively minor thing for me. Even writing as much about it as I have puts more emphasis on it than I would prefer. In practice, the majority of the software that I use doesn't even want to use the TPM, so it's all good.

Re: An experimental Android WebView Media Integrity API early next year

#144

Post by londons_explore »

ugh123 wrote: post #104
JohnFen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not intended to benefit the user.

The benefit to the user is they can supposedly "trust" the content that is being shown in the webview is, in fact, owned by or affiliated somehow with the app. They don't give an example, but i'd imagine its something like: "bad app lets user's sign into their bank account through the app's webview, then webview scrapes/intercepts content to do as they wish".

They could protect against that easily by simply adding a header to all outgoing requests saying "this request originated from com.appname".

If a website didn't want to be embedded in that app, the webpage could refuse to let the user log in.

The whole thing is a bit moot, because any app can just implement their own web renderer or just fake the login screen to Chase.com entirely to get the users creds.

Re: An experimental Android WebView Media Integrity API early next year

#146

Post by phoronixrly »

digging wrote: post #133
jader201 wrote: post #121

Original title: “Increasing trust for embedded media” > Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The original title is misleading.

This title is also misleading. Google backs off on WEI in Chrome, but still pushes it in the webview, thus making it easier to create apps that limit what you can do with your own hardware.

Re: An experimental Android WebView Media Integrity API early next year

#147

Post by JohnFen »

josephg wrote: post #97
marklar423 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree, but how do you feel about you (the machine owner) also not having access to it? That's my major problem with it; it locks you out of messing with your own machine data, which you can see being instantly abused by third parties to prevent modifications.

TPM chips are pretty open. I had a look through the spec & API for tpm 2.0 a few years ago and there’s a lot of neat tricks you can do with them. TPM chips are an open standard with many implementations. As far as I can tell, as a software developer you have full access to the chip. The only thing you can’t do with them (by design) is read the signing keys or generate secure boot attestations for machines which didn’…

> The only thing you can’t do with them (by design) is read the signing keys

That's why it makes me nervous.

Re: An experimental Android WebView Media Integrity API early next year

#148

Post by phoronixrly »

wkat4242 wrote: post #105
i-am-gizm0 wrote: post #68

Official confirmation in the WEI public discussion thread: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/blink-dev/c/Ux5h_...

Great. Really dodged a bullet there.

They are still making it easier for developers to create apps that limit what you can do with your own hardware.

Re: An experimental Android WebView Media Integrity API early next year

#150

Post by skydhash »

imiric wrote: post #113
wkat4242 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great. Really dodged a bullet there.

Not really. More like the entity pointing the gun has now decocked it. The scary part is that there is a single entity with that kind of power to begin with. It's a testament of the failure of the modern web, and how far it has strayed from the original spirit of the internet.

Mostly because most people don’t care about the original spirit of the internet. As long as they can get their job done, consume entertainment, and play status game, they are content. Which is why for most people, their internet is just a handful of tech companies. It’s basically Minitel, but fueled by ads.
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