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Google’s nightmare “Web Integrity API” wants a DRM gatekeeper for the web

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Re: Google’s nightmare “Web Integrity API” wants a DRM gatekeeper for the web

#231

Post by ChrisCinelli »

kelnos wrote: post #63
mabbo wrote: post #32

> Exactly how the rest of the world feels about this is not necessarily relevant, though. Google owns the world's most popular web browser, the world's largest advertising network, the world's biggest search engine, the world's most popular operating system, and some of the world's most popular websites. So really, Google can do whatever it wants. This is the point that company breakups start to make a lot of sense.…

> When Google can do something that every one of it's users hates I don't think this is remotely the case. Quite a few tech-savvy people I know (some of them software developers) use Chrome and mostly don't care about whatever Google does with it. I mention "manifest v3" and get a blank stare. I talk about advertising and ad blockers, and most people don't care, with some of them not even using ad blockers. We really…

The reason HN is a bubble is because people here actually get and interested in real tech news.

If a journalist would explain these news to the masses AND the news has a way to reach the masses.

These days these kinds of news do not make it to broadcasted news and most people do not watch the old broadcasted news.

The news currently get people attention from the news feed on Android and Apples phones. Those feeds recommend only the kind of content you usually interact with. No many people gets tech articles. And you can even argue that there is some extra filters on what news get on the feed in first place.

Re: Google’s nightmare “Web Integrity API” wants a DRM gatekeeper for the web

#232

Post by insanitybit »

thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #61

The use cases for the WEI proposal are pretty clear from the explainer ( https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/ ...): Google "will be able to request a token that attests key facts about the environment their client code is running in." Google "will ultimately decide if they trust the verdict returned from the attester." "Allow" Google "to evaluate the authenticity of the device and honest repre…

> Why would Google want these capabilities in web browsers?

"You're trying to access your AWS console, is your laptop patched?"

Re: Google’s nightmare “Web Integrity API” wants a DRM gatekeeper for the web

#233

Post by plorkyeran »

hn92726819 wrote: post #199
lima wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a tech-savvy person and I consider Manifest v3 an improvement (improves security + performance), and Firefox implements it as well as things like declarativeNetRequest[1]. [1]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Web...

Can you expand on the security improvements of v3? This is the first I've heard this. As for performance... That sounds dubious. Declarative blocking surely will be faster than v2, but what is being blocked by v2, I would imagine, is generally way slower than the difference between v2 and v3. At the end of the day, I don't see the performance of my browser negatively impacted by uBlock Origin, I see it saving CPU, ba…

Google's PR has claimed that manifest v3 has security and privacy improvements, but it's pretty straightforwardly a lie.

Re: Google’s nightmare “Web Integrity API” wants a DRM gatekeeper for the web

#234

Post by pessimizer »

gary_0 wrote: post #156
pessimizer wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ISPs will not be letting that traffic through. So no little romantic underground. No cycle; the internet is happening just once, and we're in it. The assumption that everything is necessarily part of a little epicycle of history somehow mashes together Whig history and and an inert nihilism. Don't worry, nothing matters? We're not in a movie. When they close the open internet, there will be no reason for them to open…

If we're talking cyberpunk dystopias, we'd have to resort to hand-soldered audio couplers that use our locked-down phones as modems. Once the next Android/iOS update detects and blocks unauthorized binary carriers, we'll have to steganographically hide our traffic in fake voice calls. Crappy baud rate, but good enough for encrypted text. Augment with sneakernet and local hard-wired networks running under lawns and do…

Most of what I talked about they've already tried to make happen.

Re: Google’s nightmare “Web Integrity API” wants a DRM gatekeeper for the web

#236

Post by hardcopy »

zimbatm wrote: post #59

Remember they already added DRM to browsers once. There was a big outcry at the time, and they still went ahead and implemented it. Now even Firefox supports Widevine. If they believe that it's in their best interest, I'm not really sure what we can do against this...

Thanks for reminding me, turned that shit off.

Re: Google’s nightmare “Web Integrity API” wants a DRM gatekeeper for the web

#237

Post by urda »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #92

The proposal author (who locked the issue[0] on Github) also commented on HN and has, so far, remained silent here too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36825097 [0] https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/...

They have also violated an important Code of Conduct [1], to the point of even aggressively closing valid complaints [2]. The Googlers RupertBenWiser [3] and yoavweiss [4] are really just toeing the Google line. What's super gross is even yoavweiss tried to play pretend that the original issue they forced closed, without comments or reading, was "spam" [5]. I believe both of these users are acting in very-bad-faith, and not correctly observing any ethical codes of conduct in Engineering.

It's super telling they know by how they are acting, by locking down the GitHub repo.

It's very depressing how far both Google and Googlers have fallen. What was once a home to innovation, growth, and technical creation is now just ads, abusing their market position to give Chrome an insane advantage during the later years of the browser wars, and more of the same.

It's probably time to bring anti-trust action against Google. Also if you're not already, please move to Firefox and stop using Chrome. Mozilla stands against this and these engineers pushing it [6].

[1] https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/...

[2] https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/...

[3] https://github.com/RupertBenWiser

[4] https://github.com/yoavweiss

[5] https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/...

[6] https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/852#is...

Re: Google’s nightmare “Web Integrity API” wants a DRM gatekeeper for the web

#238

Post by nativeit »

dumpsterdiver wrote: post #122
doctor_eval wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never understood why Google has remained the esteemed vendor for a subset of technical users. They lost me more than a decade ago when they hoovered clear text passwords from their wifi scanning and blamed it on a single engineer.

Are you referring to Google Maps automobiles connecting to open WiFi networks? Because to be fair, those networks were wide open, and they were being advertised. I don't see how advertising an open WiFi network is much different from advertising an open house. In both cases you should expect visitors.

That Wi-Fi router shouldn’t have dressed like that if it didn’t want to get Googled.

Re: Google’s nightmare “Web Integrity API” wants a DRM gatekeeper for the web

#239

Post by smaudet »

Dalewyn wrote: post #179
kelnos wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When Google can do something that every one of it's users hates I don't think this is remotely the case. Quite a few tech-savvy people I know (some of them software developers) use Chrome and mostly don't care about whatever Google does with it. I mention "manifest v3" and get a blank stare. I talk about advertising and ad blockers, and most people don't care, with some of them not even using ad blockers. We really…

>Firefox is a perfectly viable alternative to Chrome that very few people use. The problem is that it isn't. Do you know why Firefox managed to usurp IE6 in the first place? Because it won the adoption and appeal of tech enthusiasts and professionals. Mom and pop (read: the general population) switched to Firefox from IE6 because their tech nerd kids installed it for them, and the enterprise largely moved off of IE6…

Nope firefox still runs gecko.

It's a small difference, perhaps, but its "my" browser in a way chrome will never be. Blink sucks.

Also, not a clue what you are on about - I don't have an issue with firefox. Chrome is basically for dealing with google stuff, and for the rest of the web I don't care about them.

Re: Google’s nightmare “Web Integrity API” wants a DRM gatekeeper for the web

#240

Post by mod50ack »

rebeccaskinner wrote: post #198
izacus wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPhone users are using Manifest V3 _every single day_ in their Safari. There was never another option for them. Yet, noone cares, even on HN.

I care, and I've basically stopped using my iphone for anything because the web is an abysmal experience full of ads even with the maximum amount of ad blocking possible on iOS. I hate the iPhone and the only reason I haven't switched back to android is that it seems to manage to, somehow, still be even worse. We are well and truly on the other side of the enshitification event horizon on mobile, and it looks like Go…

Android has F-Droid, including Fennec F-Droid (Firefox for Android), which is the only tolerable mobile browser, imo.
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