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Google broke reCAPTCHA for de-googled Android users

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Re: Google broke reCAPTCHA for de-googled Android users

#241

Post by vasco »

getpokedagain wrote: post #36
coppsilgold wrote: post #4

My understanding is that this new reCAPTCHA is basically just remote attestation. Remote attestation doesn't use blind signatures (as that would be 'farmable') so tying the device to the 'attestee' is technically possible with collusion of Google servers: EK (static burned-in private key) -> AIK (ephemeral identity key in secure enclave signed by a Google server) -> attestation (signed by AIK). As you can see if the…

Stop visiting sites and using services that use reCAPTCHA. Problem solved.

So what are you doing here?

> Ask HN: Did HN just start using Google recaptcha for logins? [0]

> dang

> No recent changes, but we do sometimes turn captchas on for logins when HN is under some kind of (possible) attack or other. That's been happening for a few hours. Hopefully it goes away soon.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34312937

Re: Google broke reCAPTCHA for de-googled Android users

#242

Post by a2128 »

BloodyIron wrote: post #224
j027 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still use the audio captcha, but I’m not sure how long that’ll be around.

Google will incur serious lawsuits if they remove that accessibility aspect.

Google has already been crippling the audio CAPTCHA access for many years. If your trust score is low enough, the visual challenge is ridiculously slow and noisy, and pressing the audio challenge button will just give you an error saying "To protect our users, we can't process your request right now", accessibility be damned. Where are the lawsuits? I want to believe there are still forces that would create hell to pay for doing something so evil, but I'm not seeing any.

Re: Google broke reCAPTCHA for de-googled Android users

#243

Post by komali2 »

ggiigg wrote: post #233
KPGv2 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is, but at least in the US neither party cares. They want to get rid of anonymity online, one to throw anyone who googles "trans" in jail, and the other because their biggest donors are tech companies that want to denonymize everyone. Our antitrust laws have been toothless for decades, and both parties love billionaires controlling the rest of us with an iron fist. GrapheneOS is looking more and more worth the…

Felt same way about GrapheneOS but a few friends set it up so i gave it a try. It is easy to install and use. As evidence, I gave my 70 year old father one and he loves it.

When my friend was telling me about GrapheneOS I was thinking back to the old days of android custom roms, all the bugs and bullshit, the time I couldn't dial out to 911 because my custom ROM crashes when I did, or other issues. So I gave it a pass.

However he's been on it now for months and every time he shows me something on it I get a little more jealous. Everything seems to be working fine, including e.g. bank apps, and he has interesting features like some kind of app zoning thing limiting permissions on a zone to zone basis.

The only problem is it's only available on massive phones without headphone jacks and SD card slots, so I'm sticking with Xperia for now.

Re: Google broke reCAPTCHA for de-googled Android users

#244

Post by nosioptar »

buzzwords wrote: post #91

Given the way Google is going I'm not sure if my next phone will be Android. I am fully aware that I am probably in the minority here. For me the trust is entirely gone.

I've been getting asked more and more how to degoogle stuff by non-nerds.

Re: Google broke reCAPTCHA for de-googled Android users

#245

Post by komali2 »

BloodyIron wrote: post #222
gonzalohm wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the best alternative for Google drive? I also went this route but Samba is a bit annoying sometimes

Nextcloud, Samba serving SMB isn't really equivalent.

Nextcloud also has lots of interesting plugins. I recently found a viable Splitwise alternative I chucked on my instance.

Re: Google broke reCAPTCHA for de-googled Android users

#246

Post by phyzome »

varenc wrote: post #189

I have a good friend who doesn't own a cell phone. He's a math professor. Every year he keeps living life without a smartphone, I continue to be more impressed. Things like this makes me feel like he might have to eventually give in. https://archive.is is now serving, via Cloudflare, this QR code backed CAPTCHAs. There seems no way to get past them without a smartphone. Sad times. I wonder at what point even basic go…

I don't have one either. No plans to get one, even with this.

Re: Google broke reCAPTCHA for de-googled Android users

#247

Post by sandworm101 »

tardedmeme wrote: post #46
getpokedagain wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop visiting sites and using services that use reCAPTCHA. Problem solved.

With the new reCAPTCHA this is going to happen because most human visitors will actually be unable to pass the CAPTCHA. It will be interesting to see whether this makes websites ditch reCAPTCHA or whether they literally just don't care about having customers, an attitude that seems to be getting more and more common every day.

>> whether they literally just don't care about having customers

So every government website. Every website where people simply have no choice (DMV) or where failure to login results in them not claiming the money/benefits they are due (all tax websites). And every website handling post-sale complaints (Airlines, insurance).

Re: Google broke reCAPTCHA for de-googled Android users

#248

Post by doctor_radium »

cyklosarin wrote: post #122
buzzwords wrote: post #91

Given the way Google is going I'm not sure if my next phone will be Android. I am fully aware that I am probably in the minority here. For me the trust is entirely gone.

Motorola + GrapheneOS next year could be an alternative. So far they've been relatively insulated from the changes that have been coming down from Google.

I'll be waiting.

In the meantime, I'm currently using a low end Motorola moto g 5G 2023 which lets me turn off Play Services. Chrome and the Google Calendar don't run (really do need to find a replacement calendar), and I couldn't be happier. Motorola's interest in GrapheneOS makes me wonder if they did this on purpose.

Re: Google broke reCAPTCHA for de-googled Android users

#250

Post by dakolli »

alexspring wrote: post #218
dakolli wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is every startup using that same Serif font now, Garamond or whatever. Is it an LLM design phenomenon? Its kinda ruining that font style for me. Also $1,500 a month for 10 "influencers" is wild. This doesn't seem that sophisticated unless they're doing something special to increase trust scores of accounts. They say they have "in house warming algorithm" which honestly doesn't inspire confidence for me. Whats fun…

Yep. They got hacked in the past, 1k+ smartphones reported. The cost is the attestation keys of a real phone. Once it gets burned, the phone is useless to them. https://www.penligent.ai/hackinglabs/inside-the-ai-phone-far...

Interesting article, thanks. I've done a bit of small scale phone farming (for my own cheap mobile proxies). In all reality the phones aren't that expensive, I went with Moto 5gs that cost $130 (retail), so in their case the phones pay for themselves in the first month.

Probably a decent amount of compute cost for video generation, but I'm sure they have access to free compute and inference for being in bed with a16z.

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