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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

#301

Post by userbinator »

gregoryl wrote: post #256
neilv wrote: post #190

After all the surveillance capitalism abuses over the last 2-3 decades of Web, it's a little late to be pushing back, but... should we start shunning individuals from companies who implement this? Whether it's from companies that create the tech, or companies that use it. In the orgy of money, we've had a kind of industry-wide sociopathic convention of individual engineers considering it perfectly OK to further surve…

I agree, wholeheartedly - lets get a list of the google engineers who worked on this. What do you propose we do with it?

Spread the word. They need to be held accountable the same way elected officials are --- except in this case they're not even elected.

Re: Google broke reCAPTCHA for de-googled Android users

#302

Post by userbinator »

ethin wrote: post #162
reaperducer wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop visiting sites and using services that use reCAPTCHA. Problem solved. No. Bigger problem created, since there are innumerable government, health care, and educational web sites that use reCAPTCHA. I'm not going to give up reading the test results from my doctor because of some simplistic ideologue decides that it's "problem solved."

The other problem with this is that there are few CAPTCHA alternatives. CF turnstile is one, but of course that means Cloudflare owns even more of the web. HCaptcha is inaccessible and actively discriminatory against individuals with disabilities and refuses to change, to the point that I suspect the only way that they will do anything is to file a class-action against them and sue them into the ground. And I... Can'…

You could just have a custom one that asks domain-specific questions (and ones which will trip up LLMs are not hard to come by.) I've seen a few forums ask such questions for registration, long before the rise of LLMs.

Re: Google broke reCAPTCHA for de-googled Android users

#303

Post by velocity3230 »

j027 wrote: post #214
pixel_popping wrote: post #80

archive.is just asked me for a QRcode scan, I'm so ashame of that crap (it's behind Cloudflare) , forcing website visitors to KYC? Are you guys insane!? the web is ruined if you push for this, this is millions of websites that will suddenly force KYC? What...the...f https://ibb.co/X9Q6Y84 By KYC, obviously it's because there is very few non-criminal ways to have a SIM without KYC and get a Google account for Playstor…

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

Sound advice.

Re: Google broke reCAPTCHA for de-googled Android users

#304

Post by userbinator »

codedokode wrote: post #127
anonymousiam wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just change your user agent string?

Because the site can compare the user agent with navigator.platform, which your browser fills with great care.

That naturally implies we must patch the browser.

"Source code? We don't need no stinkin' source code!"

Re: Google broke reCAPTCHA for de-googled Android users

#305

Post by userbinator »

freedomben wrote: post #62
brikym wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all fun until you can't get paid because some fintech app doesn't work. That's why we need regulations. I don't see politicians ever going against an advertising company when they're customers.

Indeed, I generally favor being conservative with regulations because they can genuinely impede progress and can be really hard to change or remove when they're bad, but this is an issue that we need regulation for. It's just too much in the interest of big tech to lock us down and strip us of our freedom of compute. Short of regulation. Unfortunately I see the regulatory environment more likely to go the other way o…

The sort of regulation we need for this must be as solid as a constitutional amendment, but that is going to be very, very difficult.

Re: Google broke reCAPTCHA for de-googled Android users

#306

Post by omnifischer »

djfergus wrote: post #141

What happens with Chinese Huawei phones that don’t have Google services?

People can install Google Services in them. Once you sign into google account then you self-certify the device. https://www.google.com/android/uncertified/?pli=1

Re: Google broke reCAPTCHA for de-googled Android users

#307

Post by userbinator »

userbinator wrote: post #234

We told you. You dismissed it, and thought we were just crazy conspiracy theorists. Too brainwashed by the mainstream propaganda about "threats" to see the truth. Now they're even more emboldened by how much they can herd the sheeple, and showing their actual goals even more clearly. Spread the news, tell everyone you know, before it's too late. I wish we won't have to resort to even more drastic methods in this figh…

The rebellion will not spread online, in the space controlled by these bastards; but offline, outside of their control. I'm telling everyone I know, and you should too.

Here's the obligatory: Google, FUCK YOU!

Re: Google broke reCAPTCHA for de-googled Android users

#308

Post by undeveloper »

repelsteeltje wrote: post #84
cybercatgurrl wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and that is gonna be funded by who? anyone who is gonna fund that is gonna want their slice of the pie. we need regulation to keep big tech in line

How about consumers paying a little extra for their device? The way it's going, add sponsored big tech is dieing because click fraud detection is becoming too expensive. Either we give up privacy and track every user, or we let bots have at it, stop targeting ads to users and bill advertisers on bandwidth.

if you think consumers will pay more for the vague notion of privacy i have beachfront property in kansas to sell you. most normies either don't care ("I have nothing to hide ... do you?") or gave up already ("china / the government / big tech / all of the above already have all my data, why would I care if it's a bit more? what are they even going to do with it?" (sometimes, even "i like having relavent ads!")).

at my most pessimistic i can see a world where consumers pay MORE for attestation to continue to opt-in to society, or perhaps a ai-bot-free digital world.

Re: Google broke reCAPTCHA for de-googled Android users

#309

Post by probably_wrong »

cromka wrote: post #292
amluto wrote: post #104

I would love to see someone challenge this as an anti-trust violation. Google is using its market power (as the provider of reCAPTCHA) to actively prevent devices that don’t use Google Play Services from competing effectively.

They're only doing that because the EU currently doesn't want to antagonize US any more with their tech fines. Noticed how there hasn't been any as of recently?

Alternative explanation: they're following the Meta playbook of releasing surveillance features during a "dynamic political environment" that's keeping their opponents distracted.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/technology/meta-facial-re...

Re: Google broke reCAPTCHA for de-googled Android users

#310

Post by pocksuppet »

eddythompson80 wrote: post #142
chadgpt2 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Violating ToS isn't illegal in most cases. Companies just put scary looking clauses in their ToS to discourage you from doing things they don't like.

That's not true of course. There are hundreds of such cases with varying outcomes [0][1][2] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook,_Inc._v._Power_Ventur... . [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDY_Industries,_LLC_v._Blizzar... . [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay_v._Bidder%27s_Edge

Note that all those guys were gotten for breaking the law, not for breaking terms of service.
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