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Web Environment Integrity API Proposal

github.com

311–320 of 460 posts

Re: Web Environment Integrity API Proposal

#311
post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also Apple is in bed w/ traditional media. True. Try to screenshot anything from Apple TV+ content. You'll get a black image.

It works fine in VLC with ATV content I have torrented. If you subscribe to Apple TV, you are literally voting with your dollars for more of this crap. Stop giving them money!

[deleted]

Re: Web Environment Integrity API Proposal

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The solution is very simple: uninstall Chrome and Chromium. No. Firefox, beyond being slower, also keeps constantly displaying ads… for itself. Want to open a new tab? “Big Browser cares about your privacy, read how!” I just want to open a new tab!!! I’m working! Restarting? “Discover what’s new with Firefox”, “Hohoho, we care about your privacy, LOOK HOW MUCH WE CARE! ALSO WE HAVE NO ADS!” Worse, they suggest to s…

https://waterfox.net/ to the rescue.

Surely you don't mean Waterfox that states in their FAQ[0]:

"Who owns Waterfox?"

"System1 now own Waterfox, but Alex Kontos is still leading the direction of Waterfox and will be for the foreseeable future."

And who's owner, System1, states at the top of their page[1]:

"System1 operates the most dynamic Responsive Acquisition Marketing Platform

Connecting high intent customers with advertisers at scale"

[0]: https://www.waterfox.net/docs/faq#5-who-owns-waterfox [1]: https://system1.com

Re: Web Environment Integrity API Proposal

#313
Called it, unfortunately: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30104740

The only way around the dystopia this will lead to is to constantly and relentlessly shame and harass all those involved in helping create it. The scolding in the issue tracker of that wretched "project" shall flow like a river, until the spirits of those pursuing it breaks and it is disbanded.

And once the corporate hydra has regrown its head, repeat. Hopefully, enough practise makes those fighting the dystopia effective enough to one day topple over sponsoring and enabling organisations as a whole, instead of only their little initiatives leading down that path.

Not a pretty thing, but necessary.

Re: Web Environment Integrity API Proposal

#314
post #271
post #59

What's strange to me is that the main author of the spec -- Ben Wiser -- seems to be against closed, wall-garden paradigms as he has written in a blog post "I just spent £700 to have my own app on my iPhone" [1]. In the post, he laments the state of the App Store monopoly on iOS and ponders returning to Android for the app installation freedom. How can he reconciliate these views with this spec, which he is the main…

The intent may genuinely be to help decrease bot activities versus human activities. Even the ad example is about not charging advertisers for bot views, which is a huge problem right now. The problem is that a tool can often be used for evil as easily as for good, and the more the standard was used to block ad blockers over simply filtering out User Agent spoofing bots, the more this tool ends up evil. And even if t…

This is meant to be a Play Integrity API proxy for the web.

Now, I'm not opposed to having a locked down device when performing actions like using a bank app.

However, Google is abusing this, because they force their adware and spyware into that device, so I can't have a secure, locked down Android device without that.

Re: Web Environment Integrity API Proposal

#315
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you've provided no source. Yeah: it isn't shocking and can be quickly found using Google (as I just did now). (I have provided some extra links but am only quoting Brendan Eich as you seemed particularly interested in him saying the words himself rather than his team.) https://www.reddit.com/r/BATProject/comments/bw6sek/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BATProject/comments/b7rwbx/ > 1/ native C++/Rust code, no JS tags on p…

These are Reddit posts from 4 and 5 years ago, has anything material changed in the last 4 and 5 years? Highy likely.

You asked for sources, they gave you sources and now you complain about when those statements were made?

4 to 5 years isn't even that long for these kind of plans, but at the very least offer a good faith counter argument and state your case instead of vaguely begging the question and doing some hand waving about the age of the statements.

Re: Web Environment Integrity API Proposal

#316
post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could at least get everyone here to use Firefox. There's really no excuse for a technically minded person to still be using Chrome for their day to day browsing. If you do eventually run into a poorly crafted webpage that doesn't work on Firefox you have the wherewithal to decide if you are simply not going to use that site or hop over to chrome just this once. But the important thing is checking in automatically…

> We could at least get everyone here to use Firefox. That would accomplish nothing. > But the important thing is checking in automatically as a Firefox user in the logs of every other site online. No, that's not important. HN users are a tiny minority compared to the billions of people that use the web daily. I'm sorry, there's no easy way to say this: Firefox is never coming back. The web of old is never coming bac…

>Google is more powerful than most governments

See that's where I disagree. Rich governments like the EU or the US can and do have power to push regulations if they wanted to. Pretending we the people (in a broad sense), i.e. the state, have no power whatsoever to control the terms under which these companies operate within the state, is defeatist.

Re: Web Environment Integrity API Proposal

#317
post #59

What's strange to me is that the main author of the spec -- Ben Wiser -- seems to be against closed, wall-garden paradigms as he has written in a blog post "I just spent £700 to have my own app on my iPhone" [1]. In the post, he laments the state of the App Store monopoly on iOS and ponders returning to Android for the app installation freedom. How can he reconciliate these views with this spec, which he is the main…

Pretty much the entire premise in the title of his blog post is false for dramatic effect and you wonder how this man could stoop so low as to be duplicitous?

Re: Web Environment Integrity API Proposal

#318
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you can't - not until you get a significant part of the world's population to join your protest. The point is that if chrome implements this, netflix, amazon, facebook etc might decide they'll use this feature and only permit browsers who implement this to use this site. Even if the only browser that does so is chrome, that's fine because chrome's market share is big enough that they can ignore the rest. Have fun…

> netflix, amazon, facebook etc might ... lock you out Is this supposed to be a bad thing? It's almost made to sound like surviving without them would be tantamount to starving, but frankly we might be better served without them.

It's not a bad thing to me, but for the average "normie" it's certainly a deal breaker.

And then there's stuff like banks, government services, school services. You might not even be able to escape those ones.

Re: Web Environment Integrity API Proposal

#319
This is the most disgusting thing I have ever read. My blood is boiling to the point where I genuinely don't see a bright future.

Ben Wiser (Google), Borbala Benko (Google), Philipp Pfeiffenberger (Google), and Sergey Kataev (Google) have got to be the most repugnant people on the planet for pretending this is anything but a scheme to destroy all privacy and freedom on the web all so fucking Google can sell more ads.

Re: Web Environment Integrity API Proposal

#320

Proposals like this demonstrate the utter failure of our ethics education in computer science. In a field facing increasingly harder ethical questions every day, it’s important to start empowering our engineers to say “no” to ethically bankrupt things like this.

I don't think any amount of ethics education will matter in the end in the face of the incentive structure that appeared in the industry.

Strong cultural norms (e.g. hacker culture) might help for a while. But incentive structures eternally erode opposition.

It could make it easier for developers to band together and try to collectively veto things like this. But corporations with money can always buy the expertise of people, have them undermine the community, create their own parallel communities and influence public opinion and legislators.

FAANG salaries supercharge people's cognitive dissonance. They will find ways to excuse, minimize and ignore their contribution to the current situation.

Even HackerNews developed a sub-subculture of people that were constantly going on threads and calling remote attestation worries as "FUD".

It's unclear how to preserve cultural norms that stand in the way of market dominance. The only thing I can think of is having competing interests in the market. But whenever these align -- hell breaks loose.

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