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Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

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Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#631

Post by kccqzy »

yborg wrote: post #314
netdur wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

isn't this good? banks can raise security while we can still use any browser to check hackers news! or this 3 cows story?

In what way does this increase the security of my bank account? A criminal can use credentials it obtained via a hack, etc. using an approved platform to access my account. My own approved platform can be compromised by malware and used to access my account. This class of problems is addressed by physical ID tokens, not attestation.

Presumably a criminal now no longer can install a piece of malware that looks into the memory of your browser to steal credentials in the first place.

They will now have to use old fashioned social engineering to make you cough up that credential to steal.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#632

Post by freedomben »

nvm0n1 wrote: post #574
kalleboo wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's double-think, it's just a lack of consequential thinking. I believe the writers of the spec when they say that they just want to be able to see which ad views are real or not. They even lay out some (far too weak) ideas to keep the system from being mandatory and abusable. But they don't realize just how quickly things will go out of hand once the rest of the organization realizes what they have cr…

[flagged]

AFAIK, Number 2 only didn't happen because of pushback. It's also not too late for that to happen should Microsoft decide to move with it.

FWIW I didn't think any of the previous things would turn catastrophic, but I do think this might. I work with a lot of web marketers and also with security teams, and they will both salivate over this. Between marketers and security teams, that's like 90% or more of the internet.

This change is laying a trail of metaphorical kerosene from the campfire. It's possible the fire won't spread beyond the fire ring, but it won't take much for it to escape and then it's going to be unstoppable.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#633

Post by slig »

matkoniecz wrote: post #612
solardev wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's far, far too late for this. The W3C is already irrelevant, not that it ever mattered much. The internet is made by big companies. Not standards bodies. The WHATWG has the actual living standards, and Google, Apple, Cloudflare and Amazon make the actual software. Nobody cares about the W3C. And Mozilla is long past dead.

> And Mozilla is long past dead. Mozilla is far from healthy but calling it dead is overstating things.

Less than 5% of global usage [1], and no presence whatsoever on mobile. Pretty much dead.

[1]: https://radar.cloudflare.com/adoption-and-usage And CF stats doesn't depend on JavaScript.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#634

Post by TremendousJudge »

strix_varius wrote: post #545
pluc wrote: post #44

This is a crisis of our own making. You don't want Google taking decisions for the web at large? Then don't let them own 85% of the browser market share. When that's the case they don't need W3C or anything to implement whatever they want, they effectively control the client-side internet.

One of the things that led to Google's current dominance is folks like us (certainly me, at least) pushing folks to replace their default IE installation with Chrome as soon as they set up a new computer. I hope, pragmatically, something similar might happen with this: say that Brave (my daily driver) disables WEI in their Chromium build, and a new Chromium-derived browser surges in popularity... like judo, using the…

What's wrong with Firefox?

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#635

Post by undersuit »

userbinator wrote: post #600
nvm0n1 wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I see damage control has started to appear... The frog boils very slowly. This from an industry that broke a zillion scripts as part of renaming git master to git main on the basis that the first name is somehow hateful. That was the actions of a small group of extremists, and there was widespread opposition to it too. Spinning the opposition as "hate" seems rather popular these days, and it's not wrong: We hate what…

We're a long way past source code being transmitted in magazine articles. Some of the people that are going to hand wave this away were born in the boiling water.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#636

Post by deelowe »

tzs wrote: post #325
tolmasky wrote: post #197

Mozilla should call for Google's removal from the W3C over this implementation of Web Environment Integrity. "But Chrome has 65% market share, what good is the W3C without them?” If Google can take unilateral action to fundamentally change the basic principles of the web, then the W3C is already useless. This will give Google a clear choice: if they want to maintain the idea that the W3C matters, they should withdraw…

> If Google can take unilateral action to fundamentally change the basic principles of the web, then the W3C is already useless. This will give Google a clear choice: if they want to maintain the idea that the W3C matters, they should withdraw this implementation. It's pretty generally accepted that the correct way to do web standardization is for proponents of some new thing to implement that thing and deploy it and…

Basically, the ask for forgiveness approach. It's common in large, dysfunctional organizations as well. Sometimes the easiest way to get attention is to break things. Then once enough pain is felt, everyone starts taking interest. Trying to follow a proper change control based process only works when everyone is invested in the process.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#637

Post by weare138 »

tomschlick wrote: post #208
coldpie wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google needs to be broken up. To make it explicit: the only way this happens is by Americans voting for it. The FTC has been more active on anti-trust issues in the past two years than at any time in the past 30. That's a direct result of the 2020 election. Elections matter.

The FTC isn't going to do anything as Google/Alphabet is a big donor to the Democrats. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/alphabet-inc/recipients?id=... Here is them lobbying specifically around antitrust reform legislation: https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/bills/specific_...

Republicans control the house. That's who would have to pass any legislation. FTC is non-partisan.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#638

Post by ascendantlogic »

matkoniecz wrote: post #612
solardev wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's far, far too late for this. The W3C is already irrelevant, not that it ever mattered much. The internet is made by big companies. Not standards bodies. The WHATWG has the actual living standards, and Google, Apple, Cloudflare and Amazon make the actual software. Nobody cares about the W3C. And Mozilla is long past dead.

> And Mozilla is long past dead. Mozilla is far from healthy but calling it dead is overstating things.

Mozilla is dead as a doornail. Google succeeded where Microsoft did not, they essentially control the entire web now.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#639

Post by dang »

nvm0n1 wrote: post #574
kalleboo wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's double-think, it's just a lack of consequential thinking. I believe the writers of the spec when they say that they just want to be able to see which ad views are real or not. They even lay out some (far too weak) ideas to keep the system from being mandatory and abusable. But they don't realize just how quickly things will go out of hand once the rest of the organization realizes what they have cr…

[flagged]

I agree that there shouldn't be bullying campaigns on HN but you veered into offtopic flamewar at the end of your comment and that is in no way helping. Please stick to the site giudelines.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#640

Post by matkoniecz »

slig wrote: post #633
matkoniecz wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And Mozilla is long past dead. Mozilla is far from healthy but calling it dead is overstating things.

Less than 5% of global usage [1], and no presence whatsoever on mobile. Pretty much dead. [1]: https://radar.cloudflare.com/adoption-and-usage And CF stats doesn't depend on JavaScript.

4% of global browser usage can be described in many ways (defeated, miserable, collapse compared to the past etc) but it definitely is not dead and is one of few developed browsers.
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