this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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Google's New Web Environment Integrity Proposal Dismissed by Brave, Mozilla, and Vivaldi (news.itsfoss.com)
submitted 1 year ago by nils@feddit.de to c/technology@beehaw.org
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[–] pglpm@lemmy.sdf.org 163 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (14 children)

I don't understand why so many opinion pieces and news keep on saying that Web Environment Integrity could be abused and that's why we should oppose it. This misses the point a great deal.

Implementation of Web Environment Integrity in browsers IS ITSELF AN ABUSE, because I have the right to go around the web without continually proving who I am, even less against a 3rd party.

It's as if someone said that some officer (and not even a government one) should always be by your side when you go out, ready to certify who you are, whenever you speak with people on the street – and even with friends. Would you accept that?

Are we totally out of our minds??

[–] 1984@lemmy.today 45 points 1 year ago

I can only assume these opinion pieces are written by people who use Google for everything they do and trust them.

Dumb fucks, to quote Zuckerberg...

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[–] azron@lemmy.ml 128 points 1 year ago (2 children)

So like 8% of the market, mostly from Mozilla?

[–] sadreality@kbin.social 30 points 1 year ago

Well... Normie stream love their 69 chrome versions so that's where we are at... Competition

[–] narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee 117 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Will have to wait and see how Apple reacts with Safari. Mozilla dismissing the proposal is big, but Apple has the second largest mobile OS marketshare with iOS, and so Safari is very relevant for websites to support it.

[–] Toribor@corndog.social 29 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Doesn't Safari already have their own version of this?

[–] ultratiem@lemmy.ca 48 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Lmao, no. Google is out of their minds. Apple has zero interest in controlling browsers or ads.

https://money.cnn.com/2017/08/31/technology/business/apple-net-neutrality/index.html

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 100 points 1 year ago

From the article:

"We work hard to build great products, and what consumers do with those tools is up to them — not Apple, and not broadband providers," Cynthia Hogan, VP of public policy at Apple

Prove it, then. Unlock the bootloader. Allow us to install our own apps. Let us install our own OS on the hardware. I get they don't want to open source their iOS, that's fine. They say "what consumers do with those tools is up to them", but then they lock those tools down TIGHT. Actions speak much louder than words. They say those tools are ours? They need to show us that this is true.

[–] shrugal@lemm.ee 45 points 1 year ago

I'm sorry to disappoint you, but this is basically the same thing: https://blog.cloudflare.com/eliminating-captchas-on-iphones-and-macs-using-new-standard/

[–] sik0fewl@kbin.social 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] ultratiem@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 year ago (4 children)

A part of Apple’s long term, multi-stage deployment to phase out passwords entirely. They announced it last year during WWDC and said it will be messy and not without hurdles, but they’re committed to having strong cryptography without need for password at all.

Related: https://www.wired.com/story/apple-passkeys-password-iphone-mac-ios16-ventura/

A far cry from what Google is trying to do or their long term plans (we all know Google is trying to siphon more ad revenue).

Google’s proposition is as bad for Apple as it is for the rest of us.

[–] that_one_guy@beehaw.org 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Honest to god doublethink right here.

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[–] aberrate_junior_beatnik@midwest.social 13 points 1 year ago

Passkeys (which are broader than just Apple) and this are not related at all. Regardless, Apple absolutely has interest in controlling browsers. Hell, they already do it on iOS, where you can't use any rendering engine other than theirs.

The only reason they might be against this is because they feel they can't control it the way they want.

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[–] SloganLessons@kbin.social 58 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Google: "How cute, anyway as I was saying..."

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[–] whoiscraig@aussie.zone 50 points 1 year ago

Good.

[–] Vinnyboiler@feddit.uk 49 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

I can't honestly see how any other company can single-handedly stop Google if they go though with this. Google has the ability to strong arm this proposal by having Youtube and Google search dependent on Web Environment Integrity. There are enough alternative to web search but I can't see how anyone can fight Google's dominance in video hosting to stop them.

You would almost have to have every other major website intentionally break on Chrome to even the playing field, and if Google still don't back down you are left with a divided internet.

[–] CreativeTensors@beehaw.org 32 points 1 year ago

What I'm getting from this is that some monopoly busting is sorely needed.

[–] richyawyingtmv@lemmy.ml 22 points 1 year ago (3 children)

EU commission, really. That's the only way

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[–] takeda@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

LOL, sorry but if it is control over my computer vs youtube going away my reasponse is "bye bye, YouTube, don't let the door hit you on the way out"

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[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 12 points 1 year ago

I think YouTube and Google Search are the least of our worries. There will be companies who would have a field day picking up the pieces if that happened.

It's everyone else using it that suddenly means you can't run an ad/script blocker on the ickier parts of the web that really need it. The modern internet is an unusable mess, and only ad blockers make it tolerable again.

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[–] yoz@aussie.zone 47 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Good fucking riddance

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 69 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's "dismissed" as in "they say it's rubbish". It doesn't mean they won't ultimately be forced to use it.

[–] yoz@aussie.zone 15 points 1 year ago

😪

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[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 40 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

Microsoft are staying suspiciously quiet then. And what about Apple?

[–] shrugal@lemm.ee 39 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Apple already added basically the same thing about a year ago: https://blog.cloudflare.com/eliminating-captchas-on-iphones-and-macs-using-new-standard/

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is this technically equivalent to Google's proposal? Apple say that their version was developed in collaboration with Google, so it would be surprising for Google to go and deploy a second version of the same thing, were it not for the fact that Google always has two competing versions of everything.

And I guess the main reason people are more concerned about Google's version is that they are so dominant in the browser market.

[–] shrugal@lemm.ee 26 points 1 year ago

The details are a bit different. PATs use HTTP headers during a request while WEI is a JS browser API. But otherwise the general structure and end result are the same. A website requests an integrity check, an attester checks your device, and if the attester doesn't like your device then you're SOL.

[–] tunetardis@lemmy.ca 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Edge is a Chromium browser isn't it? Then again, so is Brave and the article indicates they are making a point of removing this stuff from their build. Safari is it's own thing though afaik.

[–] fushuan@lemm.ee 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Brave is a chromium fork with custom stuff, they can just not implement it if they want.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

There needs to be a unified fight against this, that involves not only browser companies but also the businesses running major websites. If it goes through and Google manages to persuade websites to use it, all the other browsers will be forced to implement it if they want to continue existing. And then no more freedom for web users.

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 21 points 1 year ago (7 children)

You're right. But it's so much worse than that.

Imagine, for a minute, that this passes. If a website exists that a specific entity disagrees with (say... a whistleblower forum, or accounts of how Google is abusing its powers, or accounts of a Government is abusing it's citizens), all that would need to happen, is for the "integrity authority" to deny access to that site, and it will be censored. Whereas now, a website has to be taken offline (in most cases) to be effectively censored, if this passes, the "integrity authority" would just need to say nay.

Imagine never hearing of the Snowden files, or George Floyd, or the Russian-Ukraine war. Not because they didn't exist or didn't happen, but because you 'weren't allowed' to see them by an entity who benefits from you not seeing them or knowing about them.

If this passes, we would be -officially- entering a dystopia.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's kind of the opposite of this though, it's not censorship. It's not that you aren't allowed to visit other sites, it's that sites can choose to let you in or not.

The scary part is we don't know what makes that decision, and from Google's proposal is that it could just be anything they decide. So it's not censorship, but it is saying "You aren't playing by our rules (like by using an ad blocker, or you visited too many whistleblower forums, or we just plain decided we don't like you) so you don't get to use gmail/your bank/whoever decides to implement this"

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[–] TheEntity@kbin.social 10 points 1 year ago

Safari is its own thing, but so is Mozilla. It affects everyone, it affects the very landscape of the web.

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[–] victron@lemm.ee 23 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Brave can suck it too.

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[–] CarnyVeil@beehaw.org 15 points 1 year ago (3 children)

At this point, why don't the companies who run Chrome derivatives work together to build a fork that evolves separately from Chrome? Edge, Vivaldi, Opera, etc. will never get the marketshare on their own to rival Chrome, but together, they could make a dent with a unified browser engine.

[–] takeda@beehaw.org 19 points 1 year ago

Gecko (Firefox engine) already is worked on, why not contribute there instead of losing community? If anything why those browsers use engine that is controlled by a single company?

[–] atyaz@reddthat.com 17 points 1 year ago

Alternative plan: why not use gecko? I know it's more work to do so, but I would call that the lesser of two evils at this point.

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