The much maligned “Trusted Computing” idea requires that the party you are supposed to trust deserves to be trusted, and Google is DEFINITELY NOT worthy of being trusted, this is a naked power grab to destroy the open web for Google’s ad profits no matter the consequences, this would put heavy surveillance in Google’s hands, this would eliminate ad-blocking, this would break any and all accessibility features, this would obliterate any competing platform, this is very much opposed to what the web is.

    • thepianistfroggollum@lemmynsfw.com
      1·
      1 year ago

      Pretty much the entire US needs a healthy dose of monopoly busting.

      Hell, just look at the Ma Bell breakup and the path all of those companies took to where they are now. We’re basically back to step 1.

  • TheYang@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    This is why we need Firefox.

    And Firefox needs to be a market that can’t be ignored.

      • Engywuck@beehaw.org
        0·
        1 year ago

        Stop with this excuse and stop Insulting people. I’ve been on Firefox for nearly 20 years, but Mozilla has ruined it for me little by little. The last straw has been the horrible UI redesign. So I switched to a Chromium browser. Tell Mozilla to make a better browser and to listen to their community, instead of blaming people for using what serves them best.

        • steakmeout@aussie.zone
          1·
          1 year ago

          What does your UI gripe have to do with this biased tabloid piece you shared?

          Firefox is fine and works even better than it ever has. If you cared about the UI so much you’d have tried any of its forks that use different and older designs.

  • Whirlybird@aussie.zoneEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    Why do people have a problem with this? It explicitly says browser extensions, like ad blockers, will still work. It says cross site tracking won’t be allowed. It all sounds pretty good.

    It sounds like most are not liking it because of some potential future abuses rather than what it actually is?

    • audaxdreik@pawb.socialEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      Maybe somebody can do a better job of boiling this down than I can.

      Basically, right now, if you ask for something on the internet, it gets served to you. Sure there are lots of server side protections that may require an account to log in to access things or what have you, but still you can at least request something from a server and get some sort of response in return.

      What this does is force attestation through a third party. I can ask for something from a server and the server turns to the attester and goes, “Hey, should I give this guy what he’s asking for?” and the attester can say “No” for whatever reasons it might. Or worse yet, I can get the attestation but the server can then decide based in turn that it doesn’t like me having that attestation and I get nothing.

      You can make arguments that this would be good and useful, but it’s so easy to see how this could go sideways and nobody with any sense should be taking Google or any of these large corporations at their word.

      • reric88🧩@beehaw.orgEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        From my understanding, there’s no reason whatsoever to do this besides censorship, for better and for worse. There’s a possibility good, and I’m sure the good would happen, but there’s an even greater possibility it would be bad for users which would surely happen.

        • audaxdreik@pawb.socialEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Sorry, yes, still trying to wrap my head around it. It’s one of those things where there is quite obviously no direct benefit for the user. The company is trying to sell it as improving their content, moderation, security, etc. which may have indirect, knock-on effects for the end user but whether that would even be true or if it would be perceptible to your average person is MUCH more questionable.

          It’s the same kind of thing when you see people defending exclusivity on consoles. I mean sure, it helps prop up your favorite company/developer in hopes that the market benefit may someday come back around and help them to produce more content/games that you like, but people seriously need to start looking out after their own self interests first and corporations be damned. They earn money by providing actual value, don’t ever argue against yourself.

  • jherazob@beehaw.orgOPEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    Note of amusement: The GitHub issues tracker for that proposal got swamped with tickets either mocking this crap or denouncing it for what it is, this morning the person who seems to be the head of the project closed all those tickets and published this blog post, in essence saying “Shut up with your ethical considerations, give us a hand in putting up this electric fence around the web”. Of course that didn’t stop it.

    Also somebody pointed out this gem in the proposal, quoted here:

    6.2. Privacy considerations

    Todo

    Quick edit: This comment on one of the closed tickets points out the contact information of the Antitrust authorities of both US and EU, i think i’m gonna drop the EU folks a note

    Edit: And they disabled commenting on the issues tracker

    • Nepenthe@kbin.social
      0·
      1 year ago

      [Don’t assume consensus nor finished state]

      Often a proposal is just that - someone trying to solve a problem by proposing technical means to address it. Having a proposal sent out to public forums doesn’t necessarily imply that the sender’s employer is determined on pushing that proposal as is.

      It also doesn’t mean that the proposal is “done” and the proposal authors won’t appreciate constructive suggestions for improvement.

      [Be the signal, not the noise]

      In cases where controversial browser proposals (or lack of adoption for features folks want, which is a related, but different, subject), it’s not uncommon to see issues with dozens or even hundreds of comments from presumably well-intentioned folks, trying to influence the team working on the feature to change their minds.

      In the many years I’ve been working on the web platform, I’ve yet to see this work. Not even once.

      …?
      What is this, “Good vibes only?”

      • tojikomori@kbin.social
        0·
        1 year ago

        “Good vibes only” seems to be embedded in the culture of web development today. Influential devs’ Twitter accounts have strong Instagram vibes: constantly promoting and congratulating each other, never sharing substantive criticisms. Hustle hustle.

        People with deep, valid criticisms of popular frameworks like React seem to be ostracized as cranks.

        It’s all very vapid and depressing.

        • rambaroo@beehaw.org
          1·
          1 year ago

          Do you have an article about react? I’d love to read it. And yes tech is chock full of egos and fakers.

          • tojikomori@kbin.social
            1·
            1 year ago

            Alex Russell is a good read on React. His position gives him a broad view of its impacts and has kept him from being sidelined. This Changelog podcast is a decent distillation of his criticisms – it was recorded earlier this year, a few days after his Market For Lemons blog post.

            (Sorry for the late reply! I’ve been a bit swamped lately and away from kbin.)

  • jarfil@beehaw.orgEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    THIS IS NOT (just) ABOUT GOOGLE

    Currently, attestation and “trusted computing” are already a thing, the main “sources of trust” are:

    • Microsoft
    • Apple
    • Smartphone manufacturers
    • Google
    • Third party attestators

    This is already going on, you need a Microsoft signed stub to boot anything other than Windows on a PC, you need Apple’s blessing to boot anything on a Mac, your smartphone manufacturer decides whether you can unlock it and lose attestation, all of Microsoft, Apple and Google run app attestation through their app stores, several governments and companies run attestation software on their company hardware, and so on.

    This is the next logical step, to add “web app” attestation, since the previous ones had barely any pushback, and even fanboys of walled gardens cheering them up.

    PS: Somewhat ironically, Google’s Play Store attestation is one of the weaker ones, just look at Apple’s and the list of stuff they collect from the user’s device to “attest” it for any app.