"Web Environment Integrity" is an all-out attack on the free Internet
Using a free browser is now more important than ever. We've written recently on this topic, but the issue we wrote about there was minor compared to the gross injustice Google is now attempting to force down the throats of web users around the world. The so-called "Web Environment Integrity" (WEI) is the worst stunt we've seen from them in some time. Beginning its life as an innocuous, if worrying, policy document posted to Microsoft GitHub, Google has now fast-tracked its development into their Chromium browser. At its current rate of progress, WEI will be upon us in no time. By giving developers an API through which they can approve certain browser configurations while forbidding others, WEI is a tremendous step toward the "enshittification" of the web as a whole. Many of us have grown up with a specific idea of the Internet, the notion of it as a collection of hyperlinked pages that can be accessed by a wide variety of different machines, programs, and operating systems. WEI is this idea's antithesis. Compared to its staggering potential effects, the technical means through which WEI will accomplish its ends is relatively simple. Before serving a web page, a server can ask a third-party "verification" service to make sure that the user's browsing environment has not been "tampered" with. A translation of the policy's terminology will help us here: this Google-owned server will be asked to make sure that the browser does not deviate in any way from Google's accepted browser configuration, precluding any meaningful use of the four freedoms. It is not far-fetched to imagine a future in which sites simply refuse to serve pages to users running free browsers or free operating systems. If WEI isn't stopped now, that future will come sooner than we think. While Web Environment Integrity has a policy document that attempts to explain valid ways in which it could be used, these are all non-issues compared to the way that we know it will be used. It will be used by governments to ensure that only their officially "approved" (read: backdoored) browsers are able to access the Internet; it will be used by corporations like Netflix to further Digital Restrictions Management (DRM); it will be used by Google to deny access to their services unless you are using a browser that gels with their profit margin. Once upon a time, Google's official policy was "don't be evil." With the rapid progress they've made on Web Environment Integrity in such a short time, we can say very safely that their policy is now to pioneer evil. As we write this, talented and well-paid Google engineers and executives are working to dismantle what makes the web the web. Given that Google is one of the largest corporations on the planet, our only hope of saving the Internet as we know it is a clear and principled stance for freedom, a collective upholding of the communal principles on which the web was based. Let us repeat: there is absolutely no legitimate justification for WEI. The use cases that the policy document highlights are nothing compared to its real use case, which is developing a method to obtain complete and total restriction of the free Internet. We urge everyone involved in a decision-making capacity at Google to consider the principles on which the web was founded, and to carefully contemplate whether Web Environment Integrity aligns with those principles. We hope that they will realize WEI's fundamental incompatibility with the free Internet and cease work on the standard immediately. And if they don't? Well, they ought to be ashamed. https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/web-environment-integrity-is-an-all-out-... Dopo tutti questi anni di Google, sperare che gli sviluppatori di Google si vergognino di ciò che stanno facendo è estremamente ingenuo. Può però essere utile a chi legge i suoi lobbisti più o meno insospettabili, sapere a cosa Google sta puntando da anni. Ma come con ChatGPT e Microsoft/OpenAI, anche in questo caso vedremo spuntare come funghi allucinogeni diversi utili idioti pronti a difendere a spada tratta la povera Google che non vuole altro che proteggere i poveri utenti... dalla propria libertà. Loro non si vergogneranno, ma noi potremo indignarci disgustati. Giacomo
Ho letto il paper: https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/blob/main/explai... Sarà un mio problema, ma non mi è chiaro come tecnicamente si possa assicurare che la funzione navigator.getEnvironmentIntegrity() dica la "verità" all'attester senza cooperazione da parte del dispositivo su cui gira il browser, e non mi sembra che il paper entri nel dettaglio. Lo stesso paper ha un capitolo intitolato "Open Questions" dedicato proprio ai rischi che stanno venendo paventati e - a parole - sostiene di voler tutelare l'Open Web: https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/blob/main/explai... Concordo sul fatto che la cosa sia potenzialmente problematica, e si fa bene a tenere gli occhi aperti, ma tutto ciò che ho letto fino ad ora in merito mi appare fumoso. Ad ogni modo, i regolamenti UE non vietano pratiche come quelle che si pensa verrebbero messe in atto? Fabio Il giorno mar 1 ago 2023 alle ore 09:55 Giacomo Tesio <giacomo@tesio.it> ha scritto:
Using a free browser is now more important than ever. We've written recently on this topic, but the issue we wrote about there was minor compared to the gross injustice Google is now attempting to force down the throats of web users around the world. The so-called "Web Environment Integrity" (WEI) is the worst stunt we've seen from them in some time. Beginning its life as an innocuous, if worrying, policy document posted to Microsoft GitHub, Google has now fast-tracked its development into their Chromium browser. At its current rate of progress, WEI will be upon us in no time.
By giving developers an API through which they can approve certain browser configurations while forbidding others, WEI is a tremendous step toward the "enshittification" of the web as a whole. Many of us have grown up with a specific idea of the Internet, the notion of it as a collection of hyperlinked pages that can be accessed by a wide variety of different machines, programs, and operating systems. WEI is this idea's antithesis.
Compared to its staggering potential effects, the technical means through which WEI will accomplish its ends is relatively simple. Before serving a web page, a server can ask a third-party "verification" service to make sure that the user's browsing environment has not been "tampered" with. A translation of the policy's terminology will help us here: this Google-owned server will be asked to make sure that the browser does not deviate in any way from Google's accepted browser configuration, precluding any meaningful use of the four freedoms. It is not far-fetched to imagine a future in which sites simply refuse to serve pages to users running free browsers or free operating systems. If WEI isn't stopped now, that future will come sooner than we think.
While Web Environment Integrity has a policy document that attempts to explain valid ways in which it could be used, these are all non-issues compared to the way that we know it will be used. It will be used by governments to ensure that only their officially "approved" (read: backdoored) browsers are able to access the Internet; it will be used by corporations like Netflix to further Digital Restrictions Management (DRM); it will be used by Google to deny access to their services unless you are using a browser that gels with their profit margin.
Once upon a time, Google's official policy was "don't be evil." With the rapid progress they've made on Web Environment Integrity in such a short time, we can say very safely that their policy is now to pioneer evil. As we write this, talented and well-paid Google engineers and executives are working to dismantle what makes the web the web. Given that Google is one of the largest corporations on the planet, our only hope of saving the Internet as we know it is a clear and principled stance for freedom, a collective upholding of the communal principles on which the web was based.
Let us repeat: there is absolutely no legitimate justification for WEI. The use cases that the policy document highlights are nothing compared to its real use case, which is developing a method to obtain complete and total restriction of the free Internet.
We urge everyone involved in a decision-making capacity at Google to consider the principles on which the web was founded, and to carefully contemplate whether Web Environment Integrity aligns with those principles. We hope that they will realize WEI's fundamental incompatibility with the free Internet and cease work on the standard immediately.
And if they don't? Well, they ought to be ashamed.
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/web-environment-integrity-is-an-all-out-...
Dopo tutti questi anni di Google, sperare che gli sviluppatori di Google si vergognino di ciò che stanno facendo è estremamente ingenuo.
Può però essere utile a chi legge i suoi lobbisti più o meno insospettabili, sapere a cosa Google sta puntando da anni.
Ma come con ChatGPT e Microsoft/OpenAI, anche in questo caso vedremo spuntare come funghi allucinogeni diversi utili idioti pronti a difendere a spada tratta la povera Google che non vuole altro che proteggere i poveri utenti... dalla propria libertà.
Loro non si vergogneranno, ma noi potremo indignarci disgustati.
Giacomo _______________________________________________ nexa mailing list nexa@server-nexa.polito.it https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa
l'dea alla base dell'ultimo libro di dave eggers e' proprio queste aziende che ci vogliono liberare dall'onere della scelta. On 01/08/23 09:55, Giacomo Tesio wrote:
Using a free browser is now more important than ever. We've written recently on this topic, but the issue we wrote about there was minor compared to the gross injustice Google is now attempting to force down the throats of web users around the world. The so-called "Web Environment Integrity" (WEI) is the worst stunt we've seen from them in some time. Beginning its life as an innocuous, if worrying, policy document posted to Microsoft GitHub, Google has now fast-tracked its development into their Chromium browser. At its current rate of progress, WEI will be upon us in no time.
By giving developers an API through which they can approve certain browser configurations while forbidding others, WEI is a tremendous step toward the "enshittification" of the web as a whole. Many of us have grown up with a specific idea of the Internet, the notion of it as a collection of hyperlinked pages that can be accessed by a wide variety of different machines, programs, and operating systems. WEI is this idea's antithesis.
Compared to its staggering potential effects, the technical means through which WEI will accomplish its ends is relatively simple. Before serving a web page, a server can ask a third-party "verification" service to make sure that the user's browsing environment has not been "tampered" with. A translation of the policy's terminology will help us here: this Google-owned server will be asked to make sure that the browser does not deviate in any way from Google's accepted browser configuration, precluding any meaningful use of the four freedoms. It is not far-fetched to imagine a future in which sites simply refuse to serve pages to users running free browsers or free operating systems. If WEI isn't stopped now, that future will come sooner than we think.
While Web Environment Integrity has a policy document that attempts to explain valid ways in which it could be used, these are all non-issues compared to the way that we know it will be used. It will be used by governments to ensure that only their officially "approved" (read: backdoored) browsers are able to access the Internet; it will be used by corporations like Netflix to further Digital Restrictions Management (DRM); it will be used by Google to deny access to their services unless you are using a browser that gels with their profit margin.
Once upon a time, Google's official policy was "don't be evil." With the rapid progress they've made on Web Environment Integrity in such a short time, we can say very safely that their policy is now to pioneer evil. As we write this, talented and well-paid Google engineers and executives are working to dismantle what makes the web the web. Given that Google is one of the largest corporations on the planet, our only hope of saving the Internet as we know it is a clear and principled stance for freedom, a collective upholding of the communal principles on which the web was based.
Let us repeat: there is absolutely no legitimate justification for WEI. The use cases that the policy document highlights are nothing compared to its real use case, which is developing a method to obtain complete and total restriction of the free Internet.
We urge everyone involved in a decision-making capacity at Google to consider the principles on which the web was founded, and to carefully contemplate whether Web Environment Integrity aligns with those principles. We hope that they will realize WEI's fundamental incompatibility with the free Internet and cease work on the standard immediately.
And if they don't? Well, they ought to be ashamed.
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/web-environment-integrity-is-an-all-out-...
Dopo tutti questi anni di Google, sperare che gli sviluppatori di Google si vergognino di ciò che stanno facendo è estremamente ingenuo.
Può però essere utile a chi legge i suoi lobbisti più o meno insospettabili, sapere a cosa Google sta puntando da anni.
Ma come con ChatGPT e Microsoft/OpenAI, anche in questo caso vedremo spuntare come funghi allucinogeni diversi utili idioti pronti a difendere a spada tratta la povera Google che non vuole altro che proteggere i poveri utenti... dalla propria libertà.
Loro non si vergogneranno, ma noi potremo indignarci disgustati.
Giacomo _______________________________________________ nexa mailing list nexa@server-nexa.polito.it https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa
Buongiorno, grazie Giacomo di aver girato anche qui Giacomo Tesio <giacomo@tesio.it> writes: [...]
By giving developers an API through which they can approve certain browser configurations while forbidding others,
il nocciolo della questione è questo: consentire a chi pubblica sul web di decidere se un utente può accedere o meno al proprio sito/applicazione in base alla configurazione del proprio browser
WEI is a tremendous step toward the "enshittification" of the web as a whole.
Internet fa già così schifo così com'è e _esattamente_ questa "schifezzitudine" ha permesso ai "developers" di abusare dei propri visitatori in modi decisamente indecenti, WEI è un ulteriore "schifezzamento" del sottoinsieme di Internet chiamato web ma non sono per nulla convinto sia questo il peggiore degli schifezzamenti già messi in atto: inglobare i DRM nel web è stato di ordini di grandezza superiore.
Many of us have grown up with a specific idea of the Internet,
Spesso semplicemente _sbagliata_ :-D
the notion of it as a collection of hyperlinked pages that can be accessed by a wide variety of different machines, programs, and operating systems.
la solita idea romantica di Internet e la confusione tra Internet e web: mi spiace che sia in un articolo della FSF
WEI is this idea's antithesis.
questo è indiscutibile [...]
A translation of the policy's terminology will help us here: this Google-owned server will be asked to make sure that the browser does not deviate in any way from Google's accepted browser configuration, precluding any meaningful use of the four freedoms.
ecco, scusate: quello sopra è il nocciolo della questione [...]
the way that we know it will be used. It will be used by governments to ensure that only their officially "approved" (read: backdoored) browsers are able to access the Internet; it will be used by corporations like Netflix to further Digital Restrictions Management (DRM); it will be used by Google to deny access to their services unless you are using a browser that gels with their profit margin.
_quindi_ a quel punto le persone dovranno fare una scelta: accetteranno di essere /ulteriormente/ _privati_ della propria "computing agency" o semplicemente la smetteranno di usare quelle "schifezze"?!? la libertà non è obbligatoria :-O [...] Saluti, 380° -- 380° (Giovanni Biscuolo public alter ego) «Noi, incompetenti come siamo, non abbiamo alcun titolo per suggerire alcunché» Disinformation flourishes because many people care deeply about injustice but very few check the facts. Ask me about <https://stallmansupport.org>.
participants (4)
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380° -
Fabio Alemagna -
Giacomo Tesio -
Stefano Quintarelli