Google's web DRM? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2023, 03:34:07 pm
content: Google’s nightmare “Web Integrity API” wants a DRM gatekeeper for the web:https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/googles-web-integrity-api-sounds-like-drm-for-the-web/

author: ConKbot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2023, 04:58:11 pm
content: Please use your digitally signed browser install, with locked down extensions, with you real name windows account, tied to the tpm module on your system to ensure the OS hadn't been modified in unauthorized ways.Trust us bro, it's for your own security.

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2023, 07:06:49 pm
content: No no no no! It is a freaking web browser.Sounding like a joke to me that they want firmware control of the device.I remember Microsoft trying something like this with Edge and this integration thing I turned off some years ago when it was bringing up suggestions of file usage in history. With that disabled it seemed brilliant at first until the next update they introduced animated skeleton placeholders on the menu causing a 4 second delay in like history and favourites.The only time I might consider something like this is with a bank on a separate device used only for that where liability is involved but with the tpm module, demanding email and device/profile account name, windows account etc and I wouldn't want that either with the intrusion I find goes so deep.Every time I do a search I start with DuckDuckGo, then Google.I hope one day it catches up.QuoteI am not going to an don't want to, create an account, fill in and do a whole load of things, sign in, download an app, sign into that and have constraints and restrictions imposed on my device depending on how they feel.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2023, 10:23:42 pm
content: You will own nothing.

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2023, 11:32:40 pm
content: I have seen a video of Louise Rossman talking about this about visitors trust and so on.https://odysee.com/@rossmanngroup:a/google's-trying-to-drm-the-internet,-and:0https://www.techradar.com/pro/googles-new-plan-for-the-future-of-the-web-has-a-lot-of-people-worried-heres-whyQuoteThat is the moment I stop trusting them by denying me access to content by blatant discrimination in order to see it.The information is out there but we don't like your browser or your device or not using it in a certain way etc so we will hide it from you until a set of demands are met to see it.

author: Faranight
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 26, 2023, 05:11:02 am
content: Sounds like another power grab attempt from a big company. IMO, DRM has no place in the web browser (or the open web), and people should not be forced to choose a browser (I'm looking at you, Chrome) because the other browsers don't work on a particular website. This is what standards bodies like W3C are for where all browsers should adhere to a set of rules instead of having one major vendor push their custom ideas into their browser and then forcing everyone else to adopt them.

author: mendip_discovery
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2023, 02:22:05 pm
content: Chances of a site using this to add extra data to your profile to make tracking you just a little easier.Iirc with firefox you can set certain tabs to be sandboxed away from the others. Handy for Facebook etc. But it's my choice to do that and not a demand from a website.I can see lots of sites demanding special security for you to log in even though they dont need that level. I still come across sites that expect an annoying password that I know I will have fun remembering next time I use it.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2023, 02:53:40 pm
content: QuoteIsn't that already happening,at least here theres been many occasions were i cant access an american web site because of the uk/eu cookie lawsQuoteAlmost like we've stepped back to the late 90's with mozzila and microsoft claiming there way was right

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2023, 07:56:18 pm
content: Quote from: Faranight on July 26, 2023, 05:11:02 amYes they should.The number of web sites that work with Chrome/Chromium and not with Firefox for instance is growing and hint, it's not because Firefox doesn't comply with the standards.Chrome has completely eaten the competition in terms of market share which allows it to pretty much ignore standards when it looks convenient.It has gotten to a market share that even IE had never achieved back when MS forced it on Windows users.OK Google.

author: Infraviolet
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2023, 08:06:29 pm
content: "websites trusting the client environment they run in"Firstly, for the most part they don't. Websites run things backend where they want to have control of it, and just take input and serve output to the browser.Secondly, the creeps at Gogle have obviously got their ideas about trust problems the wrong way round. "I know my device is secure, it's your website I can't trust" is the real world situation, not Google's nonsense inversion of this.Such plans are a corporate attack on human beings, a way to let those remote services that already can't be trusted have power over people who can trust themselves. Websites have no right to be able to check that your browser is honest about itself, they are the ones who need checking upon.With integrity tokens by third party servers his appears in many senses an internet version of the crime against humanity already committed by many countries that fell in to the delusion* of vaccine passport digital ID cards in the later part of that pesky pandemic. There is something deeply morally wrong with requiring people to get a third-party (megacorporate, governmental...) to show a permission card to approve their right to do things they could always do privately without interference beforehand.*Not saying the vaccine didn't work, or that it did, for individual health, but we all know it never stopepd transmission and we knew that from the start. So from the very start digital ID passes served no purpose except to give states powers to interfere in private matters.These plans need to be nipped in the bud before they can cause any damage.

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2023, 08:55:05 pm
content: https://www.pcworld.com/article/2009730/vivaldi-mozilla-warn-of-googles-proposed-drm-for-the-web.htmlQuote*Well if it is going to be all your's and then I don't want it.https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/issues?page=4&q=is%3AissueDoesn't seem to be going down good.4 Pages of hatred see attachmentsI am a bit confused. If this proposal by one individual named "Rupert Ben Wiser"?https://github.com/RupertBenWiserbenwiser.comIs that arrogance and self importance I see and as in name?https://stackdiary.com/web-environment-integrity/QuoteSo it is him one individual.QuoteWhat doesn't he understand in, THEY DON'T WANT HIS PROPOSAL and end of no discussion?Reminds me of something about Nadhim Zahawi and the School Bill that got withdrawn where he wanted more power for Whitehall.https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/jun/30/government-announces-u-turn-on-schools-bill-after-criticismQuoteSounds to me very arrogant and playing the high ground/pretending to be assertive despite the majority against it.I don't find anything constructive about ignoring the backlash.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2023, 09:58:32 pm
content: Quote from: MrMobodies on July 26, 2023, 08:55:05 pmThis has become the standard approach in software development, putting surface communications skills, social pressure, and human interest narratives above any technical concerns.I first started noticing it in Debian – of all places! –, so it is not just an US industry thing.I blame universities, shifting from educating people to indoctrinating them.

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2023, 10:27:28 pm
content: Oh look he removed his LinkedIn Profile from public view but URL still there so must be recent:Signed into my MrMobodies Linkedin account and the profile does exist.See attachmentNow I wonder why would he do this?

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2023, 10:32:44 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on July 26, 2023, 09:58:32 pmSome people study the cuckoo, and see a plan for their own lives.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2023, 10:34:54 pm
content: QuoteLennart wannabe.

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2023, 11:00:08 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on July 26, 2023, 09:58:32 pmIf that is true then he'd be indoctrinated out here:https://www.linkedin.com/in/💾-ben-wiser-b55b2911a/Quotehttps://3di-ltd.com/About-Us#ContactQuoteQuoteQuoteQuoteQuoteBorn or went half way around the world to University then come to Britain and get jobs butonlyin London.I wonder if this is his company:https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/11058044https://suite.endole.co.uk/insight/company/11058044-wiser-results-ltdQuotehttps://whois.domaintools.com/benwiser.comQuotehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/💾-ben-wiser-b55b2911a/QuoteQuoteHe has only been there for a year and come up with this idea.It makes me think whether someone at Google or outside is influencing/incentivising him.According Endole IF that is his company it is in -£69,663 liabilities 83.32% debt ratio from last year and it seems he is renting flat looking at his address.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2023, 11:56:46 pm
content: Quote from: MrMobodies on July 26, 2023, 11:00:08 pmWell, I am not interested in him personally, only on his behaviour and how that affects projects and technology that affect my life to a large degree.His behaviour matches a pattern I've observed in large enough projects (regardless of whether they're proprietary or open source), with university education in IT being an immediate common factor. But what do I know? Nothing much, really; and even when I do, I'm often wrong. That's why I wroteI blame. I did study and work in a couple of Universities, for over a decade myself.Anyway, using social engineering (or "social gaming", as I often call it) to override factual and technical criticisms,isone of my buttons.I see absolutely nothing positive for the end user in this, nor any reasonable technical basis for the initiative, except toexploitusers further, by wresting the choice and control of the software and hardware from the human end user to the corporation running a website –– or, is providing internet service to that user, as that seems more likely to be the true goal behind this initiative to me. Paranoid? No, I do not think so in this case, because the corporation at hand is one of those that already considers its users the true product it sells.

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2023, 12:25:31 am
content: https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/issues?page=1&q=is%3AissueQuoteQuote from: Nominal Animal on July 26, 2023, 11:56:46 pmI wonder if coward is one of them?Just found that yoavweiss (who closed the thread above down) wrote an entry in his blog that seems to be about this four days before it:https://blog.yoav.ws/posts/web_platform_change_you_do_not_like/QuoteIn my case it is not about "not liking" it.There are lots of things I don't like that I have to use extensions, like to hide fixed headers, suggestions, fake loading spinners, dimming overlays (well that affects my eyes too when large parts sudden change tone of colour), animated placeholders that flash and annoy me and slow the whole webpage down but it doesn't stop me from viewing the contents.Giving someone firmware level access and control to my device over a webpage and asking to trust them, then dictate what I can and cannot see is a big nono no matter what they say or claim to do.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2023, 12:35:14 am
content: I've seen this news show up on other sites too, and IMO it deserves to. Google is attacking a big part of what makes the web great --- you can use whatever browser you want to access sites in a way that makes sense for you. There are currently obstructions to doing that, but they're still not too hard to overcome. Now they want to use cryptography to absolutely lock it down. I do wonder what makes people like him actually associate his real identity with it - maybe he's trying to attract the other DRM control-freaks at the {RI,MP}AA?

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2023, 01:01:13 am
content: Quote from: amyk on July 27, 2023, 12:35:14 amJoke: Arrogance and self importance.Maybe they could design an extension called "Go away Ben Wise" to get around such nonsense just like what happened to David Cameron and his DNS web filter idea.QuoteIsn't there NOTHING transparent giving access to someone's firmware and blocking access to websites/content?QuoteWhat PROBLEMS? (Their problem?)QuoteI think what he may mean is to make websites/content private specific to the device and account in question using accessing it therefore safe for the copyright holders.Here is how he sounds from one of his Youtube videos:It is a speculation of mine that he is desperate for something whether it be cash or career promises if he puts his name on it and pushes through with it and if not him it'd be someone else desperate enough who'd have a go at it.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2023, 01:36:36 am
content: Well, I can definitely imagine many, many business reasons why Google would want to provide services to those using onlyofficialversions of Chrome, with onlyofficiallyapproved extensions installed.It is not a secret that Youtube (which Google owns, of course) is trying to find out how to get rid of ad blocker users already, for example. Google Search is probably having a similar problem.Combined with Google Fiber internet service, this "proposal" would give Google a full control of the entire stack down to the software used on the client side.I'm sure many people in their marketing department and in non-technical Cxx roles have already wet their panties imagining the spoils they can run off with, if they could just pull this off. Now that they have the sufficient market share (not exactly a monopoly, but large enough chunk of the market to make such a move possible), is probably their only opportunity to make such a move, as EU and others are starting to pressure the large companies wrt. sales and handling of user information. (Unlikely to actually hinder their business models now, but might make a suggestion like this impossible in the future. So it could be a now or never -type situation.)It could also be a wanky self-kill by someone who has been asked about this kind of stuff by the marketing department and non-technical Cxx roles, and are willing to ruin their career to stop it. I doubt it, because of the language and behaviour exhibited by the promoter.

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2023, 03:14:13 am
content: I see it isn't just him alone according to this articlehttps://itwire.com/government-tech-news/technology-regulation/google-trying-to-corner-browser-market,-norwegian-firm-vivaldi-claims.htmlQuoteJust noticed one of them has been engaged in anti piracy stuff:https://www.linkedin.com/in/skataevQuote*"applicationintegrityprotection" and Web EnvironmentIntegrity.Doesn't that sound a bit familiar?I wonder if he'd be the one designing it if it goes ahead using his previous works?https://paceap.com/about-us/Quotehttps://www.design-reuse.com/news/38981/inside-secure-drm-fusion-google-widevine-modular-drm-system.htmlQuoteAnother one: "Integrity checking" and I see they can manipulate too at chipset/firmware level for copyright to satisfy the movie studios or whatever.So that engineer had been working on that for years and Google has now found someone well associated with it.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2023, 04:57:50 am
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on July 27, 2023, 01:36:36 amI can see the rise of a stealth adblocker. And maybe some scripts to intentionally generate a lot of fake ad "views" and make the whole idea of push advertising come crashing down.

author: Faranight
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 27, 2023, 09:26:27 am
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on July 26, 2023, 07:56:18 pmIt's because the websites don't comply with the standards since Chrome has led them astray.

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2023, 11:49:26 am
content: Quote from: Faranight on July 27, 2023, 09:26:27 amI hear this phrase a few times and one time from a developer at Palemoon forums, "Google junk code" and now I see what they may mean.

author: mendip_discovery
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2023, 01:15:53 pm
content: Browsers are the new OS. You need skills in many scripting languages just to get a site to work these days. Scares my why the browser needs 4 GB of RAM to just view 2 webpages.Lastnight I swapped a site over for a charity, it's gone from a 50 MB site to a 550 MB site. Now the bloat is because of the 'designer' only using wordpress and not resizing pictures before uploading.I think I might go back and do my next site in notepad with HTML and CSS. It's not fancy but it just works.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2023, 01:46:26 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on July 27, 2023, 04:57:50 amIndeed. Something like this proposal would be the only thing stopping users from using those, if they became widely used.I do need to use adblockers, because ads and similar distractions are too aggravating and annoying to me. I can't watch TV, or videos with ads at all, I just get annoyed about them. (I also have NoScript enabled by default, and only allow enough JavaScript to make the sites usable.)I do perfectly understand the way ads support sites like this here, and content creators in general, but I just cannot deal with them properly without getting. If Dave told us weneedto disable adblocks for EEVblog forums, I'd have to stop participating; otherwise I'd really risk becoming a serious nuisance, because I'd be always in a really bad mood and distracted. I'm not kidding, ads – even domain-specific ads for test equipment and prototype PCB services – have that effect on me.Sure, it ismypersonal problem, not Dave's or Youtube's or Google's. The question is, do we want a society where people like myself with the limitations I have are completely excluded from participating? Where everything is permitted or not allowed based on whether some company can make a profit out of it? Right now, I don't even have the funds to subscribe to Youtube Premium or Patreon for the content creators I would like to support. If my financial situation was better, then it'd be different (and I did do that often when I was better off financially).But before anyone makes their mind up about leeching or supporting financially, I'd like to point out that whenever the effects have been fully measured in practice –– the first real experiment I know of personally was by Eric Flint and Baen Free Library –– it turns out that giving out some content for free tends to be a massive driver for related content sales. It applies even to games' piracy: the ones who pirate most, statistically tend to also spend most money on games. Not to say what kind of effect first open libraries, and now the free availability of information on the web, has made on people's ability to trulylearn, without having gatekeepers on knowledge.Thus, even though some want to frame it as a question ofstealingor freeloading, the larger picture is more complex and more interconnected, and not as simple as many in Google's position seem to believe. It is definitely about the direction of global cultures, not just business needs. (Of course, people who know as little as possible are easier to rule, if you're into manipulating and controlling others.)

author: Faranight
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 27, 2023, 06:08:20 pm
content: Quote from: mendip_discovery on July 27, 2023, 01:15:53 pmExactly, there's too much bloat everywhere today. I do come from a time when websites were done in HTML+CSS, and they just worked. Even if you had javascript disabled in your browser they still worked.But today if you disable javascript, you will get mostly blank white pages on many websites. There's way too much reliance on javascript, and it often slows down page loading to a crawl.

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2023, 06:20:18 pm
content: Quote from: Faranight on July 27, 2023, 06:08:20 pmSome of them seem fake where if you disable CSS (via an extension) you see just the text.I have seen webpages in the past load which the contents can been seen briefly for about a second then a white overlay appears to make it looks like it don't work.https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/chromium-apps/c/Kpbc6lT6Id4QuoteFrom 2010 and well it has already happened now they have been given all the power they need to do it.I remember their Picasa platform was great in 2009 until they bloated it horribly in 2014 where the thumbnails were made oversized (fewer per line and page) and stuck the stupid gradients all over them (didn't use adblock then or know I could use it to hide them) and I deleted all my pictures from it. Then Picasa started out with their stupid fixed header after Yahoo destroyed their page with it (with a massive big spammy toolbar in the way following down the page) as I remember a response to the complaints about it was to "streamline it" with it's branding and all the other companies it brought out.Maybe it is time for vendors like Opera, Vivaldi and Brave to start working on switching to Firefox engine oh wait then all their users could be eventually cut off from anything Google and that could start a war.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2023, 11:37:07 pm
content: Quote from: Faranight on July 27, 2023, 09:26:27 amGoogle already has effectively complete control of the "standard". They even came up with the oxymoron "living standard", which means they can change it whenever they want. Then they spread propaganda about how other browsers are "holding back progress" or whatever, when their idea of "progress" is to constantly make many changes to its browser and "standard" to force others to keep trying to catch up.This could've been completely ignored, but also thanks to Big G's propaganda, we have tons of gullible web developers making sites with these Chrome-only features when they weren't ever necessary. That's also why they're so bloated.Fortunately this site isn't one of those. I can still post here from an oscilloscope running XP with IE6

author: mendip_discovery
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2023, 09:15:33 am
content: I partly blame the bloat down to the need to create two red lines but with blue ink.G keeps creating new tools for developers without asking if we really need them. It reminds me of some of the IE stuff MS came out with back in the day, marquee. They have turned into the one thing they hated.I must say I never really liked CSS even though it was written for designers it seems they were never asked about it. I remember a number of work arounds you had to use just to get somthing to be centred on a page.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2023, 10:05:45 am
content: Do you remember YouTube's Polymer redesign a few years back? It was based on an old deprecated API only available in Chrome. With Firefox or Edge page loading took about 5 times longer.

author: AndyBeez
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2023, 10:50:42 am
content: Quote from: mendip_discovery on July 27, 2023, 01:15:53 pmYah! Go Old Skool! Sadly hand crafting is a dying art form. The generation of new Web developers think they need a framework/s with fancy IDEs, because this is how it is done.I recently wrote a simple JS event handler to efficiently handle keystrokes - and update other values on the fly. Wrong. Should have used React and Docker, as that how onChange event handling is done in the 2020s? It's rather like an EE being told they have to use the Arduino platform and open source ChatGPT code to blink an LED, rather than just use a capacitor and a UJT. Anyway, no-one there knew how to code from scratch in the first place.It is now a case that code bloat rises to cover the bandwidth available. I ponder has anyone worked out how much extra CO2 Google's bloat culture is contributing to? Is Chrome causing climate change? I await the 'expert' on YouTube to tell me.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2023, 11:46:22 am
content: QuoteSame could be said about new embedded device developers, needing Arduino or whatever 'simple' framework to do anything.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2023, 04:09:37 pm
content: Quote from: AndyBeez on July 28, 2023, 10:50:42 amI've been trying to entice people to create simple tools as self-contained web pages, so they need only a browser and not even an internet connection. The JS implementations in current browsers are pretty damn efficient, and if written without any browser-specific tricks, these things work even on phone browsers if need be. An example I often point to here is myfinite impulse response analysisexample, all of 372 lines of HTML+CSS+JS in that single file, that you can stuff your FIR coefficients into (at top of page), and it'll show you the frequency response. Could be made much more useful, if there was an actual use case – maybe add frequency or wavelength ticks horizontally? – but its brevity and simplicity should show howeasythese things are to make, if one were to learn a bit of HTML, CSS, HTML DOM, and JavaScript.

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2023, 06:35:33 pm
content: https://www.webpronews.com/google-rightfully-gets-panned-for-its-web-environment-integrity/QuoteRubbishly put.How about the other way around, "attestation can interfere with your devices access to things and cut you off".An operating system's job is to operate so how can that interfere, why should it interfere being the same thing with a few modifications here and there if deliberately done by the owner. Sounds to me like they they want to set it to interfere not the other way round.

author: eutectique
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 31, 2023, 02:41:38 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on July 27, 2023, 04:57:50 amI useAdNauseamfor Firefox, which does exactly this -- clicks quietly every ad found on the page. Of course, it does not render the original ad frames.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 31, 2023, 06:50:07 pm
content: Quote from: eutectique on July 31, 2023, 02:41:38 pmSaves Facebook and the like putting single-pixel trackers on the page. And as a bonus their advertisers can track you too!