Mastodawn

jherazob Jul 21, 2023

Google is working on essentially putting DRM on the web

Google is working on essentially putting DRM on the web - Beehaw

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.

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jherazob Jul 21, 2023

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

So, you don't like a web platform proposal

How can you influence the web platform so that a change you don't like is less likely to get shipped?

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resetreboot

We developers should stop just looking at the technical side of our work only. There’s social, economic and values to be taken into account when we put our minds to solve a problem. We tend to go blindly into it, without thinking what it can cause when it is released into the world.

It’s like if we put a bunch of developers into a secret project to develop an Internet World Wide Nuclear Bomb a là Project Manhattan… the leaders shouldn’t really have to hide what they were about to do, just throw the developers and engineers troubles to solve and they wouldn’t mind what it will be used for. It’s just tech, right?

At least this guy seems to fit the type: I want to do this technology I’ve been tasked for, I’m trying to solve a technological problem. The rest of the world is telling him «Man, this is a bad idea to implement.» and he whines saying «I want solutions to this technology, not what is wrong with it!»

(And if you aren’t one of those developers, congratulations, we need more of you!)