Mozilla opposes Web Integrity API proposal

Mozilla try not to be based challenge (impossible)

Although a comment close below puts a little dent into that ^^

https://github.com/mozilla/> standards-positions/issues/852#issuecomment-1649928726

I guess, even if "it contradicts our principles and vision for the Web.", it might happen just like the past:

https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/05/reconciling-mozillas-mission-and-w3c-eme/ Formal objection: FLOSS and EME w3c/encrypted-media#378 https://daniele.tech/2014/05/firefox-drm-and-w3c-eme-complicated-technical-matter/
- I don't think Firefox's position is unreasonable here. Ultimately, the old way of distributing copy-write content wasn't going to work. Companies that had right to something, couldn't easily distribute it without a large risk of piracy and a tanking of revenues. Having a sandbox around proprietary shite made sense and protected users privacy while also enabling the content providers to maintain their asset.
  
  Removing ad blocks is a wholly different ball game. Google obviously has a stake in it because YT is funded by ads. Maybe some ad driven content providers also, but subscription driven services don't have the same need for that. It does seem an unholy alliance between content providers and big tech has been formed and it could be something at play again.
- ❌ Play DRM-controlled content

It's funny, I always kept Firefox and Brave (yes I'm aware its chromium and full of fuckery) installed. But as soon as this news broke, before it was even confirmed, I swapped back from Brave to Firefox as my primary. Fuck Google for this. They're just truly not the company they once were.

They never really were the company they claimed to be.
- Oh god no, never said otherwise. But for years they struck this equilibrium between evil and quality of services offered in exchange. That value had been rapidly deteriorating for the last 5 years or so. It's just sad to see is all.

Why do I feel like it isn't the death of the internet as we know of, but rather the sharding of the internet. The corpo plaza internet is clearly emerging, we have to make sure we support and hold up the everyone else internet

With banking, streaming, there isn't really an easy alternative. This could be a locking out that could be quite disruptive.
- I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as streaming, is in fact, piracy/streaming, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, piracy plus streaming.

as everyone should

The problem is we can't just not use their internet - I see extending the fediverse as a great way to bring back the original promise of the Internet, a free place for collaboration and exchange of ideas.

But we still need to use the normal Internet for daily life. The potential control here goes so far past ad blocking or browser choice - what happens when they start deciding what apps you can have, or what os, or if your using an unmodified locked down system without root access?

Plus, you have legislation like kosa that could be used to restrict people from operating websites locally in the US.

This move alone wouldn't kill the Internet, but you have to look at the wider context. This is an inflection point - tech giants are on an all out money grab, and a lot of important battles are going to happen back to back. Losing any one of them will be just an inconvenience, but all together they're going to redefine the rules moving forward

I feel like it's worth reopening the sub just to share this.

Like, I've been watching reddit all day, waiting patiently for this news to hit the fan, and I'm not seeing it anywhere. Like...I'm kind of stunned. This is exactly the thing I would think would blow up on Reddit.

Would projects such as Ungoogled Chromium be affected? Or possibly, is it something one could cut out from the source code?

i think the problem is most websites would follow google and maybe those webpages will only work on chromiums
- And then we're back to the IE6 days.
I think it would be risky, companies will roll it out think people who are on chromium will move to chrome, or their browsers will support this. If people move to Firefox, companies know that a percentage of their users will be prevented from using this, and it could cost their marketshare/revenue. Google cannot be trusted to dictate web standards any more, and Mozilla is the best placed to break that hegemony.
- As long as safari don’t adopts it, i don’t think the web will, that is the ios user-base but we still shouldn't let our guard down.

I'm outta the loop on this whole situation, what's going on?

Web dev here. It enforces the original markup and code from a server to be the markup and code that the browser interprets and executes, preventing any post-loading modifications.

That sounds a bit dry, but the implications are huge. It means:

ad blockers won't work (the main reason for Google's ploy)

many, if not most, other browser extensions won't work (eg.: accessibility, theming, anti-malware)

people are going to start running into a lot of scam ads that ad blockers would otherwise prevent

malicious websites will be able to operate with impunity since you cannot run security extensions to prevent them

web developers are going to be crippled for lack of debugging ability

These are just a few things off the top of my head. There are endless and very dangerous implications to WEI. This is very, very bad for the web and antithesis of how it's supposed to be.

TBL is probably experiencing a sudden disturbance in the force.
- I think you're missing the fact that if google doesn't attest for your software choice, the website could prevent access. It is google trying to take ownership of what is and isn't supported software when accessing the internet. This is far more serious that a few adverts, this could be the removal of liberty on the open web.
- Any idea on what happens to DNS level blockers?
- I'm not saying you're wrong or that Web Environment Integrity is a good thing, but a primary source and citation is needed for this statement:
  
  It enforces the original markup and code from a server to be the markup and code that the browser interprets and executes, preventing any post-loading modifications.
Google (or Google employees) came up with a “trust attestation standard” that would supposedly let sites know if a user was a human or not, but because the attestation required a third party and some trust mechanism locally, it would further enclose the Web around Google
The internet is getting fucked by Google.
- this just in, google doing what google does. More at 10.

Can someone ELI5 this

When you want to access a website, the server will ask your browser "Is the user's environment good for me to show my website?" and will only provide you the website if your browser agrees. What this essentially means is that ad blocking or any other scripting on your side could make your browser say "No, there's some fuckery going on" and you would no longer be served the page.
- Is this why people don’t like google AMP links? Because the AMP links can prevent adblockers from working
It’s like going to a restaurant but you can only order from the pre approved from Google menu that they don’t mind if you have allergies. What they mind it’s what kind of car you use to come to the restaurant.
Google is making a system to verify any given user is running a verified browser on a verified OS on verified hardware (TPM).

The first problem is that only big tech companies will be able to pass any of these verification steps. Say goodbye to your modifiable, community-driven, open source OS or browser.

The second problem is that the only software they choose to verify well be increasingly restricted. Say goodbye to your ad-blocker, because Google makes the browser and they're the one selling the ads.

You can still an unverified browser, I suppose, but websites decide whether to let you in or not. And Google will reduce their ad revenue if they don't "verify" their users.

I feel like our best bet is EU regulation against this kind of monopoly.

I dont get it. Doesnt the US have an anti monopoly agency?

Most countries have anti-monopoly agencies. Whether they are of a mind to take action or not is another question entirely. Sometimes they are absolutely toothless. I miss the days when they used to do stuff like when MS was prevented from forcing browser/search engine (I cannot remember which) by default etc.

We absolutely should try to lobby as much as we can to nudge them to act, but I don't think we can rely on government agencies alone. MS recent acquisition shows that agencies are either not motivated, or not competent enough to oppose tech giants.