3 ms·

> But it is something that the web standard should think about in order to make the web a better place. In what way does it make the web a better place?

by Jochim 3y ago

Avamander 3y ago
> In what way does it make the web a better place? Less (LLM-generated) spam.
- Jochim 3y ago
  Those sites make their money through SEO optimisation. Tracking me harder isn't going to make those sites go away.
  - Avamander 3y ago
    We're not talking about some random search results. The existence of SEO spam sites isn't related to other sites' ability to fight spam better.
    - Jochim 3y ago
      Ah, I misunderstood, I didn't realise you were talking about bots that spam comment sections, forum replies, etc. I still think the approach is harmful overall. The idea that I must be "vouched for" by a "trusted third party" by providing extensive details about my system, in order for my browser to send a HTTP request is in direct opposition to privacy and my interests. That it's being proposed by a company that owes it's entire existence to web crawling is ironic. It turns the web from an open platform into one where the big players have complete control over which devices and software are permitted.
- danShumway 3y ago
  LLM-generated spam is trivial to automate inside of a normal browser. The level of restriction that Google is discussing will not have an impact on the ability to mass-post GPT results to Reddit. ---- It's worth considering that the examples that come up over and over again when people try to defend this proposal are a strong reason to believe that Google is lying or being naive when it says that the proposal won't eventually impact extensions or the ability to inspect 3rd-party code. Because OS-level restrictions that ignore extensions and runtime modifications to websites and scriptable browsers won't help with any of these problems. And if advocates are willing to so quickly say today, "there's LLM spam, so sure, lock down the OS", they are also going to say in the future, "there's still LLM spam, the problem is worse than ever, lock down the extensions." If you believe that blocking bots justifies attacking user agency, there's no reason to stop at blocking users from rooting their phones. The actual impactful attacks on user agency for blocking bots would be to block website inspection and website modification.
  - Avamander 3y ago
    > LLM-generated spam is trivial to automate inside of a normal browser. Sure, the analog loophole (or analog input loophole) will remain. But it's times more difficult than what is possible at this point in time. > And if advocates are willing to so quickly say today, "there's LLM spam, so sure, lock down the OS", they are also going to say in the future, "there's still LLM spam, the problem is worse than ever, lock down the extensions." There's always going to be spam, just like there's always going to be ways around DRM. The difficulty changes over time. Up to the person to decide if it's good or bad. > If you believe that blocking bots justifies attacking user agency, there's no reason to stop at blocking users from rooting their phones. Noone has stopped there, SafetyNet already does that.
    - danShumway 3y ago
      > Sure, the analog loophole (or analog input loophole) will remain. But it's times more difficult than what is possible at this point in time. I disagree, I don't think whether or not you can root your phone has any real impact on how hard it is to automate a request. I don't think this is the same as the analog loophole, I think it's going after a different area entirely from where most attacks are coming from. > Noone has stopped there, SafetyNet already does that. What I mean is that SafetyNet blocks custom ROMs, rooting, etc... and I'm seeing comments saying that's all that the spec is interested in, it's not going to target extensions or code inspection. I don't think there's any reason to be confident of that, I think it's very likely that this spec evolves to target browser extensions. Because I don't think blocking people from rooting their phones will make an observable difference in the amount of LLM spam that websites get.
      - Avamander 3y ago
        > I disagree, I don't think whether or not you can root your phone has any real impact on how hard it is to automate a request. I find device farms way harder to pull off than a bash curl script, to be honest. > I think it's very likely that this spec evolves to target browser extensions. Absolutely, it very literally tries to guarantee integrity. > Because I don't think blocking people from rooting their phones will make an observable difference in the amount of LLM spam that websites get. I do think it would reduce the amount of abuse that's not very sophisticated. If that's worth the rest...
charcircuit 3y ago
Less spam, less ad fraud, less cheating, etc
- howinteresting 3y ago
  Be honest, what you really want is for the web to orient itself in a direction where users get to make fewer "illegal" copies of content produced by corporations. Never mind the fact that their computers might not support, even in theory, the level of DRM the corporations want. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36866372 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36866372
  - danShumway 3y ago
    You want to go into these conversations in good faith, but when they're so transparently not being had in good faith, it's tough to do so. I'm trying to figure out how to balance assuming the best and treating every comment as if it's an individual argument, while also not being completely naive to the fact that a nontrivial number of the people making these arguments are very often blatantly pro-DRM and are asking me to just pretend that they're not. It's definitely not everyone, but...
- Jochim 3y ago
  I don't agree that it'll affect spam and I couldn't care less about ad fraud or cheating. What is does do, is afford the major players total control over which devices and individuals are allowed to access the web.

> But it is something that the web standard should think about in order to make the web a better place. In what way does it make the web a better place?

by Jochim 3y ago

> But it is something that the web standard should think about in order to make the web a better place. In what way does it make the web a better place?

Avamander 3y ago

> In what way does it make the web a better place? Less (LLM-generated) spam.

Jochim 3y ago
Those sites make their money through SEO optimisation. Tracking me harder isn't going to make those sites go away.
- Avamander 3y ago
  We're not talking about some random search results. The existence of SEO spam sites isn't related to other sites' ability to fight spam better.
  - Jochim 3y ago
    Ah, I misunderstood, I didn't realise you were talking about bots that spam comment sections, forum replies, etc. I still think the approach is harmful overall. The idea that I must be "vouched for" by a "trusted third party" by providing extensive details about my system, in order for my browser to send a HTTP request is in direct opposition to privacy and my interests. That it's being proposed by a company that owes it's entire existence to web crawling is ironic. It turns the web from an open platform into one where the big players have complete control over which devices and software are permitted.
danShumway 3y ago
LLM-generated spam is trivial to automate inside of a normal browser. The level of restriction that Google is discussing will not have an impact on the ability to mass-post GPT results to Reddit. ---- It's worth considering that the examples that come up over and over again when people try to defend this proposal are a strong reason to believe that Google is lying or being naive when it says that the proposal won't eventually impact extensions or the ability to inspect 3rd-party code. Because OS-level restrictions that ignore extensions and runtime modifications to websites and scriptable browsers won't help with any of these problems. And if advocates are willing to so quickly say today, "there's LLM spam, so sure, lock down the OS", they are also going to say in the future, "there's still LLM spam, the problem is worse than ever, lock down the extensions." If you believe that blocking bots justifies attacking user agency, there's no reason to stop at blocking users from rooting their phones. The actual impactful attacks on user agency for blocking bots would be to block website inspection and website modification.
- Avamander 3y ago
  > LLM-generated spam is trivial to automate inside of a normal browser. Sure, the analog loophole (or analog input loophole) will remain. But it's times more difficult than what is possible at this point in time. > And if advocates are willing to so quickly say today, "there's LLM spam, so sure, lock down the OS", they are also going to say in the future, "there's still LLM spam, the problem is worse than ever, lock down the extensions." There's always going to be spam, just like there's always going to be ways around DRM. The difficulty changes over time. Up to the person to decide if it's good or bad. > If you believe that blocking bots justifies attacking user agency, there's no reason to stop at blocking users from rooting their phones. Noone has stopped there, SafetyNet already does that.
  - danShumway 3y ago
    > Sure, the analog loophole (or analog input loophole) will remain. But it's times more difficult than what is possible at this point in time. I disagree, I don't think whether or not you can root your phone has any real impact on how hard it is to automate a request. I don't think this is the same as the analog loophole, I think it's going after a different area entirely from where most attacks are coming from. > Noone has stopped there, SafetyNet already does that. What I mean is that SafetyNet blocks custom ROMs, rooting, etc... and I'm seeing comments saying that's all that the spec is interested in, it's not going to target extensions or code inspection. I don't think there's any reason to be confident of that, I think it's very likely that this spec evolves to target browser extensions. Because I don't think blocking people from rooting their phones will make an observable difference in the amount of LLM spam that websites get.
    - Avamander 3y ago
      > I disagree, I don't think whether or not you can root your phone has any real impact on how hard it is to automate a request. I find device farms way harder to pull off than a bash curl script, to be honest. > I think it's very likely that this spec evolves to target browser extensions. Absolutely, it very literally tries to guarantee integrity. > Because I don't think blocking people from rooting their phones will make an observable difference in the amount of LLM spam that websites get. I do think it would reduce the amount of abuse that's not very sophisticated. If that's worth the rest...

charcircuit 3y ago

Less spam, less ad fraud, less cheating, etc

howinteresting 3y ago
Be honest, what you really want is for the web to orient itself in a direction where users get to make fewer "illegal" copies of content produced by corporations. Never mind the fact that their computers might not support, even in theory, the level of DRM the corporations want. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36866372 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36866372
- danShumway 3y ago
  You want to go into these conversations in good faith, but when they're so transparently not being had in good faith, it's tough to do so. I'm trying to figure out how to balance assuming the best and treating every comment as if it's an individual argument, while also not being completely naive to the fact that a nontrivial number of the people making these arguments are very often blatantly pro-DRM and are asking me to just pretend that they're not. It's definitely not everyone, but...
Jochim 3y ago
I don't agree that it'll affect spam and I couldn't care less about ad fraud or cheating. What is does do, is afford the major players total control over which devices and individuals are allowed to access the web.