5 ms·

WEI itself was previously discussed across a number of threads, which make interesting reading: (July 2023, 456 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=

by lol768 3y ago

WEI itself was previously discussed across a number of threads, which make interesting reading: (July 2023, 456 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36854114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36854114 - "Google's nightmare Web Integrity API wants a DRM gatekeeper for the web" (July 2023, 431 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36817305 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36817305 - "Web Environment Integrity API Proposal" (July 2023, 434 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36875940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36875940 - "Unpacking Google’s Web Environment Integrity specification" (July 2023, 111 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36857676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36857676 - "So, you don't like a web platform proposal" - Google employee's view on how folks should've responded to the proposal (August 2023, 100 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36960882 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36960882 - "Web Environment Integrity: Locking Down the Web"

jjoonathan 3y ago
Oof, that hyper-aggressive whitewashing of the DRM proposal from yoavweiss_ was a harsh lesson in realpolitik. Nerds were bringing good faith arguments to a bad faith optics war and getting slaughtered.
- belval 3y ago
  For people wondering which of the links to click: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36857676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36857676 It's mostly just the classic "nono if you don't agree it's because you don't understand" and "please educate yourself" approach.
  - whatshisface 3y ago
    At least they didn't try, "I don't have time to educate you about why you're bad!"
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    > "P.S. I'd love to discuss this with y'all like professional adults. Can we do that?" You can tell somebody is a snake when they aren't from the South but use "y'all". It's become a sort of corporate snake shibboleth.
    - jkaplowitz 3y ago
      Meh, it spreads a lot more broadly than the corporate snake people. And honestly I’ve never heard the corporate snakes use it myself (at least not before the example which you quoted), but I’m sure there are corporate snakes who do.
    - duxup 3y ago
      I certainly think that a lot but I sure as hell wouldn’t say it. It doesn’t help, that discussion never goes well.
    - dmoy 3y ago
      Uhhh, what? I use y'all 'cus that's how all the kids in my school talked growing up. I ditched a lot of the lexicon because after my family moved to the suburbs, I got made fun of by my new friends, literally calling me "less white". So no more finna', for example. I will die on the hill of having a good second person plural pronoun though.
      - ethbr1 3y ago
        Once you've used English with a second person plural pronoun, you can't go back. PS: "Yous guys" doesn't count
      - JohnFen 3y ago
        "y'all" is a bit fraught in the US because (incorrectly, in my opinion), in some parts the use is associated with certain unflattering cultural stereotypes. Not usually racial ones. > I will die on the hill of having a good second person plural pronoun though. I'm with you there -- we really need one, but I haven't found one that is broadly safe to use.
      - mcpackieh 3y ago
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  Looks like yoavweiss was slaughtered, not the good-faith nerds.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  I don't think they were. After reading this my view of this person is just a corporate drone. Obviously this proposal is to serve the content owners, not the users, whatever the thoughts behind it are. And yes it may not be intended to block adblockers but it certainly can easily be used for that once it's ubiquitous. Attestation which is basically what this is, always implies a move of some measure of control from the user to the content or service provider. It exists purely because they don't trust the user. There is just no way this would have ended positively. And why would I go into discussion with Google? They don't own the web and never will. And their business model means they (and their employees) will always be my enemy because their goals are opposite to my own. I can criticise but it doesn't have to be constructive. A "Just NO" is fine too. I would be very happy with a world where Google doesn't exist. But in this case the nerds won which means the way it was done worked perfectly fine. Perhaps they will have stepped on a few toes at Google but I'm kinda glad to hear that.
  - jppittma 3y ago
    Hey, look, it's the bad faith optics war again.
  - thaumaturgy 3y ago
    Even more simply: let's not get dragged into debating the technical merits of something which is philosophically wrong. That particular person was trying really hard to reframe the whole argument into terms that would work in Google's favor -- if we just pointed out what was technically wrong with the proposal, why, they'd just fix those things and then we'd be good to go. But, it was philosophically wrong, because we've all understood the web to be fundamentally open and anonymous and not controlled by any one entity [1] for decades and most of us want it to stay that way. Even if WEI was technically sound, it would still be an enormous erosion of the principles of an open, anonymous, decentralized web. Any attempt to argue against WEI on its technical merits alone was just allowing Google to drag the whole fight into favorable territory. > And why would I go into discussion with Google? They don't own the web and never will. Oh, I think this is a big mistake. Google very nearly does own the web. Gmail handles, at last estimates, between 45% and 60% of email traffic, depending on who you talk to. Chrome or Chromium gets somewhere around 65% of the global browser market. Google gets around 90% of search traffic. Google ads. Google domains. YouTube. Google Cloud, which WPEngine for example runs on. Google Docs. Chromebooks. Android. I really need more people to pause and reflect for a moment on just how much of the internet is currently owned by Google. [1]: Well, ignoring ICANN, or Microsoft, or Google, or Cisco, or...
msla 3y ago
So we can take that yoavweiss_ character as a Google representative.
- dylan604 3y ago
  if it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it must be a...
- mikestew 3y ago
  This person does not hide the fact that they work for Google (at least that's why take from their about page), so yes, they represent Google. Because if there's anything that was beaten into me in my time at Microsoft, it's that you can put all the "views are my own" in your posts you want, but probably most people that read your post will take you to represent $COMPANY's views no matter the disclaimers.
  - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    Which is why when I worked at Google the advice was basically STFU. You'll end up saying something you will regret in some fashion. Either make yourself look like an idiot, or the company, or both. But I quit so now I get to trash them all I want.
v147 3y ago
Vivaldi (from the 3rd link) also posted an update today: Hot off the press, we have learned that Google is not proceeding with its Web Integrity API. This is massively positive for the neutrality of the open Web. Though of course, with Google being so heavily driven by their interests rather than the benefit of the Web in general, it remains to be seen (and we strongly suspect it won’t take long) what they choose to replace it with. Are they, for example, just preparing a seemingly less obnoxious spec that is actually just as harmful to users (as they did with FLOC and Topics)? It also seems highly suspicious that it coincides with their very recent announcement to move from pay-per-click to pay-per-impression for ads. Generally, Google hasn’t shown itself to be a trustworthy custodian of the web and we can’t let this apparent victory lure us into resting on our laurels. As always, a strong diversity of browsers and browser engines is going to be crucial to counteract any future attempt by a single party to dictate the future of the web.

by lol768 3y ago

jjoonathan 3y ago

Oof, that hyper-aggressive whitewashing of the DRM proposal from yoavweiss_ was a harsh lesson in realpolitik. Nerds were bringing good faith arguments to a bad faith optics war and getting slaughtered.

belval 3y ago
For people wondering which of the links to click: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36857676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36857676 It's mostly just the classic "nono if you don't agree it's because you don't understand" and "please educate yourself" approach.
- whatshisface 3y ago
  At least they didn't try, "I don't have time to educate you about why you're bad!"
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  > "P.S. I'd love to discuss this with y'all like professional adults. Can we do that?" You can tell somebody is a snake when they aren't from the South but use "y'all". It's become a sort of corporate snake shibboleth.
  - jkaplowitz 3y ago
    Meh, it spreads a lot more broadly than the corporate snake people. And honestly I’ve never heard the corporate snakes use it myself (at least not before the example which you quoted), but I’m sure there are corporate snakes who do.
  - duxup 3y ago
    I certainly think that a lot but I sure as hell wouldn’t say it. It doesn’t help, that discussion never goes well.
  - dmoy 3y ago
    Uhhh, what? I use y'all 'cus that's how all the kids in my school talked growing up. I ditched a lot of the lexicon because after my family moved to the suburbs, I got made fun of by my new friends, literally calling me "less white". So no more finna', for example. I will die on the hill of having a good second person plural pronoun though.
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      Once you've used English with a second person plural pronoun, you can't go back. PS: "Yous guys" doesn't count
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      "y'all" is a bit fraught in the US because (incorrectly, in my opinion), in some parts the use is associated with certain unflattering cultural stereotypes. Not usually racial ones. > I will die on the hill of having a good second person plural pronoun though. I'm with you there -- we really need one, but I haven't found one that is broadly safe to use.
    - mcpackieh 3y ago
mixmastamyk 3y ago
Looks like yoavweiss was slaughtered, not the good-faith nerds.
wkat4242 3y ago
I don't think they were. After reading this my view of this person is just a corporate drone. Obviously this proposal is to serve the content owners, not the users, whatever the thoughts behind it are. And yes it may not be intended to block adblockers but it certainly can easily be used for that once it's ubiquitous. Attestation which is basically what this is, always implies a move of some measure of control from the user to the content or service provider. It exists purely because they don't trust the user. There is just no way this would have ended positively. And why would I go into discussion with Google? They don't own the web and never will. And their business model means they (and their employees) will always be my enemy because their goals are opposite to my own. I can criticise but it doesn't have to be constructive. A "Just NO" is fine too. I would be very happy with a world where Google doesn't exist. But in this case the nerds won which means the way it was done worked perfectly fine. Perhaps they will have stepped on a few toes at Google but I'm kinda glad to hear that.
- jppittma 3y ago
  Hey, look, it's the bad faith optics war again.
- thaumaturgy 3y ago
  Even more simply: let's not get dragged into debating the technical merits of something which is philosophically wrong. That particular person was trying really hard to reframe the whole argument into terms that would work in Google's favor -- if we just pointed out what was technically wrong with the proposal, why, they'd just fix those things and then we'd be good to go. But, it was philosophically wrong, because we've all understood the web to be fundamentally open and anonymous and not controlled by any one entity [1] for decades and most of us want it to stay that way. Even if WEI was technically sound, it would still be an enormous erosion of the principles of an open, anonymous, decentralized web. Any attempt to argue against WEI on its technical merits alone was just allowing Google to drag the whole fight into favorable territory. > And why would I go into discussion with Google? They don't own the web and never will. Oh, I think this is a big mistake. Google very nearly does own the web. Gmail handles, at last estimates, between 45% and 60% of email traffic, depending on who you talk to. Chrome or Chromium gets somewhere around 65% of the global browser market. Google gets around 90% of search traffic. Google ads. Google domains. YouTube. Google Cloud, which WPEngine for example runs on. Google Docs. Chromebooks. Android. I really need more people to pause and reflect for a moment on just how much of the internet is currently owned by Google. [1]: Well, ignoring ICANN, or Microsoft, or Google, or Cisco, or...

msla 3y ago

So we can take that yoavweiss_ character as a Google representative.

dylan604 3y ago
if it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it must be a...
mikestew 3y ago
This person does not hide the fact that they work for Google (at least that's why take from their about page), so yes, they represent Google. Because if there's anything that was beaten into me in my time at Microsoft, it's that you can put all the "views are my own" in your posts you want, but probably most people that read your post will take you to represent $COMPANY's views no matter the disclaimers.
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  Which is why when I worked at Google the advice was basically STFU. You'll end up saying something you will regret in some fashion. Either make yourself look like an idiot, or the company, or both. But I quit so now I get to trash them all I want.

v147 3y ago

Vivaldi (from the 3rd link) also posted an update today: Hot off the press, we have learned that Google is not proceeding with its Web Integrity API. This is massively positive for the neutrality of the open Web. Though of course, with Google being so heavily driven by their interests rather than the benefit of the Web in general, it remains to be seen (and we strongly suspect it won’t take long) what they choose to replace it with. Are they, for example, just preparing a seemingly less obnoxious spec that is actually just as harmful to users (as they did with FLOC and Topics)? It also seems highly suspicious that it coincides with their very recent announcement to move from pay-per-click to pay-per-impression for ads. Generally, Google hasn’t shown itself to be a trustworthy custodian of the web and we can’t let this apparent victory lure us into resting on our laurels. As always, a strong diversity of browsers and browser engines is going to be crucial to counteract any future attempt by a single party to dictate the future of the web.