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TFA is about more than just WEI, but it does address it directly: > We’ve heard your feedback, and the Web Environment Integrity proposal is no longer being co

TFA is about more than just WEI, but it does address it directly: > We’ve heard your feedback, and the Web Environment Integrity proposal is no longer being considered by the Chrome team. In contrast, the Android WebView Media Integrity API is narrowly scoped, and only targets WebViews embedded in apps. It simply extends existing functionality on Android devices that have Google Mobile Services (GMS) and there are no plans to offer it beyond embedded media, such as streaming video and audio, or beyond Android WebViews. This is really great to hear, thank you Chrome team! Is there a risk that this is one of those "shelve it for 6 months and we'll try again later" playbooks, and that already having the implementation will make it just "an expansion" of existing tech rather than "new" tech, which will make the pill easier for most people to swallow even though it gets to the same end result?

iofiiiiiiiii 3y ago
What does your heart tell you? Palladium[1] came and went and then suddenly most laptops and mobile devices have a built-in TPM today. No doubt history will repeat. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next-Generation_Secure_Computing_Base https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next-Generation_Secure_Computi...
- jorvi 3y ago
  Uhm… what? Your beef is with things like Pluton, Intel’s ME and AMD’s PSP. TPM at their base are nothing else than a more secure place to store cryptographic data.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    It's a place that applications can store such data without my knowledge or control, and I don't trust applications enough to be comfortable with them having that ability. Don't get me wrong, it's not a major issue for me, it's just uncomfortable. It just means I prefer my machines to not have TPM hardware in them.
    - Arainach 3y ago
      I don't trust applications enough to have things like the encryption key for my hard drive outside a TPM.
      - marklar423 3y ago
        I don't disagree, but how do you feel about you (the machine owner) also not having access to it? That's my major problem with it; it locks you out of messing with your own machine data, which you can see being instantly abused by third parties to prevent modifications.
        acdha 3y ago
        That feels wrong in some ways but it’s also the only way you can trust used hardware, or anything which has been compromised. I do get considerable value out of the resale value for my stolen Apple devices being much lower, and that’s probably a higher risk for most people.
        josephg 3y ago
        TPM chips are pretty open. I had a look through the spec & API for tpm 2.0 a few years ago and there’s a lot of neat tricks you can do with them. TPM chips are an open standard with many implementations. As far as I can tell, as a software developer you have full access to the chip. The only thing you can’t do with them (by design) is read the signing keys or generate secure boot attestations for machines which didn’t secure boot. I think you can even replace the signing keys entirely if you want to. They aren’t a hard drive. They don’t store your data. And unfortunately I don’t think they’ll do much to prevent software bugs from causing problems. Particularly in the operating system, where software bugs can undermine the entire chain of trust model. Don’t get me wrong; the idea of getting my computer to cryptographically prove it’s running in some locked down Xbox mode to be allowed to play Netflix or do online banking is quite the ask. The hackability of computers is one of their best features and I don’t want that genie to go back in the bottle. But every time the conversation comes up there’s so much misinformation about them. People conflate tpm chips with intel’s management engine (which is secret and closed source), Apple’s secure enclosure (which I think can store some data?) and other stuff that works really differently.
  - appleskeptic 3y ago
    Don’t forget that the anti-TPM stuff comes from the guy, RMS, who opposes “sudo” because it serves to let a machine owner control and audit use of super-user commands, whereas just having a root password shared by multiple users gives anyone who learns the password the freedom to do whatever they want with plausible deniability. He has a very strange and quaint way of thinking but people uncritically parrot him without appreciating what his world-view actually entails.
    - clowncity 3y ago
      [flagged]
    - claytongulick 3y ago
      Given that RMS has a pretty good track record or predicting the kinds of abuses that we're seeing today, it seems like a good idea to at least pay attention to his ideas and not dismiss them out of hand. Also, you know, GNU.
    - alexjplant 3y ago
      For those that would appreciate context: Stallman did say this but the incident that he cites as justification happened _four decades ago_ and he wrote about it in 2002 [1]: > Sometimes a few of the users try to hold total power over all the rest. For example, in 1984, a few users at the MIT AI lab decided to seize power by changing the operator password on the Twenex system and keeping it secret from everyone else. (I was able to thwart this coup and give power back to the users by patching the kernel, but I wouldn't know how to do that in Unix.) > However, occasionally the rulers do tell someone. Under the usual su mechanism, once someone learns the root password who sympathizes with the ordinary users, he or she can tell the rest. The "wheel group" feature would make this impossible, and thus cement the power of the rulers. > I'm on the side of the masses, not that of the rulers. If you are used to supporting the bosses and sysadmins in whatever they do, you might find this idea strange at first. He was talking about a time-sharing system in an academic context. We have no idea what his thoughts are now, and it's logically fallacious to discount his feelings on what multinational corporations bake into their silicon on the basis of an experience that he had back when Van Halen was still topping the charts. It isn't exactly a secret that RMS is a bit "out there" - lots of historically-significant people are. Contextualizing their work and speech in a constructive way is preferable to writing them off wholesale. [1] https://ftp.gnu.org/old-gnu/Manuals/coreutils-4.5.4/html_node/coreutils_149.html https://ftp.gnu.org/old-gnu/Manuals/coreutils-4.5.4/html_nod...
  - RockRobotRock 3y ago
    Yeah. Intel SGX seems kinda similar and is or at least was used for DRM.
  - userbinator 3y ago
    TPM at their base are nothing else than a more secure place to store cryptographic data. One which you, as the owner, don't have the keys to.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - vlovich123 3y ago
      If you use a mobile device maybe. My desktop machine has a TPM and AFAIK I do have access to load my own keys / replace the root keys. Of course, nothing says there isn't a backdoor within the TPM, but it's not this secret locked down thing.
      - cryptonector 3y ago
        It's unlikely that there is a backdoor on the TPM itself. The more likely scenario is that given a TPM serial number or EKpub the vendor could furnish a seed in response to a subpoena or warrant -- however, even this is unlikely, as it would make TPM vendors huge targets for hacking. Also TPM vendors make a big deal of how they don't keep TPMs' seeds, and I tend to believe them, because again if they did keep them then they'd be huge targets.
        mcpackieh 3y ago
        "Crypto AG's products being compromised is extremely unlikely, because that would make them a huge target."
        cryptonector 3y ago
        Good point!
    - gray_charger 3y ago
      > One which you, as the owner, don't have the keys to. One which nobody, not even the owner, can extract keys from. I don't understand why people don't like the fact that they can't pull keys out of the TPM. If you, the owner, can pull them so can anybody else. I know TPMs aren't invulnerable but you have to admit they significantly raise the bar of compromise.
- raverbashing 3y ago
  Yes and according to discussions at that time Palladium would be always on, on all PCs and it would banish Linux from all PCs making Windows the some possible OS.. Which is totally what happened, right? /s
  - userbinator 3y ago
    and it would banish Linux from all PCs making Windows the some possible OS We're getting closer to that with things like "secure" boot. Fortunately that can still be disabled, but MS even required that on ARM platforms it can't. The bigger Linux distros have bent over and gotten MS to sign their bootloaders, essentially making them at the mercy of MS.
    - c0pium 3y ago
      This is a weird way to describe an open, transparent standard. https://wiki.debian.org/SecureBoot#What_is_UEFI_Secure_Boot_NOT.3F https://wiki.debian.org/SecureBoot#What_is_UEFI_Secure_Boot_...
      - LoganDark 3y ago
        It doesn't matter how open and transparent the standard is if part of the de facto implementation is that Microsoft is the only one with the keys. Some BIOSes let you enter your own Secure Boot keys (like my desktop and laptop), but not all.
    - Analemma_ 3y ago
      I’ve complained about this before, but I’ve been hearing “Microsoft is going to block you from installing Linux!” since like 2004, when it was a reliable way to get an easy “+5 Insightful” on Slashdot. It hasn’t happened, even on Microsoft’s own first-party computers. At this point I think it’s firmly FUD and the people who say it’s coming any second now need to put up the evidence. Microsoft doesn’t seem to care, especially now that Windows is an afterthought to Azure, O365, etc.
      - 3y ago
lagrange77 3y ago
Hallelujah
mixmastamyk 3y ago
> Is there a risk that this is one of those "shelve it for 6 months and we'll try again later" playbooks...? Odd way to phrase a sure thing. The "war on general purpose computing" is real and fought continuously by the powers that be. I believe Doctorow has one of the important works on the subject.
nonrandomstring 3y ago
It'll be back, in another form. Pay no attention to specific projects and proposals that are offered and withdrawn. Look at the bigger picture over a longer time-frame and ask; what are the forces acting within and upon an entity? Meadows' leverage points taxonomy can be used analytically as well as instrumentally. What are the values behind misadventures like WEI ? Google want to own your browser and infiltrate as much of the client-side as they can. What other technical avenues and regulations can they make politically expedient use of? To fight this abuse don't attack proposals, projects, or even behaviours. Study and attack their core values. What are they really about?
- mlyle 3y ago
  Sometimes what you're describing is a valid approach-- once a pattern is clear. This is looking pretty reasonable for Google. But it seems like a bit of a toxic, pessimistic response in general. There's other times where a party just screws up. e.g. Apple's CSAM-- once the industry educated them, they took a very different tack. There was no fundamental structural or cultural issue pushing them towards the problematic choices.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    > There's other times where a party just screws up. e.g. Apple's CSAM Did Apple really screw up? Their proposal is pretty much what the EU and UK governments want now :( I think they screwed up because to have my own phone spying on me is unthinkable and I would never have considered another Apple product again. But politics seem to like the idea.
    - PaulHoule 3y ago
      Those governments are mostly coming around as to why that’s a bad idea.
      - wkat4242 3y ago
        I don't think so, I think they're just regrouping to find another approach to push it through.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

iofiiiiiiiii 3y ago

What does your heart tell you? Palladium[1] came and went and then suddenly most laptops and mobile devices have a built-in TPM today. No doubt history will repeat. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next-Generation_Secure_Computing_Base https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next-Generation_Secure_Computi...

jorvi 3y ago
Uhm… what? Your beef is with things like Pluton, Intel’s ME and AMD’s PSP. TPM at their base are nothing else than a more secure place to store cryptographic data.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  It's a place that applications can store such data without my knowledge or control, and I don't trust applications enough to be comfortable with them having that ability. Don't get me wrong, it's not a major issue for me, it's just uncomfortable. It just means I prefer my machines to not have TPM hardware in them.
  - Arainach 3y ago
    I don't trust applications enough to have things like the encryption key for my hard drive outside a TPM.
    - marklar423 3y ago
      I don't disagree, but how do you feel about you (the machine owner) also not having access to it? That's my major problem with it; it locks you out of messing with your own machine data, which you can see being instantly abused by third parties to prevent modifications.
      - acdha 3y ago
        That feels wrong in some ways but it’s also the only way you can trust used hardware, or anything which has been compromised. I do get considerable value out of the resale value for my stolen Apple devices being much lower, and that’s probably a higher risk for most people.
      - josephg 3y ago
        TPM chips are pretty open. I had a look through the spec & API for tpm 2.0 a few years ago and there’s a lot of neat tricks you can do with them. TPM chips are an open standard with many implementations. As far as I can tell, as a software developer you have full access to the chip. The only thing you can’t do with them (by design) is read the signing keys or generate secure boot attestations for machines which didn’t secure boot. I think you can even replace the signing keys entirely if you want to. They aren’t a hard drive. They don’t store your data. And unfortunately I don’t think they’ll do much to prevent software bugs from causing problems. Particularly in the operating system, where software bugs can undermine the entire chain of trust model. Don’t get me wrong; the idea of getting my computer to cryptographically prove it’s running in some locked down Xbox mode to be allowed to play Netflix or do online banking is quite the ask. The hackability of computers is one of their best features and I don’t want that genie to go back in the bottle. But every time the conversation comes up there’s so much misinformation about them. People conflate tpm chips with intel’s management engine (which is secret and closed source), Apple’s secure enclosure (which I think can store some data?) and other stuff that works really differently.
- appleskeptic 3y ago
  Don’t forget that the anti-TPM stuff comes from the guy, RMS, who opposes “sudo” because it serves to let a machine owner control and audit use of super-user commands, whereas just having a root password shared by multiple users gives anyone who learns the password the freedom to do whatever they want with plausible deniability. He has a very strange and quaint way of thinking but people uncritically parrot him without appreciating what his world-view actually entails.
  - clowncity 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - claytongulick 3y ago
    Given that RMS has a pretty good track record or predicting the kinds of abuses that we're seeing today, it seems like a good idea to at least pay attention to his ideas and not dismiss them out of hand. Also, you know, GNU.
  - alexjplant 3y ago
    For those that would appreciate context: Stallman did say this but the incident that he cites as justification happened _four decades ago_ and he wrote about it in 2002 [1]: > Sometimes a few of the users try to hold total power over all the rest. For example, in 1984, a few users at the MIT AI lab decided to seize power by changing the operator password on the Twenex system and keeping it secret from everyone else. (I was able to thwart this coup and give power back to the users by patching the kernel, but I wouldn't know how to do that in Unix.) > However, occasionally the rulers do tell someone. Under the usual su mechanism, once someone learns the root password who sympathizes with the ordinary users, he or she can tell the rest. The "wheel group" feature would make this impossible, and thus cement the power of the rulers. > I'm on the side of the masses, not that of the rulers. If you are used to supporting the bosses and sysadmins in whatever they do, you might find this idea strange at first. He was talking about a time-sharing system in an academic context. We have no idea what his thoughts are now, and it's logically fallacious to discount his feelings on what multinational corporations bake into their silicon on the basis of an experience that he had back when Van Halen was still topping the charts. It isn't exactly a secret that RMS is a bit "out there" - lots of historically-significant people are. Contextualizing their work and speech in a constructive way is preferable to writing them off wholesale. [1] https://ftp.gnu.org/old-gnu/Manuals/coreutils-4.5.4/html_node/coreutils_149.html https://ftp.gnu.org/old-gnu/Manuals/coreutils-4.5.4/html_nod...
- RockRobotRock 3y ago
  Yeah. Intel SGX seems kinda similar and is or at least was used for DRM.
- userbinator 3y ago
  TPM at their base are nothing else than a more secure place to store cryptographic data. One which you, as the owner, don't have the keys to.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - vlovich123 3y ago
    If you use a mobile device maybe. My desktop machine has a TPM and AFAIK I do have access to load my own keys / replace the root keys. Of course, nothing says there isn't a backdoor within the TPM, but it's not this secret locked down thing.
    - cryptonector 3y ago
      It's unlikely that there is a backdoor on the TPM itself. The more likely scenario is that given a TPM serial number or EKpub the vendor could furnish a seed in response to a subpoena or warrant -- however, even this is unlikely, as it would make TPM vendors huge targets for hacking. Also TPM vendors make a big deal of how they don't keep TPMs' seeds, and I tend to believe them, because again if they did keep them then they'd be huge targets.
      - mcpackieh 3y ago
        "Crypto AG's products being compromised is extremely unlikely, because that would make them a huge target."
        cryptonector 3y ago
        Good point!
  - gray_charger 3y ago
    > One which you, as the owner, don't have the keys to. One which nobody, not even the owner, can extract keys from. I don't understand why people don't like the fact that they can't pull keys out of the TPM. If you, the owner, can pull them so can anybody else. I know TPMs aren't invulnerable but you have to admit they significantly raise the bar of compromise.
raverbashing 3y ago
Yes and according to discussions at that time Palladium would be always on, on all PCs and it would banish Linux from all PCs making Windows the some possible OS.. Which is totally what happened, right? /s
- userbinator 3y ago
  and it would banish Linux from all PCs making Windows the some possible OS We're getting closer to that with things like "secure" boot. Fortunately that can still be disabled, but MS even required that on ARM platforms it can't. The bigger Linux distros have bent over and gotten MS to sign their bootloaders, essentially making them at the mercy of MS.
  - c0pium 3y ago
    This is a weird way to describe an open, transparent standard. https://wiki.debian.org/SecureBoot#What_is_UEFI_Secure_Boot_NOT.3F https://wiki.debian.org/SecureBoot#What_is_UEFI_Secure_Boot_...
    - LoganDark 3y ago
      It doesn't matter how open and transparent the standard is if part of the de facto implementation is that Microsoft is the only one with the keys. Some BIOSes let you enter your own Secure Boot keys (like my desktop and laptop), but not all.
  - Analemma_ 3y ago
    I’ve complained about this before, but I’ve been hearing “Microsoft is going to block you from installing Linux!” since like 2004, when it was a reliable way to get an easy “+5 Insightful” on Slashdot. It hasn’t happened, even on Microsoft’s own first-party computers. At this point I think it’s firmly FUD and the people who say it’s coming any second now need to put up the evidence. Microsoft doesn’t seem to care, especially now that Windows is an afterthought to Azure, O365, etc.
    - 3y ago

lagrange77 3y ago

Hallelujah

mixmastamyk 3y ago

> Is there a risk that this is one of those "shelve it for 6 months and we'll try again later" playbooks...? Odd way to phrase a sure thing. The "war on general purpose computing" is real and fought continuously by the powers that be. I believe Doctorow has one of the important works on the subject.

nonrandomstring 3y ago

It'll be back, in another form. Pay no attention to specific projects and proposals that are offered and withdrawn. Look at the bigger picture over a longer time-frame and ask; what are the forces acting within and upon an entity? Meadows' leverage points taxonomy can be used analytically as well as instrumentally. What are the values behind misadventures like WEI ? Google want to own your browser and infiltrate as much of the client-side as they can. What other technical avenues and regulations can they make politically expedient use of? To fight this abuse don't attack proposals, projects, or even behaviours. Study and attack their core values. What are they really about?

mlyle 3y ago
Sometimes what you're describing is a valid approach-- once a pattern is clear. This is looking pretty reasonable for Google. But it seems like a bit of a toxic, pessimistic response in general. There's other times where a party just screws up. e.g. Apple's CSAM-- once the industry educated them, they took a very different tack. There was no fundamental structural or cultural issue pushing them towards the problematic choices.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  > There's other times where a party just screws up. e.g. Apple's CSAM Did Apple really screw up? Their proposal is pretty much what the EU and UK governments want now :( I think they screwed up because to have my own phone spying on me is unthinkable and I would never have considered another Apple product again. But politics seem to like the idea.
  - PaulHoule 3y ago
    Those governments are mostly coming around as to why that’s a bad idea.
    - wkat4242 3y ago
      I don't think so, I think they're just regrouping to find another approach to push it through.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]