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Remote attestation is not just insane, it's the technology that will end free computing as we know it today. What good is free software if using it marks our d

Remote attestation is not just insane, it's the technology that will end free computing as we know it today. What good is free software if using it marks our devices as untrusted and gets us banned from every service out there? Gets us ostracized from digital society? Because we "tampered" with the device? We should be able to run whatever software we want and they should be none the wiser. Instead, we are part of the threat model now. Our devices are now cryptographically attesting that they are corporate owned and that we are under corporate control. It's so disgusting. The future we're heading towards is terrifying. Everything the word hacker ever stood for will be destroyed if this keeps up.

Cider9986 4mo ago
It can be used for security and used privately [1] but I entirely agree with you, Google's use of it is anti-competitive and terrible. [1] attestation.app
- preisschild 4mo ago
  Yeah same as TPM and Secureboot. They can improve your own personal security (and thereby privacy) drastically, but it has to be controlled by the user.
- matheusmoreira 4mo ago
  It's all about who owns the keys and who trusts those keys. If you don't have the keys to "your" computer, then you don't own that computer, you're just renting it from the corporation. And even if our own keys could be used, who's going to trust those attestations? Nobody. They will trust Google's keys, Microsoft's keys, Apple's keys. Not ours.
  - teravor 4mo ago
    the intent is that no one owns those keys, your silicon should be the only entity in "possession" of those keys. but no one uses blind signatures for attestation so it can be used to fingerprint your device's serial. they do try to make it hard. but generally you should assume that if whoever you are attesting to colludes with google they will obtain your HWID - and if it's google you are attesting to you should assume they have your HWID. GOS uses a proxy for attestation, but it does absolutely nothing for this threat model. PS: DRM is even worse, there is no intermediary and the APIs are open to all apps. you probably need to be a well resourced intel agency to make use of it as you need to source a valid DRM license server certificate. technically, actual license servers are in violation of their agreements with google, apple, etc if they use the license request for fingerprinting. but they do retain the ability to blacklist silicon (invalidate pirate devices from pirated media watermarks).
charcircuit 4mo ago
>What good is free software if using it marks our devices as untrusted That is not what remote attestation is for. The operating system maintains isolation between apps, so a free software app being installed doesn't mean an app that needs high security is compromised.
- marmarama 4mo ago
  I think you've misunderstood. It's not an app problem. The problem is that it makes Free Software OSes unviable. The copy of Android you compile and install yourself - or your copy of desktop Linux where you upgraded the kernel yourself - will never pass remote attestation, and it gives both the attestation provider and software that checks attestation the ability to unilaterally shut out any OS they like with no workaround, even those that do pass attestation. In a world of deeply untrustworthy Big Tech, and trend of governments, banks and other basic services needed to exist in society relying on apps and in the future, websites that use remote attestation, that is very troubling. There are better ways of dealing with the bad actors problem, but Big Tech has chosen violence.
  - floam 4mo ago
    I don’t see how it’s incompatible with open source, just because my development builds aren’t being blessed.
    - dpark 4mo ago
      It’s not incompatible with open source. It’s incompatible with free software. If Apple or Google or Microsoft or the government needs to “bless” your build, then you have no freedom to actually use your build.
    - marmarama 4mo ago
      Your "development build" is another person's daily driver. Case in point: GrapheneOS (or any other custom Android distro) is unlikely to be able to ever pass remote attestation, even a signed, secure boot build with the bootloader relocked, because it's not the original OS for the hardware. Same goes for any desktop Linux.
myaccountonhn 4mo ago
You'll probably just need to keep two phones. One hostile spying device that you use for authenticating and dealing with government stuff, and that becomes e-waste every 2 years. Then you have one that you can repair and extend for your own stuff that respects you and your privacy.
- collabs 4mo ago
  I am doing this now. I have had a carrier locked iPhone SE 2020 which I only use on Wi-Fi for over five years now. I also have an android phone and I don't install any banking apps on my android phone.

Cider9986 4mo ago

It can be used for security and used privately [1] but I entirely agree with you, Google's use of it is anti-competitive and terrible. [1] attestation.app

preisschild 4mo ago
Yeah same as TPM and Secureboot. They can improve your own personal security (and thereby privacy) drastically, but it has to be controlled by the user.
matheusmoreira 4mo ago
It's all about who owns the keys and who trusts those keys. If you don't have the keys to "your" computer, then you don't own that computer, you're just renting it from the corporation. And even if our own keys could be used, who's going to trust those attestations? Nobody. They will trust Google's keys, Microsoft's keys, Apple's keys. Not ours.
- teravor 4mo ago
  the intent is that no one owns those keys, your silicon should be the only entity in "possession" of those keys. but no one uses blind signatures for attestation so it can be used to fingerprint your device's serial. they do try to make it hard. but generally you should assume that if whoever you are attesting to colludes with google they will obtain your HWID - and if it's google you are attesting to you should assume they have your HWID. GOS uses a proxy for attestation, but it does absolutely nothing for this threat model. PS: DRM is even worse, there is no intermediary and the APIs are open to all apps. you probably need to be a well resourced intel agency to make use of it as you need to source a valid DRM license server certificate. technically, actual license servers are in violation of their agreements with google, apple, etc if they use the license request for fingerprinting. but they do retain the ability to blacklist silicon (invalidate pirate devices from pirated media watermarks).

charcircuit 4mo ago

>What good is free software if using it marks our devices as untrusted That is not what remote attestation is for. The operating system maintains isolation between apps, so a free software app being installed doesn't mean an app that needs high security is compromised.

marmarama 4mo ago
I think you've misunderstood. It's not an app problem. The problem is that it makes Free Software OSes unviable. The copy of Android you compile and install yourself - or your copy of desktop Linux where you upgraded the kernel yourself - will never pass remote attestation, and it gives both the attestation provider and software that checks attestation the ability to unilaterally shut out any OS they like with no workaround, even those that do pass attestation. In a world of deeply untrustworthy Big Tech, and trend of governments, banks and other basic services needed to exist in society relying on apps and in the future, websites that use remote attestation, that is very troubling. There are better ways of dealing with the bad actors problem, but Big Tech has chosen violence.
- floam 4mo ago
  I don’t see how it’s incompatible with open source, just because my development builds aren’t being blessed.
  - dpark 4mo ago
    It’s not incompatible with open source. It’s incompatible with free software. If Apple or Google or Microsoft or the government needs to “bless” your build, then you have no freedom to actually use your build.
  - marmarama 4mo ago
    Your "development build" is another person's daily driver. Case in point: GrapheneOS (or any other custom Android distro) is unlikely to be able to ever pass remote attestation, even a signed, secure boot build with the bootloader relocked, because it's not the original OS for the hardware. Same goes for any desktop Linux.

myaccountonhn 4mo ago

You'll probably just need to keep two phones. One hostile spying device that you use for authenticating and dealing with government stuff, and that becomes e-waste every 2 years. Then you have one that you can repair and extend for your own stuff that respects you and your privacy.

collabs 4mo ago
I am doing this now. I have had a carrier locked iPhone SE 2020 which I only use on Wi-Fi for over five years now. I also have an android phone and I don't install any banking apps on my android phone.