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Google is already pushing Web Environment Integrity into Chromium (github.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The attester will then sign a token containing the attestation and content binding (referred to as the payload) with a private key. The attester then returns the token and signature to the web page. The attester’s public key is available to everyone to request.

— The explainer, section How it works.

Websites will ultimately decide if they trust the verdict returned from the attester. It is expected that the attesters will typically come from the operating system (platform) as a matter of practicality, however this explainer does not prescribe that. For example, multiple operating systems may choose to use the same attester. This explainer takes inspiration from existing native attestation signals such as App Attest and the Play Integrity API.

— The explainer, section Web environment integrity.

Now Julien Picalausa of Vivaldi browser theorizes as follows:

To make matters worse, the primary example given of an attester is Google Play on Android. This means Google decides which browser is trustworthy on its own platform. I do not see how they can be expected to be impartial.

On Windows, they would probably defer to Microsoft via the Windows Store, and on Mac, they would defer to Apple. So, we can expect that at least Edge and Safari are going to be trusted. Any other browser will be left to the good graces of those three companies.

Of course, you can note one glaring omission in the previous paragraph. What of Linux? Well, that is the big question. Will Linux be completely excluded from browsing the web? Or will Canonical become the decider by virtue of controlling the snaps package repositories? Who knows. But it’s not looking good for Linux.

So, AFAIU, if worst comes to worst you won't be able to run an unsigned browser and browse the web.

[–] FreeloadingSponger 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I still don't see why my open source browser can't just lie when it's sending a description of itself to the third party. The only way I could see it working is if that description needs to be encrypted by a key that's compiled in to a closed source browser, and then websites only accept requests from a few closed source browsers.

Is that what you're saying? That unless I have one of a couple accepted clients which are proprietary and closed source, websites just won't work?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It seems logical to assume that there would be no point to the whole thing if it was so easily avoided just by modifying your browser. Someone who's, for example, selling fake engagement (e.g., fake reviews), which is listed as one of the things Ben Wiser at al. want to prevent, will probably have enough technical expertise to use a modified browser that will circumvent WEI, so why would Google even bother?

[–] FreeloadingSponger 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To make it harder, even if not impossible, for the average user to ad block them.

Are you asking because you're not sure of the answer, or because you are, and you know that web integrity will require a pre-compiled closed source binary to browse the web?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

No, I'm not sure. It's possible that this is a benign technology, but many believe it's not, including people at Mozilla, people at Vivaldi, Cory Doctorow, Jay Freeman (aka "Saurik"), the developer of Cydia (via The Register), so I'm concerned.

This recent blog post also mentions the intent of disallowing unsigned software to browse the web. Perhaps you'll find it interesting.

[–] FreeloadingSponger 1 points 1 year ago

Okay, thanks.