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Google's Web DRM is Worse than I Thought...
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this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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TL;DW version?
It's basically all the bad things that tech writers have already warned about, except shit just got real. Google is actually shipping WEI in Chrome and large important sites and services are no longer working except in Chrome and with Goggle's blessing.
The author makes a very good comparison with Android, where you need a locked-down device and Google Services installed to be able to use Netflix, or your bank's services.
The rest of the article is a dive into what WEI claims to achieve vs what it's actually doing, and who it really benefits. Good read if you're still unclear about that.
Who’s already using this thing? I know Google ships it, but is anyone checking it yet
Logitech and multiple others are now blocking Firefox, for example.
That's a completely unrelated issue with Logitech. Firefox is "blocked" because it doesn't support WebUSB (nor does Safari). I understand this web DRM is bad tech and we want to be morally outraged, but spreading misinformation makes the Lemmy crowd look less like activists/enthusiasts and more like chicken little.
I can log on to logitech.com from Firefox just fine?
In what way? I was just now able to go to Logitech’s site on my Ubuntu laptop using Firefox with no discernible issues.
It's good odds that banks and streaming services are scrambling to implement it as we speak. You know they are. DRM is the perpetual wet dream for the music & film industry and for streaming services. And banks are paranoid as a matter of course.
It's going to be very hard to say no, especially since they can say "but Chrome is working on all platforms, nobody's pushing you out of anything". Will you drop stream subscriptions? Everybody loves to say they'll drop Netflix "as soon as they push me one more time", but what about a service you actually like? And what about banks, are those as easy to switch?
I've been through this for years now with Android and SafetyNet and it's a lot of hoops to have to jump through to stop being considered a second class user on your own device. It's going to suck extra bad when it comes to PC.
As for Google services themselves, I'm very curious to see in what order and how they choose to make WEI mandatory. Maybe not for Search and Gmail, at first, but what about accessing your Google Account, surely that must be secured? And YouTube of course, that's got DRM written all over it.
My way of saying “no” is going to be cancelling my subscription to whatever service implements this and then pirating and seeding as much of their content library as is feasible and will fit on my NAS.
Hope my bank likes paying people to answer my calls, because that's how I'll be interacting with them if I can't use a web page.
Yes, I’ve got one foot out the door already. Shits too expensive, they kill all the best shows, they take down movies and stuff before I get a chance to watch them. I don’t even have Netflix, in my opinion is one of the worse streamers. I cancelled HBO a couple months ago, I only have ESPN+ and Apple TV
If you’re not using a local bank or credit union I can’t help you, shit sucks and who is actually going to the branches anymore. Bank where old people bank.
Beyond that Google search is ass (everyone knows this) Gmail is fine but only because it’s “free”, you can easily switch to a cheap alternative. YouTube is the only compelling product Google has anymore and honestly I’ll just pay for nebula if I really care about losing it
Wait Nebula is actually built out? The YouTubers I listen to make it sound like it's in its early infancy.
It feels incredibly weird using Bing... I don't even use it as an FU to Google, it's just somehow weirdly a better search engine right now.
I use kagi, all that money I saved from not paying for cable (streaming) lol
Yeah nebula rules, (practical engineering legaleagle minute physics etc) I’m procrastinating dropping Apple TV for it but I figure as soon as I do I’ll be happy I did, YouTube isn’t so good anymore either. The other good one imo is dropout tv, it’s comedy and dnd type stuff with some surprisingly big names imo
The through line is that now figuring out streaming services is cheap enough that smaller companies can do it, so buying a streaming thing from a company the creators actually work for is a better business model for both viewers and creators than YouTube or other streaming platforms
Sounds like a Uoptian paradise. I just assumed there wouldn't be enough content for it ever to be worth it.
Things sure are dire when healthy competition feels utopian ;)
whether it's worth it is up to you I think, personally it's worth it to me but it's certainly possible that it's not for others, and that's ok! but the options exist, they're out there
I was looking for the same. No one is, yet.
Is this confirmed? Last I saw, it was still a proposal on github.
They ignored the objections to the proposal, pushed it directly into their tree and it's already live. I've had the prompt to enable it just today.
Switched to ff yesterday.
I'll switch to FF today and flood the support of whatever shit site is going into that. There will be so much drama to harvest. (I'll not insult any service employee as they just do their job)
I mean the next step is publicly shaming them but the last few years have shown that companies don't really care about that anymore. Not real encouraging tbh.
On what website?
Well, fuck.
Yeah, they pushed it in chrome very soon after the proposal made the rounds
It's pretty telling seeing as it happened so fast it must've predated the proposal. The proposal was super vague - if you take it (and their statements) at face value, this was a nebulous idea with none of the details ironed out.
And then like a week later, they push this update that would lock people out of sites? No way in hell they didn't test the crap out of this.
Nah, this is definitely being done in bad faith.
I was multitasking while watching but I'm pretty sure this is the idea.
Googles "web DRM" makes it impossible (or extremely difficult) to lie to a website about your browser, operating system, and whether or not you're human (or a bot). Websites can then use this info to deny access if they decide not to trust any of the info given.
This could easily be used to suppress the use of open source software which is probably why so many FOSS projects and foundations oppose it.
It doesn’t prove you’re not a bot though, only that the request is coming from a ‘genuine device’. You just need to pipe your malicious requests through a ‘real browser’ to get them approved and you’re set.
WEI could require secureboot, so you could no longer modify the OS or Chrome to "pipe" those requests.
How could I browser not know you're "piping" in commands tho? I don't know what qualifies as a bot but if input doesn't come from a keyboard or mouse they'll probably classify it as such.
DRM is easy to evade by those that want to evade it. I read something on mastodon the other day that was saying some cheater hackers are using direct hardware connections to their machines to cheat.
DRM makes it difficult for Joe six pack to easily pirate, use an ad-blocker, not use one of big brother's approved devices to get a paltry boner from watching Milf Island on Peacock, but it does nothing to people with the ways and means to get around these things...those evasive maneuvers are often illegal though.
DRM is a malignant technology just by its very nature, and this has been fought about for decades. But it's just simply not tenable to protect the content that is being replicated on demand by a customer paying for its replication from being replicated to others.
Seriously, think about how stupid the above is for a minute.
Couldn't agree more. The script kiddies might be out of luck but they'll just have to go back to side channels like torrents or Usenet where the experienced hackers show off the stuff they stole.
DRM in your web browser to forcibly require you to be running an "approved" browser (ie.: Chrome) in an "approved" configuration (ie.: no ad blockers) to load certain websites, and probably all major websites.
I love that bot that goes around and does it. No idea who made it etc but it's great.
Summon the bot!