Technology

37599 readers

275 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

278

Apple already shipped attestation on the web, and we barely noticed (httptoolkit.com)

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

91 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Apple has deployed a system called Private Access Tokens that allows web servers to verify if a device is legitimate before granting access. This works by having the browser request a signed token from Apple proving the device is approved. While this currently has limited impact due to Safari's market share, there are concerns that attestation systems restrict competition, user control, and innovation by only approving certain devices and software. Attestation could lead to approved providers tightening rules over time, blocking modified operating systems and browsers. While proponents argue for holdbacks to limit blocking, business pressures may make that infeasible and Google's existing attestation does not do holdbacks. Fundamentally, attestation is seen as anti-competitive by potentially blocking competition between browsers and operating systems on the web.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (4 children)

However unlike Google, CloudFlare doesn't have a history of killing off products just as users begin to adapt to them.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

CF has only been public for a few years. Give it a decade and I'm sure they'll be just as evil as Google.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Public companies will always screw you in the end. It's part of their fundemental design

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That’s not why Google is harmful though - they’re harmful because almost all of their revenue comes from advertising - everything else they offer is just a funnel to gain data on the worlds population in order to better target advertising.

As for cloudflare - they showed their true colours last year with kiwifarms. They’ll happily host the worst websites in the world as long as they don’t get bad press.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

Slight correction, generally cloudflare doesn’t host any sites (this is untrue in specific circumstances, but in your example they certainly didn’t host the site) - they just sit in front of existing sites and store some static assets, otherwise acting like a transparent reverse proxy.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The main risk with Cloudflare is that if they think your device is malicious, it gets very hard to browse the internet, as every site hosted behind Cloudflare starts showing CAPTCHAs or rate limiting you. This could get worse if new APIs that determine if you're legit don't like you for whatever reason.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

That still however doesn't relieve them. Whether they've killed of less products, IMHO still leaves them at the position that they route MASSIVE amounts of the entire internet.

One point of failure or control is still a big risk, no matter how you turn it