DesolateKnight

[VGP Video Games Plus @VideoGamesPlus_]

VGP Glitch Giveaway Time! Do A Barrel Roll!

Glitch is giving away a copy of Starfox Nintendo Switch 2 and the whole plush crew! Fox, Falco, Peppy, Slippy and her sticker!

RT, Like and Follow VGP to enter for a chance to win.

Winner announced June 25, 2026!

[Physical Forever 🎮👾🕹 @ForeverPhysical]

1/4 It’s June! But that won’t stop us from making a MONDAY MORNING BOYCOTT POST! Today we have the Gothic Remake, which was going to be awesome until the developers announced there is a MANDATORY 5GB Download for their physical editions for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.

[DBL MP / Double @dbl_mp1]

Wrong. They share the goal of introducing a censorveillance state. This has NOTHING to do with protecting kids.

Age Verification methods aren't even proven to work, introduce higher risks of data leaks, and are opposed by hundreds of scientists:

[Pirat_Nation 🔴 @Pirat_Nation]

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Discord to push for mandatory age verification for all users.

If successful, people may have to upload a government-issued ID, complete a facial scan, and pass identity checks before they can create or access an account.

Discord previously suffered a data breach that reportedly exposed tens of thousands of uploaded ID documents.

[GrapheneOS @GrapheneOS]

Apple and Google are gradually expanding their use of hardware-based attestation. They're convincing a growing number of services to adopt it. Google's Play Integrity API and Apple's App Attest API are very similar. Apple brought it to the web via Privacy Pass, which Google intends on doing too.

Google's Play Integrity API requires hardware attestation for the strong integrity level and is gradually phasing in requiring it for the more commonly used device integrity level. Apple already has it as a requirement. Over the long term, this will increasingly lock out hardware and OS competition.

The purpose of these systems is disallowing people from using hardware and software not approved by Apple or Google. This is wrongly presented as being a security feature. Banks and government services are the main ones adopting it but Apple and Google are encouraging every service to use it.

Apple's Privacy Pass brought hardware attestation to the web to help with passing captchas on their own hardware. Many people saw that as harmless since few sites would be willing to lock out non-Apple-hardware users. Apple and Google are both likely to bring broader hardware attestation to the web.

Google's reCAPTCHA is planning an approach where they use Privacy Pass on Apple hardware, their own approach on Google Mobile Services Android devices and a QR code scanning system to require an iOS or Google certified Android device for Windows and other systems:

https://t.co/7rQnioRa8A

Banking and government services increasingly require using a mobile app where they can use attestation to force using an Apple or Google approved device and OS. Apple's privacy pass, Google's 'cancelled' Web Environment Integrity and now reCAPTCHA Mobile Verification are bringing this to the web.

Current media coverage for reCAPTCHA Mobile Verification misunderstands it and the impact of it. They're bringing a hardware attestation requirement to Windows, desktop Linux, OpenBSD, etc. by requiring a QR scan from a certified smartphone to pass reCAPTCHA in some cases. They could expand it more.

Control over reCAPTCHA puts Google in a position where they can require having either iOS or a certified Android device to use an enormous amount of the web. Google defines certification requirements for Android which includes forcing bundling Google Chrome, etc. It's enormously anti-competitive.

Google's Play Integrity API bans using GrapheneOS despite it being far more secure than anything they permit. It also bans using any other alternative. This isn't somehow specific to an AOSP-based OS. You can't avoid this by using a mobile OS based on FreeBSD instead. You'll just be more locked out.

Google's Play Integrity API permits devices with no security patches for 10 years. The device integrity level can be bypassed via spoofing but they can detect it quite well and block it once it starts being done at scale. The strong integrity level requires leaked keys from TEEs/SEs to bypass it.

It doesn't provide a useful security feature, but it does lock out competition very well. Services requiring Apple App Attest or Google Play Integrity are primarily helping to lock in Apple and Google having a duopoly for mobile devices. Play Integrity is more relevant due to AOSP being open source.

Governments are increasingly mandating using Apple's App Attest and Google's Play Integrity for not only their own services but also commercial services. The EU is leading the charge of making these requirements for digital payments, ID, age verification, etc. Many EU government apps require them.

Instead of governments stopping Apple and Google from engaging in egregiously anti-competitive behavior, they're directly participating in locking out competition via their own services. Requiring people to have an Apple device or Google-certified Android device is anti-competition, not security.

reCAPTCHA Mobile Verification will currently work with sandboxed Google Play on GrapheneOS but it clearly exists to provide a way for them to start using hardware attestation on systems without it. People without an iOS or Android device will be locked out when this is required even without that.

This isn't about security or any missing functionality. GrapheneOS can be verified via hardware attestation. Google bans using GrapheneOS for Play Integrity because we don't license Google Mobile Services and conform to anti-competitive rules already found to be illegal in South Korea and elsewhere.

Services shouldn't ban people from using arbitrary hardware and operating systems in the first place. Google's security excuse is clearly bogus when they permit devices with no patches for 10 years but not a much more secure OS. It's for enforcing their monopolies via GMS licensing, that's all.

[Reclaim The Net @ReclaimTheNetHQ]

The FCC wants to require ID verification for every phone activation in America, including prepaid phones.

Those are the phones journalists, abuse survivors, and whistleblowers depend on to stay anonymous. The excuse is robocalls.

The result is a national identity check on one of the last semi-anonymous communication tools we have.

https://t.co/7ILbco1qpd

[Does it play? @DoesItPlay1]

Woke up to the news of a PlayStation "spokesperson" giving a statement to Gamespot about the new DRM. Doesn't say anything new. Still doesn't comment on the CBOMB that turns your console into an always-online experience for new purchases. At the very least for the initial 14 days

[Reclaim The Net @ReclaimTheNetHQ]

France's government ID portal just lost up to 19 million records. Names, DOBs, addresses, phone numbers, logins. A third of the country, sitting in a criminal forum listing.

This is the same government lobbying for encryption backdoors and mandatory digital ID. They can't protect what they already have.

https://t.co/2aDHNuim4m

[Ryan T. Brown 🎮🩷 @Toadsanime]

This is absolutely horrific.

We are truly going backwards when it comes to games preservation, ownership, and continued access.

There's a lawsuit waiting to happen here. An online license check every 30 days?

I hate to say it, but physical games remain absolutely vital.

[BuBBliK @k1rallik]

do you understand what happened to PlayStation yesterday..

They quietly turned your game purchases into a 30-day subscription.
No announcement.. No warning..

You didn't rent it.. You BOUGHT it.

→ Every new PSN purchase now has a 30-day validation timer
→ Timer hits zero = game locked
→ CMOS battery dies = game locked
→ No internet for a month = game locked
→ Even FREE demos have the timer now

Game bought March 2nd? No timer. Works forever..
Game bought April 24th? Expires May 24th..

They didn't patch a bug. They shipped this on purpose.

Digital ownership just died. They didn't even tell you.

[Pirat_Nation 🔴 @Pirat_Nation]

Playstation has rolled out DRM on PS4/PS5 Digital games requiring online check-in every 30 days

Newly purchased digital games now need to connect to PlayStation Network every 30 days to verify the license.

If the console stays offline for more than 30 days, the game may stop working until an internet connection is made.

Games you already owned before this change are not affected.

[Glenn Meder @GlennMeder]

🧵 THREAD

1/ They are coming for open source software.

Not by banning it. By requiring identity verification for anyone who contributes code.

No more anonymous developers. No more pseudonymous contributors. No more building tools without attaching your real name and government ID to every line of code you write.

If they can identify every developer, they can control what gets built. And if they can control what gets built, they can stop anything that threatens their power.

[DBL MP / Double @dbl_mp1]

hey so this is straight up a violation of our 1st and 4th? How the frick did this pass??

[Proton Mail @ProtonMail]

→ Google makes Android.
→ Google makes Gmail.
→ Google makes YouTube.
→ Google runs the ad infrastructure that monetizes your child's attention across the entire web.

Congress: "We think Google should be in charge of verifying your child's digital identity"

[Secure Privacy @SecurePrivacyAI]

"Just opt out."

The opt-out requires:

— finding it (buried)
— understanding it (legal)
— repeating it (it resets)
— doing it for 4,000 data brokers individually

Opting out is a full-time job designed to never get done.

[Proton @ProtonPrivacy]

Age verification sounds reasonable until you realize it means every adult hands over their ID just to go online.

We wrote about why this is a terrible idea and what should happen instead.
https://t.co/vj0bjwHn1J

[Roman Semenov 🌪️ @semenov_roman_]

The "Age Verification" is a trojan horse law, it is not about age or even privacy! It's the power for the government to decide who is allowed to use computers and cell phones. Once infrastructure is in place, it can be (and will be) extended with other arbitrary rules.

[Chibi Reviews @ChibiReviews]

IMPORTANT NEWS:

In France, 19 Million people are now up for auction on the dark web

France (ANTS) has been hacked; your name, address, your children's place of birth are now being used against you thanks to forced Digital ID to access the internet

[NetChoice @NetChoice]

"I am unwilling to cede my parental decision-making to politicians who don’t know my children and increasingly seem convinced that I am incapable of deciding what’s best for my own family." 👏👏👏

@ckoopman @abundanceinst @WSJFreeEx 🎯

[Taylor Lorenz @TaylorLorenz]

At least the libertarians are on point on this issue!!