Luis Hernández

Co-founder of first European app store. What I do Breaking things on

[Luis Hernández @luishg]

I hate to say it, but this time we might lose. If nothing changes, by September, 4 billion phones will be controlled by a single company: Google. They’ll identify and police anyone who wants to develop for Android, even if devs want nothing to do with Google Play or its services.

[Luis Hernández @luishg]

Hey @ollama, biggest pain using your cloud in AI agent frameworks (@openclaw @NousResearch ) is that there’s no endpoint to check usage limits.

Minimax M3 is a beast to run on your service, but please give us a way to check this without hacking https://t.co/9AKArX8ZLh 🙏

[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.

[Lyudmyla Kozlovska 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @LyudaKozlovska]

A deeply troubling narrative shift: VPNs – long recognised as privacy tools that enable access to information and protect activists and journalists – are suddenly framed as a “risk”, rather than a safeguard for fundamental rights.

How can such a distorted narrative appear under the logo of the European Parliamentary Research Service, which is meant to provide independent, rights‑based analysis to MEPs?

[Ricardo Galli @gallir]

Buscamos ingenieros de AI, remoto o híbrido, preferiblemente en 1) Mallorca 2) España, 3) Iasci, Rumanía 4) Vale, vale, cualquier sitio.

https://t.co/4aoB2kDrLH

[It's FOSS @Itsfoss]

Is child safety being used as a pretext for total internet surveillance?

https://t.co/yd8xcsKXNi

[Luis Hernández @luishg]

@Itsfoss Forcing identity into online services doesn’t create safety. It creates control infrastructure. And once it exists, it never stays limited to its original purpose. BTW systems don’t care about your ideology.

[GREG ISENBERG @gregisenberg]

a walkie talkie for an AI agent shouldn't exist. it also made me stop scrolling immediately.

more people should build "weird" software like this, that's where the opportunity is btw

weird sells and weird stops your scroll

microsoft isn't building this. someone at 2am is

[Luis Hernández @luishg]

@ProtonVPN Forcing identity into online services doesn’t create safety. It creates control infrastructure. And once it exists, it never stays limited to its original purpose. Systems don’t care about your ideology.

[Luis Hernández @luishg]

Forcing identity into online services doesn’t create safety. It creates control infrastructure. And once it exists, it never stays limited to its original purpose. Systems don’t care about your ideology.

[Ursula von der Leyen @vonderleyen]

It is for parents to raise their children. Not platforms.

The European Age Verification App is ready ↓ https://t.co/EumEPEJOI7

[Luis Hernández @luishg]

Your favorite private, local AI-powered open-source terminal for Linux, Windows, and Mac “open os cli” now supports reasoning mode and can use tools like the browser: https://t.co/UQWMQeoPcG

[Luis Hernández @luishg]

I like the idea of defining computers as "non-meat-based entities."

[Noodles Now @Noodles_Now]

@Hesamation Until human consciousness is understood, denying the possibility of non-meat-based consciousness is like trying to drive in a nail with a hammer made of jello.

[Eltonpot🍿Toons @eltonpot]

The fact that legislators are trying to say that computers are devices that require ID verification and tracking to use should put fear into EVERYONE.

[Yann LeCun @ylecun]

Destroying a library brings the dark ages.

[Luis Hernández @luishg]

@BertaGDeVega Es tal q a estas alturas me parece más conspiranoico pensar que la identificación en internet es para salvar a los niños o que cualquiera de las decisiones importantes q se están tomando sin consenso sean para mejorar la sanidad, capacidad energética, tecnológica, transporte...

[Ayanari💙😈 @Ayanarinashi]

I'm so tired of this era of ruining the internet instead of teaching the fuckass parents to actually take care of their kids.

[Luis Hernández @luishg]

Windows 10 just entered our OS Sovereignty Index and you are NOT ready. Windows 10 scored 52, Android 41, Windows 11 39. Microsoft killed Windows 10, it still respects you more than the phone in your pocket, AND more than its own successor https://t.co/9XCe8lbSxv

[Luis Hernández @luishg]

@antonello Se agradece leer de vez en cuando a gente como @antonello. Sumas identificación a más centralización, un plan sin fisuras. Y aquí tienes los medios dando palmas para salvar a los niños o los cretinos afiliados al partido de turno que les parece bien todo lo que su bando proponga.

[Luis Hernández @luishg]

Team A just got a new seat: @MurenaCom's /e/OS drops into the Open-OS Index with an 84/100.
De-Googled by default, microG where Google used to be, 287 supported phones. Pretty wild for a "side project" of a French non-profit https://t.co/oU0vIkseXR

[Luis Hernández @luishg]

Just shipped https://t.co/oU0vIkseXR. The Freedom Index for Operating Systems. 9 factors, 3 axes, every score evidenced.
▎@GrapheneOS @fedora → A. Hats off.  
▎ @android → C. C'mon, y'all can do better.
▎ iOS → F.
▎ Rubric + data on GitHub