Funniest joke ever is too long for Twitter, but it's about a duck that walks into a bar day after day, asking, "Got any grapes?" If someone knows it, tell someone else.
The UK government spyware demand means that the government decides exactly what should be censored on every mobile device. They say they will start with nude pictures (if you don’t identify yourself as an adult). But it could at any time be expanded to anything the government disapproves of. Today, 30 people are arrested every day in the United Kingdom for writing something online that the government classifies as "grossly offensive". It is obvious that they will use this tool to restrict free speech.
Currently, there appears to be no requirement to report findings outside the device. However, with both legal and technological decision-making power taken away from individuals and transferred to the government, that is only a pen stroke away.
This means that the government could also use this system for total mass surveillance.
And they can do so in secret.
The government recently, in secret, tried to pressure Apple (which is now agreeing to client-side scanning) to build backdoors into its end-to-end encrypted cloud service. They can do this under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, also known as the "Snoopers' Charter" – a law that makes it illegal for tech companies to disclose secret demands from the government.
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.
Our statement on the UK government’s demand that all content on all devices sold or used in the country be scanned, on the presumption of nudity, using a dystopian combination of age verification and content scanning. This proposal will not safeguard children. It endangers us all.
https://t.co/VdWe9uhi8p
This is what the UK spyware proposal means.
There must be government spyware on every mobile device. It shall watch everything that happens, including always watching the screen, looking for things the government disapproves of.
When anything is flagged by the software as something the government doesn't like, the software must block it from being sent or displayed (in realtime).
The user of the device must not be able to shut this watching and blocking off. The only way to shut it off would be to ask the government or its proxies to do so for you, at their discretion.
Therefore the whole device must be locked down. Administrator rights and the decision of what software or operating system to run or not to run must be taken from the owner/user and handed to the government and its proxies.
Apple and Google are themselves working hard to lock down the devices they are involved in to shut out competition and establish a duopoly.
The UK government says it is "working closely" with Apple and Google and currently they synchronise and coordinate their communication on this subject.
The UK government is now proposing to mandate what would otherwise be illegal anti-competitive practices.
@GrapheneOS on the Apple and Google duopoly:
https://t.co/rbRmcUDTRu
Statement from @signalapp
https://t.co/vJILcSrs4s
@ReclaimTheNetHQ on the state spyware:
https://t.co/3FCi06bP77
The government announcement:
https://t.co/ynYjR3DIRo
How wild is it that the Venus flytrap, arguably one of the cooler plants to exist, isn’t from the cloud forests of Colombia, or growing off limestone in Sumatra, but in Wilmington North Carolina
Today, we remember a legend.
On this day in history, Harambe would have celebrated another birthday. An icon that became part of internet history, American culture, and an entire generation’s timeline.
Tomorrow marks 10 years since we lost him. Ten years since the moment the world stopped scrolling and collectively mourned something bigger than a meme.
He became a symbol of loyalty, strength, chaos, unity, and the strange beauty of the internet bringing millions of people together for one cause: never forgetting Harambe.
Everyone remembers where they were when they heard the news. And somehow, a decade later, his legacy still lives on.
Gone, but never forgotten.
Rest easy to a true patriot. 🕊️🇺🇸
May 27, 1999 — May 28, 2016
Forever in our hearts.