this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2023

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332

Google Chrome's Web Environment Integrity feature has been cancelled (9to5google.com)

submitted 2 years ago by dean@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

53 comments fedilink hide all child comments

While WEI is thankfully cancelled, it's not entirely cancelled... They're planning on making it available still in WebViews with the intention that websites can check if a malicious Android app is trying to do a phishing scheme.

Seems like such a niche "security" feature... what are they really trying to accomplish here? Something seems fishy to me

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[–] fsniper@kbin.social 113 points 2 years ago (5 children)

this is not cancellation. This is Google taking a step back, and regroup to attack back.

[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 39 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Its a common practice to do exactly that. Just demand something very absurd and let people rage about it, then "step back" to "please the masses" while in reality your "step back" idea is the thing you actually wanted to do from the beginning on. But now people are happy about it.

[–] mjhelto@lemm.ee 2 points 2 years ago

I learned that as a negotiation tactic. Pick the number you want to get, then ask for more. The counter will likely be around what you wanted!

[–] catboss@feddit.de 24 points 2 years ago

They care about one thing only: Money.

Obviously this is more of a strategic retreat and nothing else. It's also a very common tactic to push for something crass, pull back, wait a bit and repeat. Most commonly resistance gets weaker each time, because people are people.

Now if anyone thinks they made money with a retreat and won't try again, because it's obviously much more lucrative, which stone exactly are you living under?

You are 100% correct. Nothing is won till you make it impossible for Google to push forward or destroy their motivation for trying again later.

[–] JokeDeity@lemm.ee 19 points 2 years ago

Ah yes, the old Unity Trick™.

[–] thingsiplay@kbin.social 6 points 2 years ago

If they can't storm the front door, then try to sneak in through the back door I guess.

[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 76 points 2 years ago (1 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door-in-the-face_technique

[–] tesseract@beehaw.org 10 points 2 years ago

It's a good thing that people are calling out their deception.

[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de 46 points 2 years ago

They grew thanks to the open internet where everyone let them scrape their website’s content. They can’t let anyone do that again.

[–] gentooer@programming.dev 11 points 2 years ago (4 children)

We did it!

[–] Vincent@kbin.social 46 points 2 years ago

Specifically, everyone who's not using Chrome and its derivates did it. Use Firefox, people.

[–] thingsiplay@kbin.social 38 points 2 years ago

That's what Google want you to believe, forget about and step back. It's not over yet. We just stopped the first wave and it will get harder with each wave.

[+] Maajmaaj@lemmy.ca 18 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

[deleted]

[–] bandario@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If you are aware of this issue, it is your obligation to tell all of your friends, family, associates and coworkers to stop using Chrome immediately, and try out a new search engine.

It's the least you can do.

This behaviour by Google is not going to stop. The mask has slipped too many times. They have become the very thing they swore to destroy.

Not many people will be ready to de Google their phones and stop buying their products. It's the little things that will hurt them the most and show they've stepped over a line this last year or so.

[–] JokeDeity@lemm.ee 5 points 2 years ago

For whatever reason I am the least convincing person on earth, and 99% of the time it's pretty useful shit I'm trying to inform people about and they just want nothing to do with the information. The 1% is when I went full retard and thought GME was going to make me rich instead of much poorer and tried to get others to invest, I'm glad no one listened to me on that one.

[–] PonyOfWar@pawb.social 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

We gotta remain vigilant.

Agreed, but I disagree about the first part. It being only available in webviews can't really be abused and makes all the difference. Sure they could try to reintroduce all the bad stuff, even if the had cancelled it altogether, but for now this is a success.

[–] amju_wolf@pawb.social 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You're completely wrong.

This means that they will implement it, and then it's only a tiny change to make it available everywhere if they decide to do so later.

The option alone also now also allows people to build stuff that will only work in those WebViews, rejecting to work without the integrity check, which is already a huge loss.

[–] PonyOfWar@pawb.social 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

The option alone also now also allows people to build stuff that will only work in those WebViews, rejecting to work without the integrity check, which is already a huge loss.

Can you give a concrete example how this would be a huge issue? A webview is part of an app, which is already a closed system. If a developer wants to, they can already build their app using native UI with integrity checks. Now they can do the same when using webviews. It really has none of the implications it would have for browsers.

[–] RandoCalrandian@kbin.social 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

He means this builds all the backend and proof of concepts necessary to force it on every other environment, and websites will be prepared for the switch, giving the public that much less time to react when they push it to desktop again

It’s basically “OK, we can’t stop the pushback, so we’ll tell the public it will only work on android web view, but all teams keep working full steam, we’ll wait to merge into the bigger systems until all this dies down, and we won’t have lost any dev time!”

[–] PonyOfWar@pawb.social 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That's what he wrote in his second paragraph and it's a fair point. In his third paragraph (the one I quoted) he claims that just having that functionality in webviews is already a "huge loss" though and I was curious what kind of scenario he was thinking of.

[–] RandoCalrandian@kbin.social 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You don’t think having to go through all this to stop it again next time, but it’s even harder because it can now be implemented orders of magnitude faster than before, counts as a “huge loss”?

[–] kevinbhayes@mastodon.social 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

@dean @lisamelton One of the reasons I don’t use Chrome. Here, they’ve revealed what they are working towards. They’ll try again.

[–] lisamelton@mastodon.social 3 points 2 years ago

@kevinbhayes @dean You are correct. They will try again. 💯

[–] macleod@infosec.exchange 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

@dean @rysiek For now... they'll bring it back with a new coat of paint and a new name within the next year.

[–] 4censord@unfug.social 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

@macleod @dean @rysiek they already started, they want to put it in android now: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2023/11/increasing-trust-for-embedded-media.html?m=1

[–] macleod@infosec.exchange 5 points 2 years ago

@4censord @dean @rysiek I can see where they could integrate and feature creep to what they really likely want, but in terms of webviews this would likely be beneficial for security.

[–] peter@feddit.uk 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

People here really can't just accept a win

[–] tesseract@beehaw.org 10 points 2 years ago (5 children)

A win is when we have forced them to abandon the wretched plan. Them taking it elsewhere with a different name, only to be brought back in the future isn't a win - it's more or less the folly the Trojans committed with the Greek wooden horse.

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[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Damn? Really?

[–] tesseract@beehaw.org 23 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Nope. It's getting integrated into Android WebView.

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 12 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Daaamn poor GrapheneOS devs...

[–] Onii-Chan@kbin.social 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

As someone who uses GrapheneOS but knows very little about the technical side of things, what implications does this have for the OS? I'll actually just not use a smartphone anymore if I'm going to be forced back onto the privacy nightmare that is stock Android.

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 2 points 2 years ago

They will strip out the DRM part, maybe. GrapheneOS, other than even Firefox or any Linux Distro, has many DRM packages installed. Widevine and lots of others.

So it may be that they dont even remove it from the Vanadium Webview. But if they do, Apps may break as the Developers looove the extra control. And then GrapheneOS needs to do annoying work again, to for example have a sandboxed Webview-DRM app that can be enabled per-App.

[–] RandoCalrandian@kbin.social 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It means a bunch of work to undo all the things Google is about to do

[–] BautAufWasEuchAufbaut@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 years ago

I'd expect them to support basic integrity. They already do that for apps, so no reason to not expand it. It'd break compatibility.
Since they don't (want) to offer a way to circumvent the basic integrity check right now, I don't see why they would undo the expansion into the webview.

[–] redw0rm@kerala.party 3 points 2 years ago (10 children)

I don't know about graphene, but doesn't some android roms allow to use custom ( more private Webview implementations) instead of default ?

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[–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 years ago

the concept is good in theory; the reasoning was not.

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