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Ms-J parent
This is the worst thing to happen to technology in recent times since there is only two major phone OS's.

It isn't possible to ban encryption, so the governments have to chip away at security and privacy using these techniques.

From: https://developer.android.com/developer-verification

"You may also need to upload official government ID."

This won't end well for Google or the governments involved when the people get so angry that they are forced to roll this back. Switch to an alternative phone OS.

tokioyoyo
> This won't end well for Google or the governments involved when the people get so angry

The amount of people this makes angry is so minuscule that it probably wouldn’t even pass one of those theatrical “sign this petition to get the government to discuss it” thingy. Mind you, the only reason the whole side-loading court cases were going forward is because a giganormous company (Epic) wanted to make more money instead of paying the Google/Apple tax. Not because some people were angry.

lukeschlather
This is a lot more complicated than that. I'm not sure how I feel about the demand for government ID. The demand for money that comes with the app stores I find to be a problem and so does the EU, that was a big point of the DMA. It remains to be seen how those regulations play out. Maybe the DMA won't do what I want. But the DMA seems to be aimed at this sort of thing, even if it actually has the same sort of requirements around government ID, it does require openness.
e-clinton
In this instance, quantity isn’t as important. The people it upsets are a loud bunch of a great deal of influence.
tokioyoyo
They don't. There was a similar uproar when Apple forced developers to share their addresses on AppStore publicly in EU.
OkayPhysicist
Recent precedent suggests it only takes one really angry person to get a company to reconsider its course of action. The problem is software devs are far too comfortable for such action.
crisdias (dead)
pessimizer
> the people get so angry that they are forced to roll this back.

This is political fantasy. There is no mechanism for "the people" to force anyone to roll this back. They can vote for the candidate owned by google, or the candidate owned by google. If they want to find another candidate, they'll have to use google to find one.

glenstein
Agree and disagree: the pressure on unity worked, and Sonos and, IIRC on Google's "federated cohorts" idea.

But often people try to project their opinions onto "the people" and predict they will rise up, and there's probably 100 predictions in comment sections that are completely spurious to every one that actually happens

So I'm not sure, but if I had to guess this one is a rare case where there may be real prospect of backlash.

rockemsockem
If enough people internal at Google get pissed off and raise this up enough it can legitimately get rolled back.
asdff
They will just get sacked for sycophants either here or abroad. For every principled worker there is, there is another person willing to eschew those principles for that paycheck. This is a desperate world by design to enable these tradeoffs by the very people who build, maintain, deploy, and ultimately control the worlds systems.
saubeidl
A better world is possible. Rise up, workers! You have nothing to lose but your chains!
abeyer
and your salary
8 More Comments →
gumby271
You mean the people actively building this system? I have to assume it's decently far along for them to make this announcement.
rockemsockem
Do you recognize that a 100,000+ person organization might contain a large number of people who disagree with any random project at any given time?

This has happened before.

hommelix
If a government was to plan something like that, there would be protest in front of the parliament. Were are the protest in front of Google main office? If there are a few hundreds of angry developers handing out flyers at Google employees on there way to the office, explaining how bad is Google, maybe Google will move, because they care about the bad publicity. Open source developers involved with Android and app in California should walk in front of Google offices to protest.
maxerickson
What's wrong with loading an alternate OS that isn't Play Protect certified?
buildfocus
Attestation & Play Integrity is having a good go at blocking this: lots of critical software (e.g. the app required to use your bank account) requires certified attested devices, and Google are pushing hard to get as many apps as possible to activate that for "security", making non-Google Android un fixably 2nd tier in functionality.
bsimpson
Doesn't GNU/Linux also have this problem with e.g. Netflix? If you don't pass their spyware, you get shitty streams from video apps and no access to financial accounts.
uz3snolc3t6fnrq
ironically, making linux users consider sailing the high seas for actual 4k rips instead of actually paying for the service just to get blocky low bitrate 720p content. so this piracy prevention not only creates more potential pirates, but makes paying customers' lives harder while not affecting the aforementioned pirates, who can now watch it at 4k on any device or program they wish
MrMember
My HTPC runs Linux and when I had Amazon Prime I tried to stream a live event and it wouldn't let me stream it at all. I don't have Prime anymore.
glenstein
>and Google are pushing hard to get as many apps as possible to activate that for "security"

I'd be interested in further reading on Google's outreach to big banks and major finance CO's ( or others) pushing for device attestation if you have any further reading.

gck1
And not just financial apps. Even TikTok, a platform which people around the world are using for various good activities that governments may not like, is using Play Integrity.
terminalbraid
Most vendors, including the big ones, don't play well with that. Google just revoked open sourcing the Pixel as the reference design which was the strongest option for that. Things like newer Samsungs are black boxes and everyone is actively making it harder to do anything with devices you bought and paid for.
sanex
Soon you won't be able to do this either because most manufacturers are locking down the bootloader.
kotaKat
And Google stopped providing device trees and driver binaries... and stopped releasing AOSP as often, and, and...
windward
You know, when you phrase it like that, it almost makes it sound like they're taking advantage of their market position to the detriment of consumers.
pabs3
That would mean they are committing copyright violation of the Linux kernel. So they could be sued by Linux kernel folks, or by users of the devices.

https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/mar/25/install-gplv2/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-t... https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017...

jlokier
Locked bootloaders are probably not a GPLv2 violation, and probably are a GPLv3 violation. This type of situation was a major reason GPLv3 was created. Another was clarification of some grey areas (these are the reason for "probably").

But the Linux kernel is GPLv2, and only v2. For better or worse, locking down the bootloader is (probably) pernitted with the Linux kernel.

pabs3
The Sofware Freedom Conservancy are the main (or only?) enforcers of the GPL these days, and if you read their posts, you will see they disagree with you, GPLv2 requires the ability to modify and reinstall.
jlokier
Having read [1] in particular, I think you're right and I was mistaken. Thanks! That's quite eye-opening for me, as I followed discussion about GPLv2 and GPLv3 for years yet didn't know about this view of GPLv2 and reinstallation.

Having heard so much about anti-Tivoization when the GPLv3 was being drafted, and the discussions about it on linux-kernel when Linus decided the kernel will remain GPLv2-only, I was left with the impression that the GPLv2 only required the provision of source code, build scripts, etc. but not the ability to reinstall a new version. [1] makes a pretty good case that the ability to reinstall is also required GPLv2, and I'm heartened that's how Tivo saw it too.

[1] https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-t...

drpixie
It's increasingly difficult to get current hardware for which an alternative OS is available, and which is not locked.

Right now, it seems to be fairphone or pixel, or old phones which are not easy to obtain. Samsung have announced they will lock their phones, and how long before google locks pixels?

numpad0
The number of people able to do that is fewer than those willing to send in copies of overnment IDs. Phones compatible with AOSP builds are rare outside small bubbles of Pixel users as well.
t0lo
Society deserves whatever's coming for it. Look how vain and stupid we've become.
kelnos
> This won't end well for Google or the governments involved when the people get so angry that they are forced to roll this back.

This makes me quite angry, but I guarantee more than 90% of Android users will not be bothered too much about this. Many of them will actually like it, and most of those who don't will just shrug and go on with their day.

beeforpork
My estimate is less optimistic: 99% of users won't ever be bothered with this news nor notice that anything changed, and of those who will, 90% will like it, because 'less malware' is the only thing they can work with.

The weirdest thing to me is that those people who actually care about this are most likely the ones capable of implementing this shit: developers. Us. Who else but developers (OK, and maybe their enlightened spouses) cares about this? We are digging our own graves, basically.

So, Google devels: refuse this. And tell your willing colleague that they are not welcome at your birthday party if they do it.

wvenable
> This is the worst thing to happen to technology in recent times since there is only two major phone OS's.

I don't think that's it. The desktop OS situation has historically be similar with 2 major large players and a bunch of insignificant ones.

This comes down to user expectation.

jayofdoom
No, it's not similar.

There are two OS platforms for desktop/laptop usage: MacOS Windows

These both contain ways to run arbitrary compiled code from an arbitrary source -- like a computer should. Losing this feature of our smartphones should have everyone concerned.

bluescrn
> These both contain ways to run arbitrary compiled code from an arbitrary source

And they're both working towards taking that away.

For now we have Linux as a 3rd option, but that only exists so long as there's hardware available that'll let you run it. Can easily imagine a near-future where you can only get 'Windows hardware' or 'Apple hardware' and nothing modern that'll boot a 3rd-party OS.

bpye
Is that really realistic? Apple very specifically allowed booting unsigned, and even non macOS, operating systems on their ARM devices. Sure - they don’t document the hardware, but making it possible was intentional.
wvenable
Yes, making it possible was intentional. But it just goes to show easy it would be for them to remove that option. While they are currently specifically choosing not do that for their own hardware, they could change their mind tomorrow.

For precedent, Microsoft locked down their own ARM hardware to Windows.

exe34
do you think arm boards are going away?
wvenable
Right. The OP's point was that just having 2 major OSes is the problem but it's clearly not because we had that situation with desktops/laptops and they both allow arbitrary code.
cyanydeez
I mean, you're pretty optimistic that the current fascism is going away any time soon.
platevoltage
Well it seems like the UK gave up their ridiculous "backdoor" fight with Apple, so maybe there's hope.
cyanydeez
Then they rammed online safe space regs.
anothernewdude
More people should've supported Mangione.
csomar
Over a billion people use iOS and more would have if they could afford it. These companies have big data and they know how many people it’ll affect/annoy. You are outnumbered.

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