SAY NO TO WEB ENVIRONMENT INTEGRITY

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What is Web environment integrity?

Recently, the whole internet has been talking about a new "DRM" proposal called “Web Integrity API” or "Web Environment Integrity API". Google is also currently working on the privacy sandbox which is a replacement for tracking cookies by having the trackers built into the browser rather than on certain websites. Websites trust the client's environment determining if the user is a robot or not. The main goal is to to know more about the user to ensure if the user is robot instead of a human. This can be useful to help advertising, remove social media bots, enforce intellectual property rights, stop robots from cheating in web games, and keeping transactions secure. Google's web environment integrity is pretty much anti-jailbreaking for the web, even if you just want to jailbreak for customizing, as a backup, or most importantly to have the ability to further diagnose problems and fix them. The plan is that upon visiting a website (like this site right here), the server would require you to pass an "environment attestation" to get website data. an "attester" would test the authenticity of your browser or "web environment". This might actually slow the browser down. If you pass, you would get a signed "Integrity token" that proves that your browser is legit and is used by a human which is sent to the web server to show the website to you.  [1]

Problems with this:

In Google's document, they promise that they wont do anything evil with the api but there are a few catches including rate limiting the device and manifest v3 restrictions. [1]

Many people including Vivaldi think that it is attacking the free and open web. Some people relating it to DRM (digital rights management). Another problem is that people using accessibility devices or extensions might be untrusted. [2] and [3]

Another problem is that Google is so powerful that we cant even prevent or protest it. [4]

And worst of all, PEOPLE USING LEGACY HARDWARE OR SOFTWARE WILL NOT HAVE ACCESS TO THE WEB! [2]

Although lots of browsers are planning to not include the api, those browsers will be untrusted.

Sources:

[1] - Google’s nightmare “Web Integrity API” wants a DRM gatekeeper for the web on Ars Technica

[2] - Unpacking Google’s new “dangerous” Web-Environment-Integrity specification on Vivaldi

[3] - The pros, cons, and future of DRM on Cbc News (old)

[4] - Web Environment Integrity API Proposal on Hacker News