https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/blob/main/explainer.md Mirror

Not sure what to say on seeing this. It feels like Widevine but aimed at websites in general.

It bothers me how casually this "explainer" uses the word "trust".
As if you could trust Google with anything.

Wondering how that would work out on older browsers.

mantikor said:
It bothers me how casually this "explainer" uses the word "trust".
As if you could trust Google with anything.

Yeah, trust is a pejorative in the security business. In the sense that I trust a breaker to trip instead of burning down my home. I verify if that damn thing actually shuts power off before ignoring it along with the millions of other things I take for granted because practical. I almost laughed at some of word-twisting in that thing. The Github issues tracker is hilarious. "12 nays, the ayes have it." These are the same people that blocked JPEG-XL adoption in Chrome but made sure that AVIF is included.

wolfmanfur said:
Wondering how that would work out on older browsers.

LOL, read the Reddit and Github responses? It wouldn't. It's like trying to view Twitch with unapproved browsers. The Elon Musks of the world blocking 3rd-party clients on Twitter, and so on, comes to mind. Netflix's OS-specific player support, too.

The internet is supposed to be flexible and accessible to anyone, if any particular website goes down then there's 10 more that you can go to instead. Using this feature to restrict access is not only fundamentally against the core tenet of accessibility but is also fighting an uphill battle in an opwn market where you will have 10 other people springing up saying "yeah we'll give you the exact same service but without that bullshit that made you leave".

magikarp said:
The internet is supposed to be flexible and accessible to anyone, if any particular website goes down then there's 10 more that you can go to instead. Using this feature to restrict access is not only fundamentally against the core tenet of accessibility but is also fighting an uphill battle in an opwn market where you will have 10 other people springing up saying "yeah we'll give you the exact same service but without that bullshit that made you leave".

DING DING DING we've got a winner!
Seriously though, yeah, if anyone has failed to notice the current trend to fuckify the WWW, then they're beyond blind (in the mental sense).

You ever noticed how you tend to run from Leviathan? Hobbe's, mind..... How the response, when you feel it's head staring down at you, is an automatic flight or fight or freeze response? I think it has something to do with not just how kafka it is, these days, and not quite fully orwellian (yet) either. But seemingly lovecraftian. A presence that is never quite seen, but felt, and nearly perceived at it's most present, at your most vulnerable.

It's something like how there was an initial tension when the radio came to enter the market. It was a new, thrilling, exciting way to interact with the world, though it was considered a horrible invasion of privacy. The thinking was, was there was a voice in your home, from a man you didn't invite into your home, having a one way conversation from miles away. Playing his own music. Telling you his own thoughts. A stranger's presence has entered your home. How invasive that was!

If only they knew then it was going to get even more.....

The thing about the Limbic, Neoliberal Capitalist Leviathan is, it ruthlessly pursues the raw material we produce in a natural, flowing way, then it harvests it from us, collects it, then distills, enriches, processes, adds it's own unnatural material to it while making our own estranged from us, then packages it, slaps a logo on it, and sells it back to us.

The part I skipped is where it vomits some horrible misunderstanding about us back to us and then demands us to witness it, perceive it, if not accept it. Because you don't have to accept it immediately. You just have to be told it. Then if you still don't accept it, then it wasn't the product it made from you, but the way it was forced on you. But it can always be forced on you with another arrangement of words, another color palette, there has to be a way to get you to buy yourself. Eat, drink, wear, consume yourself.

Because you're not you until you buy into you, because how can you make money for someone for free if you don't?
(Isn't that a really fucked logic?)

That's the most relevant part I have to give you, because I've rewritten this post several times and...... I have something a little more bitter to add. It's going to be a little angry and remind some people of some horrible things they experienced too, so just know I use spoilers to be as polite as I can.

I have Trauma. Disfigurement. I have felt unsafe inside of my own mind and body, I have known manipulation, use, the lot of it, I'm in a perpetual pursuit to not just enter a space or a moment in time, but to become that space, that moment, where I find myself as that fleeting, proud moment of harbor where I'm not just free of it, but stand upright in facing back at it.

the point is,
I bring this up in this place, and in this context, because it's a good opportunity for me to explain that I have a tool at my disposal, which I can use to still interact with Youtube, at least. It allows me to manage the traumas I seek absolvement from. So that I'm not in a perpetual state of shock, hurt, confusion, fight, flight, freeze or fawn. It may be a crutch, it might reinforce a hypervigilance that isn't really helping me, but I use a browser extension to block channels on youtube.
I click a little red X on the channel that uploaded some vile, wretched thing that came my way, and it's at least gone from everywhere else but the panel of recommended videos at the end of whatever good video I just watched.
It's a feature that youtube could never implement on the site proper, because it would lose money.
After all, how could Leviathan remind me of and monetize my trauma if I don't even see it? Think about it? Go back there?

The amazing thing about youtube (and limbic, neoliberal capitalism) is a ruthless, Leviathan like terrorism when it comes to the monetization of media.
It goes something like this, but be aware that I use the spoiler tag out of respect for folks like me, I'm just a little upset:
"I see you are watching a video about CPTSD, Would you like to watch a mob kill a man at a gas station?"
"I noticed you like motorcycles, Want to watch gopro footage of road rage? You like it when people scream and rush at and attack the camera right? Doesn't it feel like it's you? You like being attacked right?"
"I am aware that you exist, Don't you want to hear about the hot new mass shooting everyone's talking about? It would be really great if you watched it!"
"I have noticed you use this website, You like it when I insert rape into every interaction with me, you have to, don't you like rape?"
"You live in an area / zip code, Here's a local news report about a murder in an entirely different part of the country.
"You just watched a video essay about philosophy, here's a Jordan Peterson video and a video clip of Jordon Peterson and an interview of Jorden Peterson here's Jordun Peterson looking into the camera yelling at you Jordan Peterson Jordan Peterson You like Jordan Peterson you hate Jordan Peterson You have heard of Jordan Peterson here is Jordan Peterson I have lots of Jordan Peterson I am telling you to watch Jordan Peterson Watch Jordan Peterson Already You Little Shit
"Don't you like me, Don't you want to ingest all the rape and murder and war and horror and violence and hate and all the other things that I find in the world to sell back to you?
"Here is a video with a thumbnail of a man on his knees with a gun to the back of his head and it's titled Father's Last Words To His Daughter, DO YOU LIKE ME YOU LIKE ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT WHAT I'M SHOWING YOU LOOK AT IT LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME DON'T YOU WANT TO KNOW YOU WANT TO KNOW WATCH IT WATCH IT WATCH THE VIDEO YOU HAVE TO KNOW YOU HAVE TO WATCH LOOK AT THE VIDEO YOU WILL LOVE ME FOR THIS VIDEO I WANT YOU TO WATCH THE FUCKING VIDEO ALREADY PLEASE FUCKING ENGAGE ME ENGAGE THE CONTENT I'M GIVING YOU IT'S FUCKING FREE WATCH THE FUCKING VIDEO WATCH THE VIDEO!!!"

And maybe I'm wrong in assuming that how this makes me feel is obvious, if not to an algorithm or some other scientific, amoral process of commodifying, monetizing, exploiting the basic fact that all organisms react to stimuli, I'd like to think people inherantly understand this through their emotions, but I may be mistaken, so I'll say it anyway:
This isn't just hurtful, it's something I have become required to bypass, hide, filter and avoid by using a browser extension that disrupts it's dissemination to me. Which, if I could not use it, would render me in a state of perpetual shock and without any confidence rebuilding way of at least lashing out against it. When I am already reminded, perpetually and daily, of all my feelings of helplessness, all of my hurt, confusion, memory, and every reason I may have to withdraw from any trust, hope, or ambition to pursue life-affirming beauty.

Youtube, and therefore google, is being denied a monetary reward by the action I take on my own end, when no amount of screaming at the black mirror (my computer screen) to stop showing me this, or otherwise having some horrible allergic reaction, would do nothing.

And my own mental preservation, if not my emotional salvation, then my otherwise pointless application of a tool I can access to deny Leviathan my interaction with it is still rightful, even if ultimately not helpful enough, if for no other reason than that it represents some tangible flight from, rebuking of, it's predatory nature as a kind of monster that consumes it's audience until everyone is gone.

So Fuck Google's Money, I want to preserve my very soul.
Not even Fuck, God Damn Google's Money, and To Hell with it, too.
Nobody owes anything to something that bestial.

magikarp said:
The internet is supposed to be flexible and accessible to anyone, if any particular website goes down then there's 10 more that you can go to instead. Using this feature to restrict access is not only fundamentally against the core tenet of accessibility but is also fighting an uphill battle in an open market where you will have 10 other people springing up saying "yeah we'll give you the exact same service but without that bullshit that made you leave".

Radio was the same way.
So was broadcast television. Then Cable. Then Satelite. Now the internet. Or rather, the public, easily accessible, monopolized face of the internet.
The pursuit of an honest, genuine interaction among individuals with the rest of the world is constant, the format, medium just changes.
The printed word was that, once.
Then Radio replaced it, once paper became too hegemonic, conglomerate, too leviathan.
Television then replaced Radio when that too became like it's predecessor.
The internet, as we know it today, is simply something that used to be west of the mississipi, metaphorically speaking. An uncharted wild where individuals could find and determine their truth in an unfettered pursuit of themselves and each other.
The fact it's just another parking lot and outlet mall now doesn't matter.

There will always be another wild west to run for. Some new uncharted realm where people can engage and be engaged honestly. Without exploitation. Without being commodified on some amoral level.

I suspect that in spite of how it's regarded right now, that as more power and control is exerted on the internet Proper, that more people will flee to the darkweb. If nothing else, the more I see horrible things like this thread's topic, the more I'm compelled to just install the tor browser and simply... Immigrate.

I can't be alone in that.

letforeverdieslow said:
You ever noticed how you tend to run from Leviathan? Hobbe's, mind..... How the response, when you feel it's head staring down at you, is an automatic flight or fight or freeze response? I think it has something to do with not just how kafka it is, these days, and not quite fully orwellian (yet) either. But seemingly lovecraftian. A presence that is never quite seen, but felt, and nearly perceived at it's most present, at your most vulnerable.

It's something like how there was an initial tension when the radio came to enter the market. It was a new, thrilling, exciting way to interact with the world, though it was considered a horrible invasion of privacy. The thinking was, was there was a voice in your home, from a man you didn't invite into your home, having a one way conversation from miles away. Playing his own music. Telling you his own thoughts. A stranger's presence has entered your home. How invasive that was!

If only they knew then it was going to get even more.....

The thing about the Limbic, Neoliberal Capitalist Leviathan is, it ruthlessly pursues the raw material we produce in a natural, flowing way, then it harvests it from us, collects it, then distills, enriches, processes, adds it's own unnatural material to it while making our own estranged from us, then packages it, slaps a logo on it, and sells it back to us.

The part I skipped is where it vomits some horrible misunderstanding about us back to us and then demands us to witness it, perceive it, if not accept it. Because you don't have to accept it immediately. You just have to be told it. Then if you still don't accept it, then it wasn't the product it made from you, but the way it was forced on you. But it can always be forced on you with another arrangement of words, another color palette, there has to be a way to get you to buy yourself. Eat, drink, wear, consume yourself.

Because you're not you until you buy into you, because how can you make money for someone for free if you don't?
(Isn't that a really fucked logic?)

That's the most relevant part I have to give you, because I've rewritten this post several times and...... I have something a little more bitter to add. It's going to be a little angry and remind some people of some horrible things they experienced too, so just know I use spoilers to be as polite as I can.

I have Trauma. Disfigurement. I have felt unsafe inside of my own mind and body, I have known manipulation, use, the lot of it, I'm in a perpetual pursuit to not just enter a space or a moment in time, but to become that space, that moment, where I find myself as that fleeting, proud moment of harbor where I'm not just free of it, but stand upright in facing back at it.

the point is,
I bring this up in this place, and in this context, because it's a good opportunity for me to explain that I have a tool at my disposal, which I can use to still interact with Youtube, at least. It allows me to manage the traumas I seek absolvement from. So that I'm not in a perpetual state of shock, hurt, confusion, fight, flight, freeze or fawn. It may be a crutch, it might reinforce a hypervigilance that isn't really helping me, but I use a browser extension to block channels on youtube.
I click a little red X on the channel that uploaded some vile, wretched thing that came my way, and it's at least gone from everywhere else but the panel of recommended videos at the end of whatever good video I just watched.
It's a feature that youtube could never implement on the site proper, because it would lose money.
After all, how could Leviathan remind me of and monetize my trauma if I don't even see it? Think about it? Go back there?

The amazing thing about youtube (and limbic, neoliberal capitalism) is a ruthless, Leviathan like terrorism when it comes to the monetization of media.
It goes something like this, but be aware that I use the spoiler tag out of respect for folks like me, I'm just a little upset:
"I see you are watching a video about CPTSD, Would you like to watch a mob kill a man at a gas station?"
"I noticed you like motorcycles, Want to watch gopro footage of road rage? You like it when people scream and rush at and attack the camera right? Doesn't it feel like it's you? You like being attacked right?"
"I am aware that you exist, Don't you want to hear about the hot new mass shooting everyone's talking about? It would be really great if you watched it!"
"I have noticed you use this website, You like it when I insert rape into every interaction with me, you have to, don't you like rape?"
"You live in an area / zip code, Here's a local news report about a murder in an entirely different part of the country.
"You just watched a video essay about philosophy, here's a Jordan Peterson video and a video clip of Jordon Peterson and an interview of Jorden Peterson here's Jordun Peterson looking into the camera yelling at you Jordan Peterson Jordan Peterson You like Jordan Peterson you hate Jordan Peterson You have heard of Jordan Peterson here is Jordan Peterson I have lots of Jordan Peterson I am telling you to watch Jordan Peterson Watch Jordan Peterson Already You Little Shit
"Don't you like me, Don't you want to ingest all the rape and murder and war and horror and violence and hate and all the other things that I find in the world to sell back to you?
"Here is a video with a thumbnail of a man on his knees with a gun to the back of his head and it's titled Father's Last Words To His Daughter, DO YOU LIKE ME YOU LIKE ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT WHAT I'M SHOWING YOU LOOK AT IT LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME DON'T YOU WANT TO KNOW YOU WANT TO KNOW WATCH IT WATCH IT WATCH THE VIDEO YOU HAVE TO KNOW YOU HAVE TO WATCH LOOK AT THE VIDEO YOU WILL LOVE ME FOR THIS VIDEO I WANT YOU TO WATCH THE FUCKING VIDEO ALREADY PLEASE FUCKING ENGAGE ME ENGAGE THE CONTENT I'M GIVING YOU IT'S FUCKING FREE WATCH THE FUCKING VIDEO WATCH THE VIDEO!!!"

And maybe I'm wrong in assuming that how this makes me feel is obvious, if not to an algorithm or some other scientific, amoral process of commodifying, monetizing, exploiting the basic fact that all organisms react to stimuli, I'd like to think people inherantly understand this through their emotions, but I may be mistaken, so I'll say it anyway:
This isn't just hurtful, it's something I have become required to bypass, hide, filter and avoid by using a browser extension that disrupts it's dissemination to me. Which, if I could not use it, would render me in a state of perpetual shock and without any confidence rebuilding way of at least lashing out against it. When I am already reminded, perpetually and daily, of all my feelings of helplessness, all of my hurt, confusion, memory, and every reason I may have to withdraw from any trust, hope, or ambition to pursue life-affirming beauty.

Youtube, and therefore google, is being denied a monetary reward by the action I take on my own end, when no amount of screaming at the black mirror (my computer screen) to stop showing me this, or otherwise having some horrible allergic reaction, would do nothing.

And my own mental preservation, if not my emotional salvation, then my otherwise pointless application of a tool I can access to deny Leviathan my interaction with it is still rightful, even if ultimately not helpful enough, if for no other reason than that it represents some tangible flight from, rebuking of, it's predatory nature as a kind of monster that consumes it's audience until everyone is gone.

So Fuck Google's Money, I want to preserve my very soul.
Not even Fuck, God Damn Google's Money, and To Hell with it, too.
Nobody owes anything to something that bestial.

Radio was the same way.
So was broadcast television. Then Cable. Then Satelite. Now the internet. Or rather, the public, easily accessible, monopolized face of the internet.
The pursuit of an honest, genuine interaction among individuals with the rest of the world is constant, the format, medium just changes.
The printed word was that, once.
Then Radio replaced it, once paper became too hegemonic, conglomerate, too leviathan.
Television then replaced Radio when that too became like it's predecessor.
The internet, as we know it today, is simply something that used to be west of the mississipi, metaphorically speaking. An uncharted wild where individuals could find and determine their truth in an unfettered pursuit of themselves and each other.
The fact it's just another parking lot and outlet mall now doesn't matter.

There will always be another wild west to run for. Some new uncharted realm where people can engage and be engaged honestly. Without exploitation. Without being commodified on some amoral level.

I suspect that in spite of how it's regarded right now, that as more power and control is exerted on the internet Proper, that more people will flee to the darkweb. If nothing else, the more I see horrible things like this thread's topic, the more I'm compelled to just install the tor browser and simply... Immigrate.

I can't be alone in that.

Whut? (joke, but wow, you need to learn to summarize)

I read it, and get the gist.

Blocking channels:
OK, you can do that with a specific extension, or you can use a more generic extension like uMatrix/uBlockOrigin/TamperMonkey/GreaseMonkey. I use custom settings that make it do that on eBay and Amazon for unwanted spammed listings. There's also a way to just highlight those, instead. I assume the extension you're talking about is just using a userscript? I don't use YT enough, and NEVER log into it, so I only know of how awful it's been lately, through conversations with heavy users. The way I'd write such a script is by noticing that channels have unique IDs in specific parts of the HTML's tree (it's hierarchy is like directories/folders).

I'll go further back than that. When mass-printing was invented, the first thing they did was ban the Holy Bible printed using one. Given that they wanted a monopoly on said book... You can guess who this benefited/threatened. Even writing by itself was a threat to certain powers thousands of years ago. The first thing that happens with any disruptive technology, is it gets treated with suspicion, then afterwards, it's subsumed by authorities.

There is this term "The Internet is a Dead Mall", that you're referring to? :edit: Sorry, it was The Future is a Dead Mall referring to Metaverse idiocy.

BTW: I saw a hit piece by the Washington Post on... Mastodon. It read like "Oh no, this thing is not owned by our parent company, it's out of control!". I remember how IRC and others dealt with bad actors on small platforms, and it begs the question if they are just naive, or just (intentionally) disingenuous with articles like that.

kora_viridian said:
Those of us of a certain age remember when the world at large found out about the Web in the mid-1990s. For several years, stories about the Web in existing media (print, TV) were about 20% "here's a cool or weird thing that's online" and 80% "You will die or get your bank account hacked IMMEDIATELY the very first time you touch a Web browser!!1!!!" Those stories kind of slowed down once the print and TV audiences all left... for the Web. :D

I heard a quote about this period of time, approximately: "It must have been about 1930 before newspapers stopped breathlessly reporting that a criminal had planned their crime using (dun dun dunnnnn) THE TELEPHONE." (I don't have a source; I thought maybe it was Douglas Adams, but I can't find it.)

Raises the question. Begging the question is a specific logical fallacy. Yes, people say "beg the question" instead of "raise the question" so much that the usage is probably changing, but it still bugs me. :)

*brings up the question of j/k

Yeah, ironically, Mastodon is being hated on in that article precisely because it's a throwback to when people were much more likely to run their own servers. "How are we going to control everything/squeeze the most money(monopolize) from this?!" Come to think of it, I run a VPS. ;)