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Apple already shipped attestation on the web, and we barely noticed

(httptoolkit.com)
596 points pimterry | 1 comments | 25 Jul 23 14:10 UTC | HN request time: 0.207s | source
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toyg ◴[25 Jul 23 14:54 UTC] No.36863175[source]▶
This might be where the internet really gets forked, as it's been predicted over and over since the '90s.

On one side, we'll have a "clean", authority-sanctioned "corpweb", where everyone is ID'ed to the wazoo; on the other, a more casual "greynet" galaxy of porn and decentralized communities will likely emerge, once all tinkerers get pushed out of corpnet. It could be an interesting opportunity to reboot a few long-lost dreams.

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1. treis ◴[25 Jul 23 15:40 UTC] No.36863948[source]▶
Even if you run a hobby site it's way easier to do so with attestation. Especially if that attestation will allow you to uniquely identify the device making a request. It will end DDOS and make bans much stickier than they are today making all sorts of problematic content easier to deal with.

IMHO, there won't be a split like this if attestation or similar proposals come to pass. Simply put the number of problems that come with anonymous users dwarf whatever legitimate benefits that anonymity provides. Everyone will build sites using it because of the problems they solve. And they will ignore the segment that refuses to use them because that segment will be small and a significant chunk of them will use that anonymity to do bad things you don't want on your site.