←back to thread

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

(httptoolkit.com)
596 points pimterry | 3 comments | 25 Jul 23 14:10 UTC | HN request time: 0.703s | source
Show context
lifeisstillgood ◴[25 Jul 23 14:29 UTC] No.36862777[source]▶
I kind of get both sides here. If we take the "see the best of others intentions" then a web that is populated by identified humans (and their authorised proxies!) is likely to be the "cleanest", most ideal web space we can see (a web full of sock puppets and link farms is not ideal).

The clearest end point for this is some government issued digital ID that just asserts who you are, acts as a login etc.

You can see this as a stepping stone to there. if you squint.

Is it the idealism of the 70s coke to life? No. Is it some sane compromise - I think so.

What if we cannot trust our government ? Sorry it is pretty sure that no internet is going to solve that. That's on the real world.

replies(10): >>36862946 #>>36863031 #>>36863074 #>>36863126 #>>36863250 #>>36863286 #>>36863456 #>>36863735 #>>36864436 #>>36871915 #
tolmasky ◴[25 Jul 23 14:47 UTC] No.36863074[source]▶
> a web that is populated by identified humans (and their authorised proxies!) is likely to be the "cleanest", most ideal web space we can see (a web full of sock puppets and link farms is not ideal).

Depends on your definition of "ideal", and whether you even want to strive for such an "ideal". To me this sounds more like a "sterile" web. If we temporarily assume that humans won't do what they're experts at (finding ways around that system too), and take at face value that this will lead to this "cleanest" web space, we are still assuming that that's what consumers want. I would argue that the very existence, and success, of the web in the face of approximations to this "ideal" space in the native-app-world disproves this theory. We have the App Store, we have lock-down control and identifiability for apps, and yet the web still manages dominate commerce in the face of this. Consumers still end up going to the web, and arguably increasingly so with things like Figma. So where are the cries for this "sanitized" web? The demand certainly doesn't appear to be on the consumer end, that's for sure.

replies(1): >>36864293 #
1. lifeisstillgood ◴[25 Jul 23 15:58 UTC] No.36864293[source]▶
"clean" / "sanitized" is not the terms I really want. I think a web (living under a democratic legal system) that uses sane forms of digital identity verification will help reduce the ridiculous levels of online fraud we are seeing. (yes citation needed)

To me that's (again under legal / democratic protections) using some centralised public private key (probably) and a curated env and this is (sort of being very generous) a first step towards that world.

replies(2): >>36865773 #>>36869130 #
2. tolmasky ◴[25 Jul 23 17:16 UTC] No.36865773[source]▶
I guess I just don't see this "insane level of fraud"(?) By this I mean that it doesn't really affect my experience on the web, even if I were to entertain the idea that it does, in fact, exist. When I think about my annoyances with the web, they aren't about how I am drowning in link farms or whatever -- ironically my true consumer annoyances are quite the opposite: all the big players have stopped providing me value. Google shows me entire pages of ads before any relevant organic search results. Reddit killed my preferred third party client. Meanwhile Twitter, well, you know. Nothing proposed here does anything for that, and I get that it's not trying to solve that, but my point is that none of my "top 10 problems with the web" are being solved by this humongous change. My problems just have nothing to do with sock puppet accounts or whatever. Perhaps that's a top 10 problem that advertisers have with the web, but that's not really super compelling to me (the same way my problems don't seem to be compelling to them). If anything, as stated in various places, these hyper centralized ID systems increase the likelihood that my problems will never be solved. If it becomes even harder than it already is to make a new browser or a new search engine, then I guess I'm just flat out of luck. The era of "reasonable search results" will be solidified as a temporary blip on the timeline of the web.
3. mrguyorama ◴[25 Jul 23 20:42 UTC] No.36869130[source]▶
I do fraud prevention as my job. The "ridiculous levels of online fraud" isn't happening. There's been a mild uptick in fraud which you would expect from an event that impoverishes millions (covid), but all those people on your favorite website that are so crazy they must be bots spreading misinformation? Nope, those are almost entirely real people. Millions of people are just that awful, hateful, spiteful, dumb, whatever.