384
submitted 8 months ago by dean@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

While WEI is thankfully cancelled, it's not entirely cancelled... They're planning on making it available still in WebViews with the intention that websites can check if a malicious Android app is trying to do a phishing scheme.

Seems like such a niche "security" feature... what are they really trying to accomplish here? Something seems fishy to me

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Onii-Chan@kbin.social 5 points 8 months ago

As someone who uses GrapheneOS but knows very little about the technical side of things, what implications does this have for the OS? I'll actually just not use a smartphone anymore if I'm going to be forced back onto the privacy nightmare that is stock Android.

[-] Pantherina@feddit.de 2 points 8 months ago

They will strip out the DRM part, maybe. GrapheneOS, other than even Firefox or any Linux Distro, has many DRM packages installed. Widevine and lots of others.

So it may be that they dont even remove it from the Vanadium Webview. But if they do, Apps may break as the Developers looove the extra control. And then GrapheneOS needs to do annoying work again, to for example have a sandboxed Webview-DRM app that can be enabled per-App.

[-] RandoCalrandian@kbin.social 2 points 8 months ago

It means a bunch of work to undo all the things Google is about to do

I'd expect them to support basic integrity. They already do that for apps, so no reason to not expand it. It'd break compatibility.
Since they don't (want) to offer a way to circumvent the basic integrity check right now, I don't see why they would undo the expansion into the webview.

this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2023
384 points (100.0% liked)

Technology

37208 readers
180 users here now

Rumors, happenings, and innovations in the technology sphere. If it's technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:


This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS