Microsoft is still by far leader in the laptop/desktop OS atmosphere, that definitely counts as a gatekeeper. They’re literally the gate to the internet on a shitton of devices.
But HOAs are communities right? Doesn’t a HOA meeting have super authority, to remove bylaws like that?
No community I know of in Dutch legislation can block a community (‘vereniging’) from dissolving itself. Moreso since there’s always a law above it on how to disband a community, which cannot be bypassed.
Ehh, way to miss the point. This article is about Apple, but Google is doing the same with Android and Chrome.
Parties that have issues with this are Linux distros and browsers like Firefox, that leave control and “humanness indicators” more in the hands of the users, instead of in the hands of big, influential companies.
Apple (in this case) decides if your device should be trusted as a human, or if it’s suspicious / a robot, which could break parts of the Internet for those not joining this “attestation”, or using software that doesn’t support it.
A more ELI5 version would be that Apple has implemented a controversial API (The Web Environment Integrity API) that indicates if a combination of OS + Browser + User behaviour is to be trusted as being human.
Attestation before used to mean “is this device who it says it is”, and one can check that in some ways as part of WebAuthN (aka “Passwordless login”), where it would be useful to know if an Android device a site knows you have (as you’ve logged in before) is that same device. It’s a system to trust devices. The WEI-API expands this to look at your OS, your browser and your environment, like installed applications.
Problem with this, is that the requirements don’t have to be public. Apple can decide what makes a “trustworthy device” and what can be considered “suspicious”.
Bad examples like these are to “fail” attestation if you have torrent clients installed, of if you’re connected via a VPN, or if you’re not using Bing + Edge on Windows.
Browsers and OS’es refusing to support attestation are likely to become a minority (most users use Chrome, and Google seems to be in favour). Should sites start blindly trusting this “attestation” - in replacement of captcha’s -, we could start seeing more privacy-prone combinations being locked out of these kind of sites.
Furthermore, they’ll be shooting themselves in the foot. The EU is already curtailing wireless charging lock-in, by mandating Qi charging support. A tailor-made solution might have a higher speed, but as technologies improve, the “harmonised interoperability” will be bumped up by the EU parliament.
Lastly, this legislation doesn’t seem aimed at just the EU. My legalese isn’t all that great, but it seems they’re highly encouraging members of the EEA (non-EU) to adopt similar legislation too.
My VPN (and mail, storage and email masking service) costs 60 eur per year, while Netflix for just me on good quality is 144 eur per year and that’s sponsoring a service that cancels good shows left and right.
If I particularly like a movie, I’ll buy it on YouTube, but other than that I’ve got my little ship and I’m sailing with it.
Similar experiences with my Quiet Comforts II. I’m not using the shell it comes with, so it’s buffed a little, and had to replace the earcaps twice just because they get worn down in my backpack, but they work absolutely perfect.
Sure, the battery life isn’t as great as it was when I bought them in 2017 but for single-day usage they’re fine and I just give it a small micro-usb-powered pep-talk every night to use them the next day.