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Comment by RandomGerm4n | Hacker News Reader

Users have the right to modify any app running on their own device. Software security should never depend on the user having no control over their own device. Smartphones are essentially just regular computers, and on them you can use a debugger and do whatever you want. Viewing smartphones as closed systems like game consoles where you need the manufacturer’s permission for everything only leads us into the dystopia that Richard Stallman described as early as 1997 in his short story "The Right to Read"

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To become dystopia people must be forced to use locked down smartphones. In reality you buy the one that suits your needs and do not enforce your design decisions on the smartphones other people use.

Where is that free choice that you see "in reality"? This post is about the opposite of that getting put in place. The actual reality is that almost every service provider is converging on supporting a few extremely restrictive options. From every private service you can think of, to key government services. They all are saying "to interact with us, you must use one of these two types of devices, with all the attestation and security measures intact". It's impossible for people to make their own design decisions or choose for themselves, because other options do not have the corporate/government blessing.

It's ridiculous that you look at all of us being forced into a government-protected duopoly, and then say "Don't you dare force your decisions on us!" to anyone suggesting that this should not be the default. Rules for us, but not them.

> They all are saying "to interact with us, you must use one of these two types of devices, with all the attestation and security measures intact"

Are you claiming that this is the only way of interacting with particular government services, with the other ways that existed before the app no longer being available? To make situation „dystopian“ this must be the case.

That is clearly the direction, yes.

First it's new and optional, then it's mature but equal, then as adoption grows further, the old way of doing things gets deprioritized and neglected, then you're a 2nd tier citizen until they finally remove it altogether.

See: Essential businesses like grocery stores going cashless

Businesses are not government services and free to do whatever allowed by the law. For a country to be dystopian the government in your example must prohibit businesses to take cash.

Once SafetyNet was brought to Android a decade ago the tendency has been clear - these freedoms are going to be restricted heavily.

Because how do you make sure it's the user who does those modifications, willingly and well-informed? That it's not a malicious actor, not an user getting socially engineered or phished? Incredibly difficult compared to the current alternative.

If it's not a software root of trust that provides an attestable environment like Android or iOS. It's going to be a hardware root of trust that provides an attestable hardware environment, like SGX. I can predict no other practical avenue taken. Unless the orangutan really forces a demonstration on how untrustworthy these environments can be and a lot of money and effort is spent.

You can maybe, trust the user to handle it's own certificate in their own devices? Though I admit requiring attestation is probably a good default.

One important feature of a legal ID is that it's hard to copy, so attestation from the hardware storage would have to be basically mandatory.

But yeah, the user could have a choice to this extent.

You can attest that cryptographic key material is safely stored without attesting that their operating system and software running on it is all government-approved.

That's what smartcards like Yubikey do, my government certificate is on it and it can't be exported. They could attest that but beyond that, the operating system of the host device is none of their business.

> You can attest that cryptographic key material is safely stored without attesting that their operating system and software running on it is all government-approved.

There's no proper way of doing so on Android.

Some countries, like Estonia, are providing their own SIMs to solve this problem. That indeed works. Unfortunately phones are being made that are eSIM-only and certifying eSIMs to the same EAL level is near-impossible.

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