Potential issues:
- There are some well-known ways around developer verification (peopl in some countries _need_ them for one reason or another so - they use non-local cards,etc)
- it's very basic verification and people who pay for ads likely arleady do it (payment have to come from somewhere).
- Proof of address is also spoofable and there are some situations were people making/providing fakes when they don't mean ill intent towards anybody else (example: Russia, some of ways to make non-Russian-only Visa/MC require making fake proof) but such methods could also be abused for doing actual harm.
- ID verification sometimes complicated if a lot of countries are involved. Example: I'm not at all sure at least one person in Google actually knew what Abhazian passport is and how to verify it ?
Why not make it _optional_ but implement on github,etc so any publisher could enable this, no matter how small. But also make it possibel to disable either by support request and small wait or by secondary confirmation or via LONG (months) wait.
Problem is that A LOT of companies abuse copyright.
Examples with known services:
- Several years ago I can only buy a lot of ebooks via Kindle Store (they weren't in other places).Actually reading them in Bookfusion (which is my preferred tool) required breaking DRM.
- Spotify/Netflix - several years ago they required using their apps/sites only. Now I have to ALSO work around their geoblocks and they don't like this (so...they think I should try very hard to give them more money because they don't want them).
There are a lot other services with those problems.
But:Torrent trackers still work same as before. Paid pirate equivalents of Netflix (!) also still work same as before.
Counter example:iTunes Music store/Apple Music and Steam - still works, it looks like Apple and Valme still want my money so they get it.
Potential issue: what EXACTLY DRM is?
Is "you can only read this book/view this video on tivoized device which have it's own cellular connection to mothership and no USB/Ethernet/WiFi" counts as DRM for this purposes?
What about "you can only buy this book at some obscure store which have it's own obscure reader which only work on specific versions of specific OS"? What if said OS is out-of-date?
What about "you can buy only from specific store, store provides you reader app als specifically allows you to gift reader and books to friends,etc but reader app is personalized and will tell your name on start up"?(btw,I did buy some books protected this way in 00s)
Sometimes I wish I'm able to knew things like this in discussion:
- is person legally adult(not necessary due to being of age, emancipation is also ok, people who do emancipation usually more...adult)
- how much education person really have? (it's _usually_ pointless to discuss anything related to science with children from middle school)
Possible option(will it BE Option?):
EU:Here is my phone. Yes, it's working. It's chinese one with Huawei's Harmony OS, photos are great. or it's Russian one, I really like Pushkin so decided to get their model.
Russia: Here is my phone. Yes,it's google pixel with GrapheneOS (it's more secure - Mother Russia is danger so everyone must be vigilant! I banking app via RuStore).
USA: Here is my phone. I really like French. it's phone with with stock e/OS
Point is - if it's impossible NOT to be observed - you (for now) still have choice which security service will observe you.
$NOT_YOUR_COUNTRY_OR_ALLIANCE security services/police is unlikely to arrest $CITIZENS_OF_YOUR_COUNTRY_OR_ALLIANCE without $NOT_YOUR_COUNTRY_OR_ALLIANCEtroops be here FIRST (and you will knew it). Only potential threat is that $NOT_YOUR_COUNTRY_OR_ALLIANCE could try to be interoperable with each other
China or Russia also have "interesting" data protection / "let's protect children" laws. Some of they also formulated in same way as GDPR so VPN doesn't help. Why should they be ignored? (other than "but it's DIFFERENT thing, EU is good ones")
He is in Russia?
Did he tried to run his own server _over vpn_?
I did encounter a lot of strange issues with network connectivity if one of nodes is in Russia (especially on non-datacenter connection).TSPU could cause a lot of issues (to protect children from terrorists -:)). First thing to check is making _relilable_ encrypted VPN and checking via it.
Not only.
Example: Chrome on Android did change some time ago so if CA is in System store (which means it got here from manufacturer or from user which does have root access) - such CA MUST use Certificate Transparency. This rule doesn't apply if CA is in User store (installable by regular user) - https://httptoolkit.com/blog/chrome-android-certificate-tran...
Another example: Yandex Browser ONLY trust Russian NUC certs if they are in public CT logs,not otherwise (https://habr.com/ru/companies/yandex/articles/667300/ - text is in Russian) (as far as I understood, NOT trusting this CA al all is not option for them or their users, and if user is using chrome/firefox and needs access to sites which use this CA - CA will be just be installed manually so Yandex's solution is more secure, thanks to CTs).
A LOT of minor fuck ups which demonstrates Entrust is (likely) not malicious, they just stupid and don't care how to do things correctly.
How long until they fuck up something serious?
This reminds me about discussion about Russian Goverment's NUC Root CA (not trusted by default in Chrome/Firefox, Trusted by Yandex Browser only with some additional verifications to prevent abuse by goverment). Discussion was not about why this cert was necessary in first place, it was about it's creation violating Russian laws and procedures AND violate a lot of technical rules.
A lot of people just said - this cert is necessary and it's clear who made it so why we should look to "minor details"?
(Links - in Russian https://habr.com/ru/articles/666520/ / https://habr.com/ru/articles/708970/ )
This looks related to some other problem:
- There is Alice's server which provide service X
- There are clients like Bob who needs this service.
- There is Mallory who thinks clients doesn't need such service. Mallory have significant resources (more than Alice or Bob).
- Mallory thinks it's ok to block access to Alice' server IF it's known that it's Alice's server and not some random site. Mallory sometimes also thinks it's ok to block if protocol is unknown.
This problem solved by XRay in all of it's versions. It could be possible (if overkill) to use mostly same methods to authenticate correct user and provide eir access.
They can. Every country can.
And they do in other cases - USA is perfectly Ok to sanction Chinese/UAE bank for doing business with Russian military.
If it's ok to it with sanctions - why it's not ok to do it for market access?
Yes, this could create situation where things EU requires worldwide are in direct conflict with other countries but it's rather unlikely to happen.
Would answer "I use it host servers at home and have load-balanced access to internet via several end-users ISPs(no BGP sessions with ISPs so 2 VPN tunnels from home to server + 2 BGP sessions from home to said server via tunnels and server itself have session with it's ISP) count?" :)
Would "I'm just getting lists of IPs blocked by local censorship authority/IPs which are better to access via IP from OTHER country to put them all in VPN" count? :)
p.s.
I'm not network admin and never put "BGP" on resume.
There's other potential advantage (or disadvantage depending on how you view it).
Some countries like India don't like sat phones on their territory.
Some countries like Russia are ok with them but require local connection to terrestial networks and local licenses.
Some countries are in territorial disputes.
What if SpaceX or other such company decide (or would be "gently asked to") it could ignore local regulations in such country? What if it would be done for good?
Possible example: somebody lobbies ITU(via some kind of "emergency license for humanitarian purposes only") to allow SpaceX to allow SpaceX to serve Gaza for free with limits and USA is ok with it. Israel is against it but what they could do? Jam Starlink? What if they also use it? What if 10 years in future same thing is done to North Korea(it could be even more legal - as far as I understood, both Koreas claims they are only legitimate goverment of Korea so SK could issue formal license)?
As far as I understood, this is because US carries throws unlimited SMS for free and data is costly.
In my country, it's possible to get unlimited sms but for additional fee on some carries (other carries just provide N SMS per month) and data prices are rather low even now.
How it works with totally unmodified cellular hardware? I thought there are physical max limits on cell size and they were lower than LEO orbits.
Could it in future allow for LTE speeds?
Could it work in any place where regular starlink could?(assuming SpaceX ignores licensing rules for countries who says it's their territory/it's high seas/they got license).
It's interesting how much it costs.
Also, it's interesting is it possible to migrate to fully-self-hosted Mastodoon setup even without data (it's very difficult in Matrix - as far as I understood, you can't migrate Synapse-based instance to non-Synapse and you can't just start clean on same url)
They could be good idea.
Ukraine can trust China they try to protect them if agreed to. They doesn't have to do this with military force and even if Putin suddenly decide that Chinese can't be trusted anymore - China is ALSO nuclear state so direct military conflict is unlikely.
Russia can trust China that if Ukraine and China agreed that Ukraine will not enter NATO(one of reasons for this conflict according to Russian side) - China will honor this too.
(It's unlikely Russia will trust NATO on this anymore).
Issues of Crimea and Donbass and Donbass remains but Donbass is easily solvable - just let China control implementation of Minsk agreements. Crimea is more complex .
Current war is between Russia and Ukraine.
NOT between Russia and other countries.
Let's supposed somebody starts hacking Russian satellites. Kremlin says it's highly likely was done by Europe/USA (even if it's Ukraine) and respond in kind. By hacking theirs. What if it doesn't stop at mutual hacking? both USA and Russia armed forces have ASAT weapons. What next?
This could be understood - a lot of their employees ARE from Ukraine, as far as I remember (so it's rather different from situations companies like Apple/Disney don't want to work in Russia)
This could have grave issues for them IF Ukraine will be fully occupied for a long time but it looks they decided to accept that risk.