ilmagico

I wish there was some kind of "ethical ad" standard, such that we can be served ads, maybe even "relevant" ads (with relevant topics picked by users), but without any tracking or malware, and in fact, with some kind of technology that prevents tracking instead of certifying to the advertisers that the user didn't "tamper" with their pc so they can track as much as they want (I'm not aware of such a standard or technology. Genuine question: is there such a thing?).

Heck, I'd be even in favor of a standard to "pay to disable ads", with reasonable fees, so that websites I like get their per-view dues, but without tracking or ads. If there was some kind of technology to send money to others without being tracked, kinda like back in the day when we used to buy newspapers at the newsstand with actual cash, but digital ... who said "cryptocurrency"? Right, I heard they were actually invented to be used as currency, rather than high risk investing/speculation device ... anyways, let me not digress (too much) ...

Is there a way to stop the existing abuse without introducing a different kind of abuse? Ideally, that's what we should aim for, if possible at all.

If that's not possible, restricting people's freedoms in the digital world (or the real world, for that) to prevent some from abusing such freedoms doesn't sound such a great proposition. As for "which abuse is better", I'd argue that if I have to be abused one way or another, I'd prefer to be free and in control so I have a chance to stop it myself ;)

(what freedoms, you might say? freedoms to run my own choice of operating system, my choice of browser, etc. on a computer that I own, maybe even built myself, and not be prevented from accessing the internet at large)

I’m sure these same arguments against this were made for anti-virus software back in the beginning

And I'm sure some of those companies, or some of those companies' employees, wrote some viruses themselves ;) But really, we can only speculate. Most are definitely legit and helpful.

The key here is, who is in control: the user of the software, or the company that made it? I'd say even for antiviruses, the user is in control, can choose a different antivirus or no antivirus at all (like me). In this Google proposal, it seems Google and other big corporations will be in control and not the user. That's the reason why it's bad. If I have to be abused, at least I like being in control so I can (try to) prevent it.

Look, I hate this proposal from Google as much as anyone else here, but let's stick to the facts.

As the "assembly" part indicates, it's intended to be as hard to analyze

The "assembly" is just a reference to machine instructions, a.k.a "assembly language".

Minified javascript, on the other hand, is made with the express purpose of obfuscation and as well, minimize load times, but mainly obfuscation in practice.

That's to say, you don't need webassembly to make it hard to reverse engineer. At least webassembly is a standard.

First there was Java, then there was Flash, now there is Webassembly

First, there were machine instruction, then people invented handy mnemonics for those and called "assembly language". Then there was C, then C++ (let's skip the basic, pascal, etc) and those weren't meant to be hard to analyze, they were and still are meant to be close to the machine, to be fast. Webassembly has similar goals. They can be relatively easily decompiled, just as much as webassembly I'm sure, unless they are purposefully obfuscated.

Just like native machine code and javascript, it can be decompiled/reverse engineered, and also obfuscated, but that's not its goal, not as stated nor in practice.

Yeah, as if github aka Microsoft is going to do anything about it ... but hey, anything to keep the pressure up and not letting this go through.

It sounds like most are not liking it because of some potential future abuses rather than what it actually is?

If I, potentially, wanted to abuse a system, I'd probably come up with a way to modify that system such that I can abuse it, but with a plausible explanation as to why I'm not actually going to do that, so that others will agree to it.

But let's assume, for the sake of the argument, that Google and/or the people who wrote this are actually acting in good faith. That still won't stop other large companies like Microsoft, Apple, etc. or even future Google employees from abusing the system later on.

Yes, the potential for abuse is the big deal here. And you know humans, if it can be abused, someone will try.

Benefit of the doubt, as in "I doubt this is a good idea"

I'm mostly in agreement but ... what's wrong with webassembly? that's just another way to compile webapps into, or parts of webapps, other than javascript. What am I missing?

they just think they having tons of money to throw at a potential lawsuit means nobody will dare suing them.

Yes