• interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    That’s pretty bold for a really fucking useless search engine. The EU could just block it and redirect google.com to a gov run searxng instange and everyone in europe would be better off overniggt

    • thbb@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      The eu doesn’t it to block the search engine from the internet. It only needs to block the google cash-flow from inside EU to Ireland and then it’s shareholders.

    • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      It would likely be impossible to redirect google.com without either sparking a cyberwar or building something like the great firewall of China, quite possibly both.

      Blocking is somewhat possible, but to redirect, they would have to forge google certificates and possibly also fork Chrome and convince users to replace their browser, since last I checked, google hard-coded it’s own public keys into Chrome.

      Technical details

      I say blocking in somewhat possible, because governments can usually just ask DNS providers to not resolve a domain or internet providers to block IPs.

      The issue is, google runs one of the largest DNS services in the world, so what happens if google says no? The block would at best be partial, at worst it could cause instability in the DNS system itself.

      What about blocking IPs? Well, google data centers run a good portion of the internet, likely including critical services. Companies use google services for important systems. Block google data centers and you will have outages that will make crowd-strike look like a tiny glitch and last for months.

      Could we redirect the google DNS IPs to a different, EU controlled server? Yes, but such attempts has cause issues beyond the borders of the country attempting it in the past. It would at least require careful preparations.

      As for forging certificates, EU does control multiple Certificate authorities. But forging a certificate breaks the cardinal rule for being a trusted CA. Such CA would likely be immediately distrusted by all browsers. And foreig governments couldn’t ignore this either. After all, googles domains are not just used for search. Countless google services that need to remain secure could potentially be compromised by the forged certificate. In addition, as I mentioned, google added hard-coded checks into Chrome to prevent a forged certificate from working for it’s domains.

      • ByteJunk@lemmy.world
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        22 hours ago

        Nah. Demanding the ISPs to block traffic to Google domains would be quite effective.

        This isn’t like the great firewall of chine where you want to prevent absolutely all traffic. If you make it inconvenient to use, because CSS breaks or a js library doesn’t load or images breaslk, its already a huge step into pushing it out of the market.

        Enterprise market would be much harder, a loooot of EU companies rely on Google’s services, platforms and apps, and migrating away would take a lot of time and money.

        • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
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          22 hours ago

          Demanding the ISPs to block traffic to Google domains would be quite effective.

          Filter it based on what? Between ESNI and DNS over HTTPS, it shouldn’t be possible to know, which domain the traffic belongs to. Am I missing something?

          Edit: Ah, I guess DNS over HTTPS isn’t enabled by default yet.

          • BritishJ@lemmy.world
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            12 hours ago

            Just filter out googles ASN and ip’s. And stop peering with them on BGP. Simples

            Im not supporting this by the way. I think the internet should be free and open, without governments blocking what I can access.

            • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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              11 hours ago

              The onpy free internet will be tor. The normie internet has been too naughty and spawned shitty giants who think they can treat us like cattle. Break the critical mass and network effects, kill the blitzscale cheaters trying to enslave us. We do not need them, they need us.

          • ByteJunk@lemmy.world
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            10 hours ago

            IP block it. Boom there goes eSNI and DNS.

            Sure, it’s crude, but again: it doesn’t have to perfect, it just needs to create havoc with Google services to push away a regular user, who has no idea what DNS even is.

            A better approach though is to fine Google, with a % of revenue increasing until compliance. They’ll very quickly be incentivised to comply or shutdown.

            • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
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              6 hours ago

              The whole argument was about blocking search only, considering the damages suddenly completely blocking google would do. Yes, you can block google data centers completely, but dude, would that cause chaos.

              A better approach though is to fine Google,

              I said that multiple times already.

        • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
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          19 hours ago

          Yes, I mentioned that in a comment deeper down. And even before that, just fine them. Chances are they will pay and if not, you can probably seize some bank accounts.

          I am not trying to say Google can afford to completely defy the EU, just found it interesting how hard it is to block just google search specifically.

          PS: Also mentioned in a burried comment, there actually is a way for ISPs to block google, since DNS over HTTPS is not enabled by default yet in browsers I think. I forgot this since I enabled encrypted DNS like 8+ years ago for myself and just assumed people also have it by now.

      • seejur@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        You block the DNS ups as well I think. Browsers should have more than one DNS address anyway in case one go down

        • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          The backup is usually a different server from the same DNS provider. E.g. google has 8.8.8.8 as primary and 8.8.4.4 as secondary. Plus the backup doesn’t even always work on Windows.

          Also note, it is not browsers but operating systems that do primary DNS. Browsers may use DNS over HTTPS for security and privacy instead of the one in the OS, but that usually requires the OS DNS to resolve the address of the DNS over HTTPS server, since it is considered a security feature built on top of classic DNS instead of replacement.

          PS: Don’t get me wrong, EU could definitely block google.com sooner or later. It just wouldn’t be as easy as usual. The real risk is if Alphabet stops offering all of its services, chaos ensues. Companies unable to access their google spreadsheets. Services and data hosted on google cloud lost. People protesting lack of youtube…

          And even if Alphabet doesn’t do that, I expect a lot of issues just with google being unavailable and most people not even knowing there are other search engines. It’s really going to be last resort to try blocking google, I expect fines or some such.

          • ZeroPhreak@lemmy.world
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            22 hours ago

            I think that if EU was to retaliate against any of the big tech players (which isn’t going to happen imho since eu institutions don’t really display the affinity for swift and decisive justice it would require) it would make more sense to start blocking the advertising and/or data collection. Like a continent-wide pi hole. Still getting the message across while not impacting the users as much. At least not immediately. That said, the gatekeeper platforms should be prohibited from providing services like DNS resolving which are critical for the operation of other services than just theirs.

            • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
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              22 hours ago

              They probably also could just prevent EU companies and branches from buying google ads directly. Vast majority of ads is geo-located, so there would be almost no ads to show in the EU.

      • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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        21 hours ago

        There’s probably a way to redirect without validation. Only respond to port 80 if needed, then redirecr. Sure the browser might complain a little but it’s not as bad as invalid cert.

        • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
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          18 hours ago

          Maybe for some rando site, Google and any half competent site has HSTS enabled, meaning a browser won’t even try to connect with insecure HTTP, nor allow user to bypass the security error, as long as the HSTS header is remembered by the browser (the site was visited recently, set to 1 year for google).

          In addition, google will also be on HSTS preload lists, so it won’t work even if you never visited the site.

          • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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            17 hours ago

            That makes me realize, what kind of country doesn’t cobtrol it’s dns space’s encryption certificates. That’s a major oversight.

            • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
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              16 hours ago

              What? What do you mean “DNS space”? Classic DNS does not have any security, no encryption and no signatures.

              DNSSEC, which adds signatures, is based on TLDs, not any geography or country. And it is not yet enabled for most domains, though I guess it would be for google. But obviously EU does not control .com.

              And if you mean TLS certificates, those are a bit complicated and I already explained why forging those would be problematic and not work on Chrome, though it could be done.

              • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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                11 hours ago

                Yes I mean tls certs as those control what dns records are considered valid. The Eu should control which tls are considered valid within its territory and that should be considetedpart of their security apparatus. It’s crazy irresponsible to have left that up to unaccountable private foreign entities. This is what would make it difficult to control their own independant version of the dns namespace.

                • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
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                  6 hours ago

                  No. At the end of the day, I control which certificates I consider valid. Browsers just choose the defaults. There is no way I quietly let some government usurp that power, considering how easy to abuse it is.

                  Yes I mean tls certs as those control what dns records are considered valid.

                  No they don’t. That is not what TLS really does. But I guess close enough.

        • timestatic@feddit.org
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          20 hours ago

          People from hexbear or lemmygrad are atrocious tho. ML is a bit better but still

          • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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            11 hours ago

            Lemmy provincialism wow

            You think I even know a single thing about this lemmy. Ml thing? I wouldn’t even remember what the url is if you hadn’t told me. It’s irrelevant. I just picked a server at random, likely the first one in the list.

            What a hopeless nerd you have to be to care about the dns instance name.

    • iopq@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      The government, running a service that doesn’t suck? Call me when it happens

      • Letme@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        You have become normalized to a country that allows a convicted felon to be president

        • iopq@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          What is the search engine your government hosts? Or maybe they do email? Do tell

          • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
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            6 hours ago

            Those are some pretty specific additional qualifiers. Did I hit a nerve?

            I’m responsing to someone claiming governments inherently cannot be good providers of essential services, which is patently untrue.

            The nordics are home to numerous government institutions, providing a variety of services that are perfectly satisfactory, and often excellent.

            Are you claiming that email or search engines not being among them today, means the rest mean nothing, or that they never will be?

            If the current services are anything to go by, those things getting added to the list, will be fucking great.

            • iopq@lemmy.world
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              5 hours ago

              Who said anything about essential services? It’s the nonessential services that I have a problem with

              • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
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                5 hours ago

                You classify email and internet search as non-essential?

                And what does how they are classified have to do with the ability/inability of government to provide them in a sufficient manner?

                You claimed something that HAS HAPPENED, could not. There’s no comeback here for you to find.

                • iopq@lemmy.world
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                  5 hours ago

                  You think email is a human right? It’s a box to send password resets. If websites all used one time paaswords, I wouldn’t need my email. You don’t actually send messages to people over email, do you?

                  We have things like Signal and Matrix to facilitate actually communicating with people.

                  Last time I sent an email to someone it bounced. Imagine spending time writing a letter and the mailman returns it to you

                  • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
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                    5 hours ago

                    I merely consider it necessary to function in modern society, and hence a service a government might conceivably provide.

                    You really like making assumptions about what I mean, and twisting my words, huh?

        • timestatic@feddit.org
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          20 hours ago

          List a country with a decent population of like at least 50 mio people that competes with companies successfully and fairly. Countries with a smaller population don’t have as much of a bureaucratic overhead. But even there… where do they offer a better service in a fair competition with companies

          • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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            11 hours ago

            Google neither competes fairly nor provides a good service. We have to endure them because they have made investment in a competitor uneconomical.

          • njordomir@lemmy.world
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            17 hours ago

            I would argue that “bureaucratic overhead” is missing in companies at least as much as it is excess in governments. These double checks and regulations help guard against things like companies externalizing environmental and health impacts. They also act as a check on tendencies towards consolidation (or rather should). Consequently, companies appear to operate more efficiently, but we will have to pay to clean up and handle their externalities eventually.

          • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝@sopuli.xyz
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            19 hours ago

            You are posting on a social media platform solely funded by the EU.

            But I’ve heard the USPS is not shit either. Publicly funded and run universities in the EU also provide the same or better service as those in the US for pennies on the dollar. Also, a lot of European railways are state run, like a lot of other public transit companies.

            Also, the only space agencies that ever got to the moon were public. So were the ones that put the first man in space, and the first man on the moon, and the one that sent the first satellite into orbit and the farthest man-made object from Earth.

          • Blisterexe@lemmy.zip
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            18 hours ago

            Hydroquebec, alternative power practically doesn’t exist in quebev because hydroquebec kicks ass

            • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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              11 hours ago

              I don’t think anyone could legally compete with hydro not that they could because we invested as a society into exploiting pur natural ressources for the common good of our population rather than the good of some dickhead.

              Result: cheapest electricity price on the continent.

        • iopq@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          I’ve been to half a dozen countries after COVID.

          That included a 16 hour stay in a Canadian hospital because they just don’t have enough doctors to get around to you if you’re not dying