China blocks TLS 1.3

[SYSTEM]

https://www.zdnet.com/article/china-is- ... -and-esni/

By disallowing TLS 1.3 and almost certainly future versions of TLS when they arrive, China blocks evolution of encryption technology. Likewise, by blocking ESNI, they ensure that their Great Firewall can continue to determine to which site the user is trying to connect.

Vulnerabilities will eventually be found in TLS 1.2, just like they have in earlier versions (Mozilla and Google just disabled TLS 1.0 and 1.1 support by default due to their weaknesses) and China will, no doubt, exploit them to spy their citizens.

TLS had the promise of allowing secure communication over the Internet, for the purpose of e.g. buying things without fear that someone in between could capture your credit card number. It's sad to see that authoritarian regimes still have ways around it.

[Midas]

Yet another example of how the Internet is rapidly fragmenting under the weight of overbearing country and regional authorities coupled with the massive influence of big tech conglomerates (such as M$ and ₲) yielding enough power to bend technical standards to their own particular wills.

Sadly, barring an unexpected technology change -- quantum internet, anyone? -- I'm not positive about any improvements in the foreseeable future...

[Andrew Lee]

Global politics aside, the power of the few big tech firms are terrifying.

We have all read news about how small companies get destroyed when they disappear off Google's search results, or Apple takes down an app from their app store.

A friend told me recently an app developed by an acquaintance's startup suddenly got taken down from the app store for violating certain rules. The scary thing is, the entire process is a black box with subjective reviewers and arbitrary rules, and trying to get the decision reversed is like going down a rabbit hole with no other recourse. Luckily, the ban was reversed after 4 weeks or so, so that's already 4 weeks of lost business.

Imagine the court system working like this, with no public deliberation and no way to challenge any decisions made. Crazy!

[SYSTEM]

Global politics aside, the power of the few big tech firms are terrifying.

We have all read news about how small companies get destroyed when they disappear off Google's search results, or Apple takes down an app from their app store.

A friend told me recently an app developed by an acquaintance's startup suddenly got taken down from the app store for violating certain rules. The scary thing is, the entire process is a black box with subjective reviewers and arbitrary rules, and trying to get the decision reversed is like going down a rabbit hole with no other recourse. Luckily, the ban was reversed after 4 weeks or so, so that's already 4 weeks of lost business.

Imagine the court system working like this, with no public deliberation and no way to challenge any decisions made. Crazy!

Agreed. It's very concerning that big companies like that hold enough power to easily kill small businesses, with very little checks and balances. There is the argument that there is competition and users can switch to other search engines / social media platforms / mobile operating systems etc. but it's not very realistic in practice, especially in the search engine market where it's very hard to imagine that Google would lose their position even if they were to blatantly abuse their power.

[Midas]

It's very concerning that big companies like that hold enough power to easily kill small businesses, with very little checks and balances.

Or else just gobble them up with their deep, deep pockets when they can't kill them...