We have our own local home grown cliques that capture gov contracts.

Yes. If you scroll to the bottom, you find that the project is led by Prof. Francesca Bria.

Looking her up on Wikipedia, one has 2 thoughts: 1) She has a lot of hustle. 2) Why haven’t I heard about any of that?

This is just the Monorail Man doing the song. Except with disturbingly fascist overtones.

I was just a little surprised to see the familiar name but I don’t quite remember why. Maybe because of the downvotes.

Oh. By Bruce Schneier.

Yes, the archiving and republishing would be illegal in most countries, but not in the US. Fair Use

They didn’t face trouble over archiving the net, but over digitally lending e-books and audio.

Maybe it’s time to have a little think about that word, “influencer”, and how that is a job with which people make money.

GPT-4o mini via DuckDuckGo.

Attached image 1

“so far”

Outage is ending.

Oct 20 2:27 AM PDT We are seeing significant signs of recovery. Most requests should now be succeeding. We continue to work through a backlog of queued requests. We will continue to provide additional information.

https://health.aws.amazon.com/health/status

Could be that your region relies on different servers, could be that only the sign-in is down.

I don’t see what makes you so certain. The EU unambiguously wants computing devices to be more locked down. It wants responsible developers to be tracked.

If your argument holds, then that only means that there is a loophole allowing devs to distribute apps anonymously. That’s where the car analogy fails. There are exceptions for small enterprises and “open source stewards”. These exist so that small players and start-ups won’t be overwhelmed by bureaucracy. They are not supposed to protect dev privacy or user freedom.

I can only repeat that I find your argument valid. I just don’t believe it would stand up in court. If Google was pushing back on this, I would still back them up on such arguments. But they understandably don’t.

Unless there is a major change in attitudes in Europe, we are going to see much more mandated control and surveillance, anyway.

If it’s bundled with the OS, it probably does.

Components “placed on the market separately” are explicitly included a being part of the product.

Let me try to gather this together:

The manufacturer, the authorised representative, the importer, the distributor, or other natural or legal person shall, on request, provide the market surveillance authorities with the name and address of any economic operator who has supplied them with a software product, including software or hardware components being placed on the market separately;

Economic operators shall, on request, provide the market surveillance authorities with the following information: (a) the name and address of any economic operator who has supplied them with a product with digital elements;

‘economic operator’ means the manufacturer, the authorised representative, the importer, the distributor, or other natural or legal person who is subject to obligations in relation to the manufacture of products with digital elements or to the making available of products with digital elements on the market in accordance with this Regulation;

‘product with digital elements’ means a software or hardware product and its remote data processing solutions, including software or hardware components being placed on the market separately;

The verification demand is for Google certified Android.

‘electronic information system’ means a system, including electrical or electronic equipment, capable of processing, storing or transmitting digital data;

The OS or a phone both fit that definition.

‘component’ means software or hardware intended for integration into an electronic information system;

An app fits the definition of a component.

Maybe you would have to argue that an app is not actually a component. But if it’s a stand-alone thing, then why does it rely on an OS?

I think you can make a good argument that a phone without an OS is not a system. It’s not capable of much. Maybe custom roms will remain an option.

Anyway, Google is not abusing that loophole. So, no problem. F-Droid encourages users to complain to EU lawmakers about Google being a meanie. Maybe the EU will close it anyway as part of future tech regulation.

Here’s a definition:

‘product with digital elements’ means a software or hardware product and its remote data processing solutions, including software or hardware components being placed on the market separately;

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that such apps are components “placed on the market separately”. In fact, I think it’s exactly within the meaning. In any case, even if not, such loopholes are usually plugged by some of the vague, general obligations.

I don’t think ADB installation is a loophole. Once you poke around in the insides of a device, you’re generally on your own. I expect that devices are going to become more locked down before these regulations enter into force but only as far as absolutely necessary. Google doesn’t want to lock out the next generation of devs. Unless or until there is some fuss about people doing something bad and this is declared a loophole.

You’re arguing that a dev shouldn’t be seen as supplying to Google just because their apps run on a Google system. I agree, that could be a valid argument, but I am not too sure if it would work in court.

Google is certainly following the spirit of the law. Maybe there is a tiny loophole here but imagine Google leaves that open. A few people install some shady app store full of malware and scams. Would a court find that Google had fulfilled all its legal obligations to protect its users?

That says when Google distributes an app via the Play Store, Google must be able to name the developer.

You’re thinking of the DSA (Article 30), in force since last year. The CRA is on top (or beside) of that, starting in 2027. Some are also pointing the finger at the RED (Article 3 3.). That’s the one that made Apple do USB chargers.

I expect phones are going to become a lot more locked down, especially in the EU.

It does not say that when I distribute an app via my website, Google has any obligations whatsoever.

Yes. Google is only demanding verification for certified phones.

collect certain information from developers

Yes. Like a copy of their identity papers.

Consult Article 23 (“Identification of economic operators”) of the CRA. The entry into force fits Google’s timeline.

I think Google is mainly aiming to comply with EU law. But Brussels effect…

It should give Europeans pause that their tech regulation is red state style. Explains why their tech industry is on a red state level.

Check out some thread on AI and copyright. That oughta tell you how copyright people “think”, for lack of a better word. Not impossible to succeed with that kind of thing in Europe.

I doubt there’s anywhere where the phone book wasn’t digitized. In Germany, the requirement to publish your address + number was eventually dropped, though; maybe because the phone system was privatized.

Salman Rushdie: First time?