• Google is making it mandatory to have Play Services for its next-generation reCAPTCHA system on Android.

  • Your phone will need to be running Play Services version 25.41.30 or greater when the system asks you to scan a QR code for verification.

  • This hurdle means that de-Googled phones will fail the verification test by default.

  • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    16·
    7 days ago

    Fuck that. One of the biggest offenders of web scraping and bot traffic wants to force us all to install their spyware just to verify that we’re human when there have already been much simpler ways to do this without that bullshit captcha for years…

  • wabafee@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    7 days ago

    Captcha in general are annoying to customers there is no point having them today too be fair. I would consider bot visits these days as potential costumers seeing how they can buy stuff online now. If your blocking your sites because your afraid they are scraping and using it for training. Then you are just blocking the small timers likely those people who wants to democratized AI like Deepseek. While the biggest culprit like Google’s web crawlers have free rain to train on your data. Those who are determined will would just pass that to captcha farm.

  • 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2771·
    8 days ago

    If you’re a web dev, and you implement this, just know you won’t receive my web traffic. Ill go live with the other robots and we will start our own internet with blackjack and hookers.

  • Zak@lemmy.worldEnglish
    183·
    8 days ago

    That means if Google’s verification system gets widely adopted, browsing the web could become a headache.

    Using a phone to scan a QR code in order to access a website on my desktop is a headache even if it has no dependencies in particular.

    • limonfiesta@lemmy.worldEnglish
      48·
      8 days ago

      Unless it was the website I needed inorder to receive an organ donation, I would just close it.

      I could claim that’s an act of righteous protest, but really I just know that absent my needing a new liver, there’s no website I would ever care enough about to get me to scan a QR code just to keep browsing.

    • Kairos@lemmy.todayEnglish
      8·
      8 days ago

      I have, multiple times, had to take a screenshot, send it to another device, and then display that QR code on that device so I can scan it. Nothing about using phones isn’t a headache.

        • systemglitch@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5·
          7 days ago

          I spend most of my day without a phone near me. I hate phones, this won’t encourage me to do anything but pull further away.

          I suppose that is a win. Real life isn’t happening on a screen.

  • thejml@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    112·
    8 days ago

    Ignoring the de-Googled phones for a sec: I assume if you’re using a desktop, then the QR shows up and you have to drag out your phone to scan it in the camera app that then prompts to open the google play store. Dumb, but possible for people who have a phone with Android. What about those that don’t? Would you need a google account?

    Now if it’s all on phone (using Chrome or Firefox or whatever) and pops up a QR code, you can’t scan it… but the browser would have to open the play store directly and thats a huge security no-no. The browser shouldn’t even know I have the Play Store.

    I have a feeling the hundreds of us that are de-Googled ad just going to stop using these sites all together.

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.caEnglish
      511·
      8 days ago

      Yeah, so the hundreds of us won’t be able to use the internet anymore if this passes

      Awesome

    • Dave@lemmy.nzEnglish
      10·
      8 days ago

      The browser shouldn’t even know I have the Play Store.

      Every app on your Android phone knows every other app you have installed. GrapheneOS are trying to solve this but it’s challenging.

    • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
      6·
      8 days ago

      I’m not even de-Googled (yet) and I wouldn’t bother with this shit. It’s an instant close in that tab, and if it’s something I need then I’ll find another service.

    • timestatic@feddit.orgEnglish
      4·
      8 days ago

      What about people who use iPhones? Even if I used a normal google android I wouldn’t want to be bothered to scan a qr code with my phone to verify myself every time

  • Wispy2891@lemmy.worldEnglish
    951·
    8 days ago

    This is awesome news for scammers:

    1. Fake page will say “you need to scan this qr code to verify you’re human”
    2. Users normally dismisses this shit, but it has become normal nowadays, take out the phone to scan it
    3. Qr code opens a page on totallynotascam.com that say “you need to install this totally safe APK on your device for verification 😉”
    4. APK passes the new useless developer “verification” as the scammer either used a hacked dev account or just paid $25 with a stolen id + stolen credit card
    5. User see the message “APK verified by Google play protect” and would totally believe the bullshit, giving all the possible permissions to the app
    • redsand@infosec.pubEnglish
      2·
      7 days ago

      Don’t even need an app. There’s a root LPE almost monthly now most of android takes a month or more to patch. Just need a common exploitable app to handle your link and get your initial shell.

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.caEnglish
    66·
    8 days ago

    Once this is implemented, Google will have finally succeeded in closing the entire fucking internet. That is, assuming this will become anywhere successful and smaller websites will be using it as well.

  • x00z@lemmy.worldEnglish
    58·
    7 days ago

    A lot of Android bot devices simulate (or even ARE) a full phone with a legit Play Store and other Google services.

    This requirement is enforced vendor lock in. Nothing more.

  • zerofk@lemmy.zipEnglish
    57·
    8 days ago

    Wait wait wait. To prove you’re human you have to read something designed for computers to read?

    • JcbAzPx@lemmy.worldEnglish
      51·
      7 days ago

      To be honest, most of what they use now is pretty easy for machines to do. Mostly because they’ve been using the captcha to train ocr and self driving.

        • YeahToast@aussie.zoneEnglish
          3·
          7 days ago

          And started off with letter identification to help with reading scanned books. For example, place 3 known 'R’s tell users to select all R’s. If majority of people select 4 R’s then that unknown 4th R becomes a known letter

          • nickiwest@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            4 days ago

            I knew that function. And improving OCR felt like a worthwhile endeavor to crowdsource. There are a lot of old books that we need to digitize before we lose them forever.

            The pivot to recognizing things for self-driving cars makes a lot of sense, but I really don’t like the idea that I’m increasing shareholder value for Tesla.

  • RachelRodent@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    44·
    7 days ago

    Would this pass in EU? Seems anti competition. Do we need another movement like stop chat control to mobilize people?

    • WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.todayEnglish
      41·
      8 days ago

      It’s not just anti-competition, but anti-privacy - Google will know exactly who is going to what sites, regardless of your browser.

    • matlag@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      7·
      7 days ago

      Probably not, but my expectations is the EU will slam them with a record fine of 0.03% of their monthly revenue after 5 years of investigations and obligation to provide an alternative solution, that they will work around so it still does not fix anything.

      By the time the damages would be done.

      Has anyone seen the benefits of EU’s mandatory opening of chat systems to third parties yet??

    • namingthingsiseasy@programming.devEnglish
      3·
      7 days ago

      Yeah, this should definitely not be allowed. Google should not be allowed to dictate which operating systems people are allowed to use. And no doubt that this is harmful to many European companies and prevents competition in the space of mobile operating systems.

      That said, it remains to be seen if anything will get done about it.

  • ennof@feddit.orgEnglish
    451·
    8 days ago

    “Google’s next-gen reCAPTCHA system could spell trouble for any website that implements it as no de-Googled phone user will care to use it”

    • frongt@lemmy.zipEnglish
      341·
      8 days ago

      That demographic is so small as to be irrelevant to the majority of companies.

    • Dæmon S.@calckey.world
      142·
      8 days ago

      @ennof@feddit.org @LuminousLuddite@lemmy.world @technology@lemmy.world

      As if it were a matter of caring or wanting/not wanting to use websites… It would be really nice to live in such a world where one could have the luxury of “choosing”. Unfortunately, it’s not this world for many people and many peoples.

      To exemplify this, there are websites I, as a Brazilian, can’t simply choose whether to use or not, because there are government and bureau websites for services through which I’m expected to comply with citizen things I didn’t ask for (as I didn’t ask to be born in this world to begin with). Online services such as “DETRAN” (state-wise transportation bureaus where one must renew one’s driver’s license), which I remember having to click a reCAPTCHA in order to proceed with transportation-related citizen duties. I can’t have the luxury of saying “you know what, I’m not renewing my driver’s license which has become my ID for a plethora of services not even related to driving, which means I’m going ID-less and becoming a legally-indigent person in the eyes of the next cop that requests my ID”.

      Hell, I can’t even choose to have a degoogled phone because our customs (Receita Federal) will likely deny the entry for any “unlicensed device” (i.e. devices not licensed by ANATEL, Brazilian telecommunication agency). And installing a custom ROM in any available device is not without the risk of bricking the device (and losing a monthly minimum wage worth of money spent with said device) especially for someone like me who never installed custom ROMs.

      Again, would be really awesome to live in the world you described where one could afford “caring to use” things…

      • Wispy2891@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        8 days ago

        Well the good thing is that now Google enshittified recaptcha and now if the website owner wants to implement it, needs to pay $1 for 1000 verification requests which is crazy expensive for something that as of now it’s easy to pass as a bot than as a human (bots ask the voice verification and ask a LLM to interpret that, pass recaptcha in less than a second. Humans need to click on 25 traffic lights and give up in the process)