alt Hacker News> The developers also appear to believe that the apps have a right to inspect the trustworthiness of the user's device, by offering to support apps that would trust their keys [1], locking out users who maintain their freedom by building their own forks.
That is not a bad thing. The alternative is not having apps that do these checks available on the platform at all. It’s ridiculous that someone should expect that every fork of it should have that capability (because the average developer is not going to accept the keys of someone’s one off fork).
If there’s anyone to blame, it should be the app developers choosing to do that (benefits of attestation aside).
Attestation is also a security feature, which is one of the points of GOS. People are free to use any other distribution of Android if they take issue with it.
Obviously I could be wrong here, this is just the general sentiment that I get from reading GOS documentation and its developer’s comments.
> Attestation is also a security feature
I don't actually disagree with this. The auditor is a perfectly valid use of it. It's good to be able to verify cryptographically your device is running what it's supposed to.
The problem is when it transcends ownership boundaries and becomes a mechanism to exert control over things someone doesn't own, like your bank or government controlling your phone. It is one of the biggest threats to ownership worldwide.
Note also that getting "trusted" comes at the cost of other security features, such as spoofing your location securely to apps:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44685283