“Web 环境完整性” 是对自由的互联网的一次践踏

翻译自 “‘Web Environment Integrity’ is an all-out attack on the free Internet” ，来自 DefectiveByDesign.org ，作者 Greg Farough。原文以知识共享 署名-禁止演绎 4.0 协议授权。

Defective By Design （设计式缺陷）是由自由软件基金会发起组织的反对数字限制管理（Digital Restrictions Management，尽管这经常会被各大公司错误的称作“数字版权管理（Digital rights management）”）的运动。

Using a free browser is now more important than ever. We’ve written recently on this topic, but the issue we wrote about there was minor compared to the gross injustice Google is now attempting to force down the throats of web users around the world. The so-called “Web Environment Integrity” (WEI) is the worst stunt we’ve seen from them in some time. Beginning its life as an innocuous, if worrying, policy document posted to Microsoft GitHub, Google has now fast-tracked its development into their Chromium browser. At its current rate of progress, WEI will be upon us in no time.

使用自由的浏览器在如今愈发重要。我们最近曾经讨论过（Google 为了推行自己拥有专利的 AVIF 格式计划在 Chromium 浏览器中弃用 JPEG-XL 格式）这一主题，但与谷歌现在试图强制推广给全球网络用户的严重不公相比，我们之前写的问题只是小巫见大巫。

被他们称作“Web 环境完整性”（Web Environment Integrity，后文中缩写为 WEI）的文件会是我们在这很长一段时间以来见过的最糟糕的恶意行径。尽管最早它们只是存放在 Microsoft 旗下的 GitHub 的某个 GitHub 仓库里的一些看起来人畜无害或者只是可能会有些担忧的文件，现在谷歌已经将其快速发展成为他们的 Chromium 浏览器的一部分。按照目前的进展速度，WEI将会很快出现。

By giving developers an API through which they can approve certain browser configurations while forbidding others, WEI is a tremendous step toward the “enshittification” of the web as a whole. Many of us have grown up with a specific idea of the Internet, the notion of it as a collection of hyperlinked pages that can be accessed by a wide variety of different machines, programs, and operating systems. WEI is this idea’s antithesis.

通过为开发人员提供一个允许他们批准或是拒绝某些浏览器配置的 API，WEI 又向把整个互联网变成一堆垃圾的坚实一步。我们中的许多人都一直认为，互相链接的网页作为一个整体，可以通过各种不同的设备、程序和操作系统来访问，这就是我们认定的互联网的概念。而 WEI 则是这个观念的对立面。

Compared to its staggering potential effects, the technical means through which WEI will accomplish its ends is relatively simple. Before serving a web page, a server can ask a third-party “verification” service to make sure that the user’s browsing environment has not been “tampered” with. A translation of the policy’s terminology will help us here: this Google-owned server will be asked to make sure that the browser does not deviate in any way from Google’s accepted browser configuration, precluding any meaningful use of the four freedoms. It is not far-fetched to imagine a future in which sites simply refuse to serve pages to users running free browsers or free operating systems. If WEI isn’t stopped now, that future will come sooner than we think.

与其巨大的潜在影响相比，WEI 的实现方式可以说相对简单。在提供网页之前，服务器可以向第三方“验证”服务请求确认用户的浏览环境是否被“篡改”。

如果以更容易理解的方式翻译这条政策的话就是：这个由 Google 拥有的服务器将被要求确保浏览器在任何方面都不违背 Google 接受的浏览器配置，从而阻止了以任何方式达成四项自由。不难想象，在未来，网站可能会拒绝为使用自由操作系统（和/或浏览器）的用户提供服务。如果不立刻阻止WEI，那个未来将会比我们想象的更快到来。

While Web Environment Integrity has a policy document that attempts to explain valid ways in which it could be used, these are all non-issues compared to the way that we know it will be used. It will be used by governments to ensure that only their officially “approved” (read: backdoored) browsers are able to access the Internet; it will be used by corporations like Netflix to further Digital Restrictions Management (DRM); it will be used by Google to deny access to their services unless you are using a browser that gels with their profit margin.

虽然“网络环境完整性”有一份政策文件试图解释它可能被“合理”使用的方式，但与我们所知道的使用方式相比，这些都不是问题。政府将使用它来确保只有他们官方“批准”的（即带有后门的）浏览器能够访问互联网；像 Netflix 这样的公司将利用它进一步实施数字限制管理（DRM）；Google 将利用它来拒绝和它们利害关系不一致的浏览器访问它们的服务。

Once upon a time, Google’s official policy was “don’t be evil.” With the rapid progress they’ve made on Web Environment Integrity in such a short time, we can say very safely that their policy is now to pioneer evil. As we write this, talented and well-paid Google engineers and executives are working to dismantle what makes the web the web. Given that Google is one of the largest corporations on the planet, our only hope of saving the Internet as we know it is a clear and principled stance for freedom, a collective upholding of the communal principles on which the web was based.

曾经，Google 的官方宣称是“不作恶”。考虑到他们在短时间内在 WEI 方面取得的快速进展，我们可以非常确定地说，他们现在的政策可谓是“邪恶先锋”。在我们撰写这篇文章的同时，才华横溢、薪酬丰厚的 Google 工程师和高管正在努力瓦解构成互联网的基石。鉴于Google 是全球最大的公司之一，我们唯一能拯救我们所熟知的互联网的希望，就是明确而有原则地捍卫自由，共同坚守这一互联网的基石。

Let us repeat: there is absolutely no legitimate justification for WEI. The use cases that the policy document highlights are nothing compared to its real use case, which is developing a method to obtain complete and total restriction of the free Internet.

让我们再次重申：对于 WEI，绝对没有合法的辩解。政策文件所强调的使用案例与其真正的使用案例相比微不足道，真正的使用案例会是开发一种能够完全限制自由互联网的方法。

We urge everyone involved in a decision-making capacity at Google to consider the principles on which the web was founded, and to carefully contemplate whether Web Environment Integrity aligns with those principles. We hope that they will realize WEI’s fundamental incompatibility with the free Internet and cease work on the standard immediately.

And if they don’t? Well, they ought to be ashamed.

我们敦促所有参与 Google 决策的人员考虑互联网建立的原则，并仔细思考 Web 环境完整性是否符合这些原则。我们希望他们意识到WEI 和自由的互联网分明是水火不容的，并立即停止对该标准的工作。

如果他们不这样做呢？那么，他们不该感到羞愧吗。