Google will soon start testing a new ‘IP protection’ feature for Chrome users, offering them greater control over their privacy. The tech giant the upcoming feature prevents websites from tracking users by hiding their IP address using proxy servers owned by Google.
To give you a quick recap, IP address is a unique numerical identifier that can be used to track a user’s geographical location and is used by advertisers to track a user’s browsing habits, see which websites they visit and provide personalized ads.
According to Google, the IP protection feature will be rolled out in multiple stages, with Phase 0 redirecting domains owned by Google (like Gmail) to a single proxy server. The company says the first phase will allow them to test its infrastructure and only a handful of users residing in the US will be enrolled.
Google also said that the upcoming IP protection feature will be available for users who have logged in to Chrome. To prevent misuse the tech giant will be implementing an authentication server that will set a quota for every user.
In the following phases, Google will start using a 2-hop proxy system, which essentially redirects a website’s request to a Google server that will again be redirected to an external CDN like Cloudflare.
While the IP protection feature might enhance user privacy, the tech giant has clarified that it is not a foolproof system. If a hacker is able to gain access to Google’s proxy server, they will be able to analyse all traffic passing through the network and even redirect users to malicious websites.
Since most of Google’s revenue comes from tracking users across the internet and offering them personalized ads, it will be interesting to see how the company strikes a balance between user privacy and revenue generation.
Next step would be rewrapping the encrypted data (which several existing proxies already support) as a “security enhancement”.
They’d have to crack TLS or get you to trust their mitm cert, or fake what they present to the user…
I don’t see Google doing anything that foolish, it’s a security nightmare
They ship the browser, which on at least many OSes has the certificate store. And Android. They can ship whatever they want.
People fall for all kinds of shit for reasonableish-soubdubg security reasons. Lots of people would have said they didn’t believe people would go for this either.
Ok, but they still present the certificate to the user. They’d have to be very fucky with how they present that information if they were doing the validation at the proxy and then passing back that cert info.
And yeah, regular users might fall for that shit but Chrome would be banned across the corporate landscape the second it was found out.
That optional feature might be banned, it likely would be easily disabled (I.e. not disablable) by corporate policy.
Having enough people to opt into it to be profitable would make it worth it. You may be underestimating the # of people who wouldn’t care if it was packaged well.
They don’t want every government to immediately ban the use of Chrome on government computers …
Can you really not imagine a way that they’d ship a feature like that - maybe, disabled permanently with a corporate policy - where this wouldn’t be a problem? Presumably they’d work with governments and corporations on something palatable, like they usually do.
I mean, this current feature isn’t something that most governments really wouldn’t want their users using either. Or the existing “secure DNS” feature, etc.
Edit: Or the root certificates they already add on top of what the OS provides and that the user can control.
It’s not a matter of imagination. There’s specific infra preventing HTTPS MITM from being done secretly. Look up “Certificate Transparency”. The CA certs shipped with browsers are a matter of public record, and any security whiz would love to catch this sort of bullshit.